Life #18: The Millionaire Who Accidentally Went Broke Again

**Nine Lives (and Counting):

Chaos, Courage, and Chicken Schnitzel**

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When my husband died, I unexpectedly found myself with an inheritance.

Not the kind where a mysterious lawyer summons you to a grand estate and hands you the keys to a fortune.

More the kind that arrives in a complicated bundle consisting of life policies, debt, two limited-edition collector's cars, two much older and much cheaper cars, eight pairs of rare breeding birds, and a collection of responsibilities I had absolutely no interest in managing.

The birds alone were enough to stress me out.

Keeping myself alive felt ambitious at the time.

Keeping sixteen rare birds alive felt unnecessarily optimistic.

The day my husband passed away, some of his closest friends came over. One of them was the pastor who had married us and his wife, who had become something of a mentor to my husband in all things bird-related. They had also helped him acquire one of the collector's cars.

A car I had never particularly liked.

Mainly because it had been purchased on my birthday.

A romantic weekend away had been planned.

Then postponed.

For a surprise.

The surprise turned out to be my husband buying himself a car.

Which, in hindsight, was certainly surprising.

Just perhaps not in the way originally intended.

So when his friends arrived, I told them to take the birds and the cars.

My family and the friends objected immediately.

I insisted.

The birds were transported over the next few days while I wandered around in a fog of paperwork, funeral arrangements, insurance forms, and administrative tasks that somehow appear whenever someone dies.

His friends later convinced me not to simply give away the most valuable collector’s car.

Instead, they helped arrange repairs, found a buyer, and assisted with the sale.

I gave them a small percentage as a thank-you donation.

It felt fair.

Without them, I would probably still be staring at the car and hoping it fixed itself.

The life policies paid out.

The car sold.

And suddenly I was, technically speaking, a millionaire.

A millionaire with a mortgage and vehicle finance worth roughly half the inheritance.

But still.

For a brief moment, it sounded impressive.

I had watched other people receive inheritances and immediately celebrate with expensive holidays, luxury purchases, cruises, and spending decisions that looked exciting right up until the money disappeared.

I was determined to be sensible.

This would later prove significant.

I gave my parents the two older cars.

They could use them or sell them.

My husband’s family collected a few sentimental belongings while I was in psychiatric care.

Their definition of "a few" eventually involved three trailers.

Three. Trailers.

Apparently sentiment weighs more than expected.

My parents and brothers helped me move into a small flat.

I bought myself some new furniture.

A proper bed.

A lounge suite.

Kitchen equipment.

Nothing extravagant.

Just enough to make life feel slightly less like a disaster recovery project.

When I changed jobs, I moved again.

When I eventually decided to come to China, all of that furniture ended up in storage at my younger brother’s property.

He and his family even made space for me there.

My own little flat in the pool house.

One bedroom. One bathroom. A kitchen. A living room. Quite nice, actually.

My parents lived in the granny flat.

My younger brother and his family occupied the main house.

I had the pool house.

Looking back, it was probably the closest I have ever come to living in a family compound.

I paid off the vehicle finance. I paid off credit cards. I settled smaller debts.

I repaid the deposit my older brother had helped us with when we bought the house years earlier.

I did not pay off the mortgage.

Whether that was wisdom or stupidity remains open for debate.

Then I started researching ways to rebuild my life.

After the unfortunate incident involving my brain deciding it no longer wished to participate in normal employment, I eventually decided to become a teacher.

And then I moved to China.

There were job changes.

House moves. Visa applications. General chaos. The usual.

Eventually I became financially stable enough to start investing what remained of my inheritance.

Not all of it.

Just the portion that had survived my various attempts at reinventing my life.

The investment company wasn’t some mysterious stranger on the internet promising guaranteed riches from a beach somewhere.

My brother had been investing through them for over five years.

The returns were enormous.

Four to five percent per month. Not per year. Per month.

My brother and his wife had been receiving monthly payouts large enough to live on for years.

My parents were receiving additional income too.

The company had a long track record.

The owner was known personally.

Everything appeared legitimate.

My father remained skeptical. Naturally.

Every family needs one person whose primary role is to assume disaster is imminent.

I assured him everything was fine.

There were safeguards. Life policies. Contingency plans. Years of successful performance.

What could possibly go wrong?

Those words have never aged well in my life.

I was the last one to invest.

My brother and parents received monthly returns.

My investment structure was different.

I invested for six months at a time and received the interest at maturity.

The first cycle went well. So I reinvested. Then again. For about a year.

Eventually I decided it was time for gastric bypass surgery.

The plan was simple.

Withdraw the investment.

Use some of the money.

Take a few months off.

Recover. Return to China. Start over.

Again.

My brother had a better idea.

Leave the investment untouched.

Allow it to keep growing.

He would front me the money for the surgery and my expenses while I recovered in South Africa.

Then I could simply repay him later from the investment.

It was a genuinely sensible plan.

Which should probably have made me suspicious.

The surgery happened in July. The emergency bowel obstruction surgery happened in August.

Because apparently one operation wasn’t dramatic enough for the Nine Lives collection.

Recovery took months.

By December, everything seemed to be lining up perfectly.

My investment was due to mature in January.

The timing was ideal. I could return to China. Pay back my brother. Rebuild my savings. Move forward.

Then December arrived with a surprise.

And unlike the birthday car, this one wasn’t even pretending to be a gift.

We received correspondence from lawyers informing us that the investment company had filed for bankruptcy.

Just like that. Years of successful investing. Gone.

The company was legitimate. The investments were real. The returns had been real.

Until they weren’t.

Suddenly everyone was filling out claim forms.

Reading legal documents.

Trying to understand insolvency processes.

And discovering that financial terminology becomes much less interesting when your own money is involved.

My father, unfortunately, was proven correct.

A fact he has handled with considerably more grace than I would have.

Today the outcome remains uncertain.

Maybe some money will be recovered.

Maybe not.

Nobody really knows.

What I do know is this:

I have no savings.

My parents lost a significant portion of their investments.

My brother lost a significant portion of his.

I owe my older brother money again.

And somehow, after losing 40 kilograms, surviving two surgeries, and navigating international relocation, I once again found myself financially back where I started.

Life has a remarkable sense of humour.

A slightly cruel one.

But still.

I’ve survived being broke before.

I’ve survived much worse than being broke.

And if my life has taught me anything, it’s that disaster is rarely permanent.

Although it is occasionally repetitive.

#SurvivalRule18 Never assume you’re too old to start over. Apparently life will keep providing opportunities to practise.

Read more from the Nine Lives (and Counting) series

Previously...

[embed]*Life #17: Three Hospitals, One Dying Cow, and 40 Centimetres Later *Nine Lives (and Counting): Chaos, Courage, and Chicken Schnitzel medium.com

New stories added as I remember more of the chaos.

Apparently I survive things just to write about them later. Follow if you’d like to see what life throws at me next.

SurvivalRule18

Never assume you’re too old to start over. Apparently, life will keep providing opportunities to practise.