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.

Amazing!! I think being anonymous is the best way. So sorry your some of your family were grabby.
Shocked that the charity were hounding your for more money, I wouldn't donate to them again. That's terrible.

Do you ever consider just helping similar strangers🙋‍♀️?

Seriously though? I've always thought that if I were to win lots of money I'd try to help other people like me.

What's the thing you've bought since and regret the most?

What's the one thing you bought and are still in love with it?

Have you taken a vacation somewhere you've always wanted to go?

What's the most expensive item you've bought for your son?

You sound lovely and your son sounds very grounded. This is a lovely thread to read.

My question is do you now see anything as 'standard' when it would have been a luxury previously ?

OP, this is a fantastic thread. I'm so genuinely happy for you and I've never met you. I sometimes go to the NL website just to read about the winners - it makes me smile and cheers me up just seeing how people's lives changed for the better.

Thanks for this thread, have been smiling reading your replies. So amazing to know your life and your son's life have gotten so much better than it used to be. You sound wise too

Congratulations on your win. So many interesting answers I dream of winning €43m (greedy me), getting my sisters' on a good financial footing and never worry about them, get one sister the best physio n ptsd support money could buy, put my brother in the best rehab, give a bit to my village. Oh n a few friends who held me up, then relax. Working for love not to make ends meet.
It's nice to know some people get the chance to financially relax.
Off to buy a ticket though I doubt it will ever happen to me

Ladies, we have 15 pages of affirmation but nothing so far that I can see (put me right if there has been) of any evidence. A redacted winning letter would be a start. This could just be a brilliant wind up but where are your critical faculties?

As they say "trust AND verify!"

backinthebox
I agree.
I can't understand why someone wouldn't want to grow the money for the benefit of others.
Everyone to their own I s'pose....

I just hope it's not all in one place, because that is exceedingly risky

Lovely thread

I've been reading since earlier so I've got myself a ticket for tonight's euro draw and I'm now enjoying browsing right move with my winnings!

Do you feel like you mix with different sorts of people now? Has it changed the way you think about things and view wealthy people?

It could well be a windup as anything online but what is the harm here? If some people are triggered by someone else's windfall, they could hide the thread.

How did you cope with working your notice period? I think I saw that you continued working for two months after winning.

I always think to myself that if I won the lottery I wouldn't work a moment longer, literally would email my boss to quit and inform them I wouldn't be working my notice period.

@NCuserer you said you bought a ticket in a shop. What’s the process you have to go through when you call the NL? Are pity in touch with them from that moment on? What proof do they need about the ticket?

@JellyBabiesFan

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.

Obviously it's up to OP, but it seems an odd way to do things as you'd need 120 separate accounts to safely keep £10m in private accounts in the UK (£85k each).

Obviously you can put much more in an account and not have any protection if you so wish, but the safety of the money is a big reason for investing in bluechip shares, etc. There's massively more growth available and as you own physical shares across a broad range of super strong stocks there's an infinitesimally small chance of losing the money.

Other than that, US or UK govt bonds are, to all intents, 100% secure (more so than money in bank accounts) and also pay more than 0.1%.

I just really, really expected that a private bank, be it Coutts, or even someone like Barclays Private, would be all over their high worth clients to secure their funds!

The OP did answer about the proof with the ticket earlier on. It took 2 months for the money to be paid because of verification

@bollihigh

Ladies, we have 15 pages of affirmation but nothing so far that I can see (put me right if there has been) of any evidence. A redacted winning letter would be a start. This could just be a brilliant wind up but where are your critical faculties?

As they say "trust AND verify!"

Who cares? It's not as if it affects any of us if it's not true. This is a perfectly nice and harmless thread.

Why on earth should the OP post a 'winning letter'? If you don't believe it, you're free to ignore the thread.

Also curious like other PPs as to why you didn't give more away to friends and charity, as you sound like such a nice person! Is it because you worry if you give more away you won't have enough to give you a regular income? I always thought if I won the lottery I'd keep enough to give me a regular good income for the rest of my life, which I imagine is a few million, then give the rest away.

But maybe I'm naive and a few million isn't enough to maintain a regular good income!

What kind of investigation do they do. I have always wondered what happens when someone wins I just thought you got the money straight away. Big congratulations you sound very down to earth and very humble..

@bollihigh

Ladies, we have 15 pages of affirmation but nothing so far that I can see (put me right if there has been) of any evidence. A redacted winning letter would be a start. This could just be a brilliant wind up but where are your critical faculties?

As they say "trust AND verify!"

OP appears to have her head screwed on. Whether this is a wind-up or not, I don't think she's going to rush to "prove" herself to some random on an internet forum. I mean, who are you to her anyway. I don't see the average person online being desperate for validation from a stranger

mswales
£10 million would yield £600,000 a year minimum if invested properly.

Ooops, I was the 3rd post at least replying to the doubter. Oh well...bandwagon hops

I’m smiling reading this 😀. Well jel, of course, but you sound lovely and grounded OP and I like hearing about how it really helped you and what it felt like to win like that.

I'm sure the way some people are basically badgering OP to invest and grow her money is the way the private banks hound her to do so. Some people really don't need all that extra as long as they have what they believe is enough. I'm sure the OP knows what she can and cannot handle - be it investments or money.

@NCuserer thanks for answering so many Qs and keeping this thread going for a while.

Well done on ignoring the judgy strangers and armchair financial experts.

I hope you have a wonderful cruise once the world is safer!

P.s. if it's Antarctica please post anonymised photos! It's on my dream list. Along with qualifying, learning to sew and perfecting my madeleines. Oh and winning the lottery of course... At least I am close on the madeleines and will qualify in due course ;-)