My mother gave me my $100,000 inheritance early. I struggled to pay my bills before — now I'm set up for life.

• Jillian Pretzel received a gift of $100,000 from her mother when her grandmother died.
• She decided to use the money for a down payment on a condo, which now generates passive income.
• She plans to sell the condo and give her daughters an early inheritance when they get older.

At 25, I was working a 9-to-5 sales job along with four different side hustles and still struggling to pay my bills. Between my steep Southern California rent, utilities, and grad-school tuition, I was just barely scraping by.

When my apartment complex raised my rent from $1,600 to $1,800 a month in early 2016, I cried.

Around that time, my grandma passed away, and she left some money to my mom. My mom, in turn, generously offered the bulk of it — $100,000 — to me.