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My parents are giving me $250k because they gave an equivalent amount to my sister so she could buy an apartment in London. I don't really want the money and have tried to argue them out of giving it to me (would rather they enjoy their retirement) but they are insistent, especially since they gave it to my sister. Being able to pay in cash for a house in Baltimore (if I stay here) would be pretty huge, but I'm not sure where I will be in a few years time so a house doesn't seem like a great use of time or money right now. Should I just keep it in the market until then (transferring to my preferred stock/bond distributions where appropriate)? Are there any other big ticket items that I should consider purchasing? A car would probably be useful, both for my practical and romantic life, but if I move to Europe in the next two years (maybe 30% chance), it's a terrible investment. I could also donate most of the money to charity, but that feels both like slapping my parents in the face, and potentially making life much more difficult for myself. Even if the money were to just sit in money market, it would be an extra $10k of income a year, which is substantial.
Absolutely get a car, a used one, in the "lease return" range (3-5 years old) of a popular, reliable Japanese brand. Toyota, Honda, Subaru. They'll be fairly expensive at first, but if you need to sell them in 2 years they'll barely have depreciated.
I've seen this advice from multiple commenters, so will start looking into it as soon as I get back to Baltimore!
To back this up, I bought a low mileage 2010 Honda Fit in 2016 for 9K. I just sold that car to carmax for 3.5K. While I had it, I only had normal car maintenance costs (oil changes, brake pads, the occasional tire). 5.5K for 10 years of car ownership seems reasonable to me.
And I probably could have bought it cheaper if I haggled - I don't, I'm bad at it. And I probably could have sold it for more if I'd done private sale, but I'm dealing with other things and couldn't be bothered.
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