Not really (I’m still a wage slave with severe ADHD and bipolar disorder) but the life insurance check sure helped. But now most of that is gone—even though I was smart and invested most of it—because due to a series of unfortunate events, I had to buy three cars and replace the engine in one of them since his death. If you’re interested, a brief summary of what happened is below:

Paid off the remainder of my car loan the moment I got the check. A few months later, the mechanic noticed a grinding sound from the transmission. Because it was a hybrid with a sophisticated planetary eCVT (Ford C-Max), that ended up being a $8200 bill. So I traded in the car for a Genesis Coupe BK1 3.8.

Did my first oil change a month later and found metal in the oil. I decided to just keep driving it and replace the engine once it finally blew; well unfortunately I never got to that point because a few months later I slid the car backwards into a pole in attempt to avoid a collision with a driver who merged into my lane without looking. I overcorrected and completely totaled the car. Insurance refused to pay out because it was technically my fault, and I couldn’t even part it out because the tow yard that took it wanted to charge me more than the scrap value of the car. So I had no choice but to let them keep it.

So next I bought a 350Z from AutoNation Nissan. It burned so much oil that I was literally adding a quart every 300 miles. A month and a half later, it threw a rod and I had to spend literally half the value of the car to replace the engine.

So to tl:dr things up, basically I went from $75k to under $8k in just two years, all because I got scammed by shady dealers three times in a row. My biggest regret is paying off my first car, instead of just letting it get repossessed and simply buying a brand new car. Live and learn. FWIW I also bought an OLED TV and built a kickass gaming PC with a 7700X and a 4090, so I didn’t lose all of it without having something to show for it.

Thanks for listening. I tried to keep my story as brief as possible.