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Original poster

Would you share £500k with family?

204 replies

SilverDoe · 21/02/2022 15:44

If you acquired £500k, would you share this sum with people outside of your immediate family (i.e. partner and children?)

Please note this is an entirely hypothetical bored Monday afternoon musing... I only play the Thunderball now if I ever play the lottery and kind of had the realisation that as a young parent who rents privately and doesn't own a car, I probably genuinely couldn't afford to give much of a windfall like that away. But that makes me feel awful! I always assumed I would give away some percentage of any crazy windfall away..

What would you do with it in your shoes if you won that kind of money?

OP posts:
newcarnewhouse · 22/02/2022 01:35

Yes, my parents and 2 siblings at least 50 K each but I know they would do the same

MintJulia · 22/02/2022 01:37

No. My family are all doing OK. I'm the only one on my own.

I'd pay off the mortgage, and have the leaking conservatory replaced first.
Put £100k aside for ds (university fees/house deposit).

Then I'd retire a couple of years early.

Suzyinthesummertime · 22/02/2022 01:53

They wouldn't see me for dust 😂😂😂

CovoidOfAllHumanity · 22/02/2022 02:04

I do think in my family it would not be expected that the person who won would have to share equally or anyway near. I would not expect my sibs to give me any if they won such an amount of money
It would be lovely if they eg paid for a holiday but I would have no expectations
If my dad won I think he'd give a lot of it to us as he wouldn't have much use for it.
If I won I would do my charity donation and then I would give both my siblings a bit eg 10-20k each and put some aside for my
DC in savings eg 100k each and then I would still have enough to pay at least a chunk off my mortgage and have a nice car and a holiday
I think 500k IS loads of money

CrabSnake · 22/02/2022 04:39

I'd give half to my sister. We've got enough money that it wouldn't make much difference to my life whether it was £500k or £250k. I know it would be a huge amount for my sister though.

FindingMeno · 22/02/2022 06:03

I would love to be able to but I think that sum would probably only provide security for my immediate family.

Henlie · 22/02/2022 06:23

As many others have mentioned, if you live in the South East/London and have a hefty mortgage, £500k doesn’t go very far.

For us, we’d pay off our mortgage do a couple of home improvements we’ve been putting off and buy an electric car. And that would be the pot all gone…..😐

Camomila · 22/02/2022 06:27

I'd treat them to a nice holiday if I could but tbh I might not have any money left.

We are private renting and a 3 bed semi is around 475k around here. By the time we'd played the solicitor/stamp duty/movers there might not be any money left.

Camomila · 22/02/2022 06:27

*payed

YingMei · 22/02/2022 06:44

No. I'd pay off our mortgage then split the rest between my DC savings for their own house deposits one day.

KatherineJaneway · 22/02/2022 06:45

No, immediate family only. Money does strange things to many people.

ukborn · 22/02/2022 06:51

No. I'd use it to pay off mortgage and save some for a deposit on my children's first property / uni and maybe take a nice holiday. Not much left after that.

2DogsOnMySofa · 22/02/2022 06:55

Yes, I'd give my brother maybe around £200k he's not in a position to buy a house, and never will, he's also no chance of any kind of pension, this is through no fault of his own. £300k would pay off my mortgage and leave me enough to retire early and put some aside for my dd

BuanoKubiamVej · 22/02/2022 07:02

For any amount of 6 ormore figures I would earmark 10% to be given to charity (but not all at omce and wouldn't decide which charities immediately) so sould probably set up a CAF account to keep that safe, and would give 10% (ie probably 5% each but maybe 6% to one and 4% to the other as one is less wealthy and has twice as many kids as the other).

It's not that I couldn't find ways to spend the full amount if I kept it all. I easily could. But there is way more joy to be had from wealth if you share it with others than if you just spend it on your own needs. Needs are elastic there's always one more thing you could acquire if you had a bit more but there's also always something that you can manage without and in most circumstances the joy to be had from giving something away is greater than the joy that could be had from having that one mord thing you could otherwise have for yourself.

Mummadeze · 22/02/2022 07:16

No, I would use it as a deposit for a flat. Where I live, I would only need to get a relatively small mortgage then for the rest. I do owe my parents some money though, so I would offer to pay them that back first.

TellerTuesday · 22/02/2022 07:28

Very small family. I would give £100k to parents, put £100k away for DD, use £100k to pay my mortgage off and keep £200k for me & DH.

SheWolfOFFrancee · 22/02/2022 08:28

@Millionairenow

500k is a tiny amount of money

I don’t think this poster means it’s actually a tiny amount of money just that in reality if you wanted a new house or pay off mortgage, holidays, new car (even 2nd hand) savings or any of those things you wouldn’t have that much left to help people.

Ok you might not have much change out of that after buying everything on your list but to say it's a 'tiny' amount is just unbelievably tone deaf when so many are struggling. And of course you could afford a new car with that amount Hmm

I didn’t say it was tiny I was just saying depending where you live you might not get much change so actually the poster who said it’s a tiny amount might not be being a knob just saying for their life and area it’s not a massive amount and enough to help others as well. In parts of the south east you can’t even buy a house outright for that kind of money so yes it’s not a tiny amount but in the context of it being enough to do what you need to be financially secure and still enable you to help people out is it’s a tiny amount.

And my point about the new car was that if you’ve spent day 350-400 on a standard nice house outright and you what some money left for your future (pension savings house renovations etc) especially given how much prices are rising right now and you needed a new car you might find you don’t actually have any of that 500k left!

ChiefAdjusterOfRubensShorts · 22/02/2022 09:26

DH and I were discussing something similar last night.

Unless we won a ridiculous amount, say £30 million + we wouldn’t tell anybody at all.

edwinbear · 22/02/2022 10:00

Nope. £100k would pay off the mortgage, £300k is school fees for 2 x DC through to finishing 6th form. £100k for some home improvements and a good holiday. There would be nothing left!

emmathedilemma · 22/02/2022 10:23

No! It's not a huge amount of money when you look at the price of property in some areas. It would enable me to move out of my flat into a house within the same area, and have money to do renovations from the sale of the flat (because despite the mn claims that it's cheap up north, half a mil only buys you a 3 bed doer upper round here). The rest would go into a nice holiday and savings for the pension pot.

Rua13 · 22/02/2022 10:49

If I won a big sum on the lottery then I would give money away.However, an inheritance is different and I wouldn't give any of that 500K away.

AffIt · 22/02/2022 11:37

We're in a good financial position (both high earners, no kids, no debt/mortgage), but we'd like to move, so I'd probably ringfence £400k for a house, then gift the rest to family.

We both have elderly parents and siblings with kids going to high school / uni, so it would be lovely to phone them up and say 'I've just put £15k in your bank account. You can make me a cup of tea / buy me a pint next time you see us' then put the phone down. Grin

slaybell · 22/02/2022 11:38

@TheCanyon

No. 500k is a tiny amount of money.
Only on Mumsnet Hmm
IsItTooHotInHere · 22/02/2022 11:52

*If I won £500k, I'd gie DS1 money to buy and furnish a flat, money to DS2 to pay off his mortgage, and the rest to my DH so that he could retire (he's only got 2 years left at work)

ThreeRingCircus · 22/02/2022 12:18

Sadly with the price of property here in the SE that sort of money wouldn't go far.

£250k would pay off our mortgage

£75k would pay for the extension we'd really like to do in order to make this our forever home (we love the area but house is dated and will feel cramped as DDs grow.)

I'd give each DD £50k to put towards a house. Small two bed starter homes round here go for about £250k..... probably more to be honest!

That would leave £75k which to be honest I'd probably just stick in my pension to make up the shortfall since I've been working part time.

I don't think with that kind of money I'd give any to siblings, they all have professional jobs and are doing well. I would like to give something to nephews and nieces but think it would open up a can of worms (some siblings don't have children and could imagine getting arsey, some are with partners that have children from previous relationships and do you include those children or not?)