I won the lottery (a few years ago) AMA

[NCuserer]

NC for this as I remained anonymous, which was fairly pointless as I did tell some family and friends and it spread from there.

I have a few questions.

i) The night you realise you won. At what time did you finally get to sleep
ii) Do you travel to your holiday properties by first class, private jet or with the rest of us plebs?
iii) Even though you can afford almost everything you want, do you sometimes seek the best value for money product? or the top of the range every time?

Congratulations!

Firstly, congratulations on your win!
then a mountain of paperwork
Could you please elaborate on this? Did you have to provide proof of ID, passport, etc?
Thanks. :)

This all sounds so lovely! And fascinating! Good for you, OP. Can't believe you got by on so little sleep before. You must be so much more relaxed now.

@ExhaustedGrinch

Have you ever had moments where you felt completely overwhelmed by the win? I always dream of winning, like most people, but if I did win I think it'd make me feel anxious and overwhelmed a lot of the time, I don't know why I think that though.

I still sometimes do. I probably would have preferred the thunderball or millionaire raffle

I need to know how on earth you got through that day at work when you found out!

And what happens when you phone the NL? Do you literally just say 'I think I've won the jackpot'?

I’m baffled by the low interest rate. I can think of any number of places you could stick money where, even after tax, you would make more than the OP is earning on hers! With careful use of ISAs and other investments, DH’s investments this year have made him nearly 22% return on his input (which is very high, but this has been an unprecedented year.) Even if you played very safe indeed you could manage 5% return, which would grow your £10m by about another half a million a year.

OP, have you properly consulted a financial advisor? I can’t help feeling that you seem very unaware of the possibilities open to you to grow your money much more than you are, with not that much effort.

This is fascinating!

Have you ever randomly helped someone financially just because you could? Maybe someone you didn't know?

OP, have you properly consulted a financial advisor? I can’t help feeling that you seem very unaware of the possibilities open to you to grow your money much more than you are, with not that much effort

Have you considered they might not want or need to? They have won more than enough money to live a very good life several times over.

Amazing 🤩 wish it was me!!

What kind of car do you drive?

Do you ever look at something and think "blimey, that's expensive" and not buy it, even though you could easily afford it?

I'm not sure I'd ever be able to pay "too much" for something, even if I had pots of money!

And good on you for enjoying your win sensibly :-)

Hi OP,
No questions as I feel most questions are being asked.
Just wanted to say, you seem like a nice, down to heart person.
Wishing both you and your son the best.
I’m another note, I definitely need to play the lottery

*earth, not heart

14 pages is a lot to wade through I managed 6. Redacted scanned winning letter or it didn't happen in my book. Sorry but I'm a suspicious so and so. Great idea for a thread though.

It's so weird, thinking the world is your oyster. I have a list of places I want to go, things I want to see and you can genuinely plan and know that all that can come true. It's so cool and o wish you the best

Do you remember the phone call when they confirmed your win?

@Shelvesoutofbooks

OP please tell us why it took 2 months to recieve the funds!

I would also be keen to know why it took two months. The funds are paid within days in the UK.

I'm pleased you got help from the lottery, someone told me that if you don't go public they don't offer financial support so I'm pleased you got help for the first year (I'm sure you paid for the privilege!

Can I ask, what's a private bank account?

How long did it take for it to sink in that you would genuinely never have a money problem for the rest of your life & that you really had won that much money?

Do you still experience that thing (pre Covid) where you go into a shop to browse & some annoying salesperson treats you like you couldn't even afford to buy a keyring in there so then you go & buy stuff somewhere else?

Do you get your hair done more often since you won?

Do you still enjoy having a good moan about the prices on things going up even though you know you can still afford it nowadays?

When you first won & were spending less wisely, did you ever do the thing where people buy everyone in the pub a drink? (if you were a pub going person)

Do you ever get an impulse to just tell a random person that you won in real life?

Bevelino, the OP answered this a couple of pages back.

This is so interesting , I dont have any questions though I’m just here to read as I literally daydream regularly about winning the lottery. It sounds amazing but equally daunting

Congratulations OP

What an absolutely fascinating thread, congratulations on your win and thank you so much for sharing your story and answering all the questions.

If I am ever lucky enough to win, I hope I'm as sensible as you!

Have you considered they might not want or need to? They have won more than enough money to live a very good life several times over.

That’s fair enough. I come from a family that had a large fortune once, and through several generations failure to manage it for future generations, I am in the position of being part of the first generation that will get nothing. I am lucky in that I have been in the right places at the right times to do well for myself though, and so has my husband, so we hope to be able to leave something for our children and grandchildren. Financial security offers so many choices - the OP is able to choose to spend time on travelling and volunteering because she doesn’t have to worry about money. I think that luxury to make choices is one of the greatest gifts you can pass on to future generations - they genuinely could be anything they wanted, and be good at it. Artist, sportsperson, explorer - anything at all, because the bit about making enough to live on is removed from the equation. If I won the lottery I would derive great pleasure from helping others to achieve dreams, and the more I grew my money, the more people I could help, whilst still living comfortably myself. It seems strange to me that given the option between taking a sum of money and allowing it to grow and taking it and spending it faster than you can grow it, that anyone would choose the latter option.

@Egeegogxmv

my father who I wasn't close to expected me to pay him for raising OMG😯 did he name a figure that he expected??

Yes, it was a few million. He was very rarely in my life so I'm.not sure what gave him the idea he raised me

Why did you decide not to give any money to close friends with such a big win? I would imagine many people would dream of a rich friend helping them out with a new car or mortgage.