The Ultimate Guide to Getting Help If You've
Suddenly Come Into Money

‘Come into money’ means to receive a financial windfall or sudden wealth. But when it refers to a person coming into money, you cannot truly understand the meaning by comparing the person’s net worth one day to that person’s net worth another day.

‘Come into money’ is usually used in reference to a person who previously had financial pressures or feelings of not having enough money. Typically, a person with a certain level of income or wealth has a lifestyle that reflects that level of wealth. If you have a $100,000 per year income and savings of $50,000, then you probably have a house that a person with a $100,000 annual income has. And you drive a car that a person with a $100,000 annual income has. And your children go to schools where other parents with a $100,000 annual income send their children to school. And you have the same world view, opinions and habits of other people with a $100,000 annual income and savings of $50,000.

But if that person suddenly receives $1 million as an inheritance, for example, now that person has a choice of upgrading his or her life. Now, that person can purchase a house in a neighborhood where the neighbors have a different world view, opinions and habits. Now that person can send his or her children to a better school and can get a better car. It allows that person to get a different perspective in terms of what is possible. Prior to having the $1 million, the person probably dreamed of having $1 million. However, it seemed like an unattainable dream. Now that the person actually has $1 million, the person has three choices: (1) keep the money in and maintain the previous lifestyle, world view and mindset, (2)  

‘Come into money’ is sometimes used derogatively by others who have feelings of jealousy or resentment. It can also insinuate that the person who came into money is now behaving differently and making choices that the other people do not understand.  In this latter case, it is possible that the person is experiencing Sudden Wealth Syndrome, which is a form of psychological stress caused by a financial windfall. It causes intense feelings, and those feelings may be in conflict. For example, the person may be feeling extreme joy from an inheritance, and simultaneously feel grief from the death of the loved one that caused the inheritance. Not knowing who to trust, combined with most other people not being able to relate to the person’s experience, can cause the person to withdraw.

Suddenly coming into money challenges your personal identity. Your previous identity consisted of such things as your gender, your age, your ethnicity, your career … and your annual income and level of wealth. If your previous net worth was, for example, $250,000 and now your net worth is $2.5 million, your subconscious mind probably still sees you as someone with $250,000. You are literally a person who sees himself/herself as someone with a net worth of $250,000, who happens to have $2.5 million in an account. Your also subconsciously have ideas of what someone with $2.5 million is like. Those might be good ideas. And they might be bad ideas. Maybe growing up you thought people with $2.5 million didn’t deserve the money. Maybe you didn’t understand how they thought and how they behaved. So, you decided that you didn’t like people with $2.5 million. And now that you happen to have $2.5 million in an account, do you deserve the money? Does what you are thinking and how you are behaving make sense to you? Do you like yourself?

We give this as a background so you can understand some of the internal psychological pressures that people who come into money have. This emotional and psychological shock is sometimes referred to as Sudden Wealth Syndrome. Put bluntly, your subconscious mind will sabotage you so that it proves that its view of the world (namely, as a person worth $250,000) is correct. Thus, you will start making poor or risky decisions that somehow happen to put you back to where you were before. Or at least that is the risk. The more warning you had that you would come into money, and the more psychologically prepared you were, the more likely you will make better decisions.

To answer the question, if you come into money, you are risk of poor decision-making. Thus, here are some steps that can help:

• Make a decision not to do anything with the money for a period of time. If you come into money with little or no warning, and you were psychologically unprepared for the windfall, you can expect to need five years to get to a new normal where your subconscious accepts your new identity and you have fully adjusted. We suggest that you make no major decisions regarding the money during these five years.
• Since many people who come into money have a hard time waiting five years before making a major decision about the money, we would also encourage you to “lock up” the money in a trust that is managed by a professional financial advisor and is irrevocable for five years. Our law firm can prepare such a trust.
• Get in touch with people on this website page to help you. The people listed on this directory have special training and/or experience helping people who come into money. They understand the changes and intense emotions that you are experiencing.
• To come into money means there has been a major life change for you. It may feel extremely overwhelming. The death of a loved one, the sale of a business, even winning the lottery all have major emotions tied to them. It is confusing to say the least when your life changes in such a fundamental way. If you have come into money when someone you loved passed away, it is especially challenging. It’s hard to reconcile knowing you will not sit in your grandma’s kitchen again while she makes your favorite meatloaf and knowing that she left you enough money to change your life. You could be grieving the sale of your business-your life’s work and wake up not knowing what to do with yourself every day. To come into money means you are probably going to come into a lot of conflicting feelings as well.

When you come into money, it can be exciting. It can be scary and overwhelming and alienating and thrilling all at once. So, what do you do? The first, and most important thing, is do not touch it until you have been able to talk to professionals. Second, gather your team. Your advisory team will most likely consist of a lawyer with estate planning and asset protection experience, a financial advisor who works with clients in your specific situation, possibly a CPA, and a therapist who is trained in assisting with the psychology of money. Asking trusted friends and family for referrals can be a good place to start, though you may not want to let everyone know why you are asking until you have the professional support to help you with the kinds of requests your loved ones may make of you. It is a lot easier to tell someone you cannot give them money because your financial team makes those decisions. Third, take a step back. Evaluate your lifestyle, your values, your goals, and your dreams for the future so you can determine exactly what you want to get out of the money you have come into. This can be a major roadblock for most people. The new freedom you feel can be overwhelming and can often lead to an identity crisis, which is why having a therapist who deals with financial health can be the difference between living the life you have always wanted and losing everything. Our Sudden Wealth Directory is full of professionals in all these areas that will work with you to give you the best chance at navigating such an overwhelming change.

We are going to tell you the truth, rather than selling you a ‘Get Rich Quick Scheme.’ Be sure to read the last paragraph of this section. If you want a simple answer, it is in the last paragraph.

It certainly is possible to come into money fast. There are two ways to do it. One way is to take the actions of a person who knows how to come into money fast. Sorry if that sounds vague. But it is true. There are books and seminars that will teach you step-by-step methods to come into money. The flaw with this, however, is that these books and seminars teach you what worked for a particular person. And the author of the book or teacher of the seminar had already spent time to become the person who was capable of using the step-by-step methods to acquire wealth. The method may be perfectly valid. But the teachers behind these books and seminars will tell you that only a small percentage of their students actually achieve results. The reason? Because the students do not actually do the work. Why is this? Read on.

The other way to come into money fast is to work on your mindset and become the person who has the amount of money you desire. This is the premise behind the book Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill.  Without the proper mindset, your subconscious mind will sabotage you. The little voice in your head will start telling you: “It won’t work. You’re not good enough. Who do you think you are?!?” You won’t believe it’s possible. And your thoughts will remain on what you currently have.

Here’s a simple answer to your question: Change your environment. The book Willpower Doesn’t Work: Discover the Hidden Secrets to Success, by Benjamin Hardy is a good background. If you want to come into money, start spending time with people who have the level of income and financial success that you want. Learn to think like they do. Study how they react to things. Discover what bothers them that does not currently bother you. Learn what does not bother them that does bother you. Learn how they think about things. Learn how they control their emotions. Are they positive or negative? (Spoiler alert: they will be positive, will not dwell on the past, and be indifferent to other people’s opinions of them.)