An inheritance protected for the future

Taking your feelings out of financial decisions is easier said than done, more so when you consider that the majority of our choices are ruled by our hearts rather than our heads.

Gary Clement for The National

Opening an offshore account has been on my to-do list for years and I have no excuses for not doing it sooner.

In my defence, however, I'd argue that money and emotions are a tricky business, despite experts urging us to take our feelings out of the equation if we want to have any hope of living a financially intelligent life.

But that, I'm afraid, is easier said than done, more so when you consider that the majority of our decisions - including financial - are ruled by our hearts rather than our heads.

For me, it was about cutting those final financial ties with my home country; acknowledging that I was probably not going back, even if I knew it subconsciously but refused to say it out loud.

The more I thought about opening an offshore account, the more I knew I had to do it. But my emotions were just too strong and I kept putting it off.

And then my mother passed away, leaving me a generous inheritance. For a long time, I didn't feel that her money was mine, that I had no right to do anything with it except to leave it in my bank account in Australia and allow it to accrue interest.

I wasn't ready to move on and I certainly wasn't in any frame of mind to make potentially life-changing decisions with the money she had left me.

I didn't realise it at the time, but apparently it was a good move and one that is backed by financial experts who specialise in inheritances, although it didn't get me off the hook when it came to opening that offshore account.

When a loved one dies and you receive an inheritance, it is recommended that you don't do anything with the money because of the grieving process you are going through.

The experts advise you to put the money into, for instance, a fixed-deposit account or another investment-type account for a year, if not more.

This, they say, allows you to get on with your grieving and takes away the temptation to make what could be a wrong, but emotionally charged, decision.

On its website, McGervey Wealth Management (www.mcgerveywealth.com), a financial services firm based in the United States, recommends three strategies when it comes to managing your inheritance.

Top of its list is to "stop and take a deep breath".

"Amazingly, a 2000 study by Oppenheimer Funds found that about 40 per cent of individuals who received an inheritance of US$50,000 [Dh183,645] or more spent less than a week deciding what to do with it," it says.

"Is that how you've made other financial decisions in your life? If not, rather than embark on an emotionally fuelled, reckless spending spree, step back and take some time before making major financial decisions.

"Sure, you may have always dreamed of driving a particular car or living in the most exclusive neighbourhood but it's important to consider how those decisions might impact the rest of your life."

And right they are. I think the guilt of squandering mother's money away would have been too much for me to bear, which is why I left it, untouched, for 17 months.

But then I received what you'd call a wake-up call. Every now and again, I'd go online and check the account in which I was holding my mother's money and was surprised to learn that it was being slugged with a non-resident tax.

And that's when I decided to finally take the leap and open that offshore account. It was a fairly simple process and one that I'm happy to say made it a little easier for what was to come next: transferring my mother's money out of Australia and putting it into my new account in Jersey.

Because of the type of account that had been set up for me, I had to transfer it out because of the minimum balance requirement.

And so, for the first time since receiving my mother's inheritance, I did something with her money. It was harder than I expected, but that's because my emotions were at play. And yes, as my cursor hovered over the "confirm" button, I did feel guilty.

My mother was born and raised in Australia. She worked most of her life, paid her taxes, she owned her home and saved her money. Was I right in taking her money away from her homeland?

In the end, it had to be the right decision. I didn't want her money to be subject to a non-resident tax because I chose to live my life as an expat. And I'm hoping that she'd understand.

As McGervey Wealth Management says, it's all about the big picture. And that's what I'll be keeping my eye on from now on, rather than focusing on the emotions that money seems to trigger.