I won the lottery !

[CetteBoiteEstVerte]

Sadly, only around a fiver and not 5 million - that darned decimal point is always in the wrong place for me.

Has anyone you know won anything substantial?

Many moons ago, one of the receptionists at work one a cool £1M and came into work to hand in her notice with immediate effect. We were all really happy for her as she'd had a bit of a rough run in luck - our manager however tried to insist she work her notice!

She didn't 🙃

I don’t know them, but a family who own a Chinese takeaway in my home town won quite a few million on the lottery. After their win they would often be seen in Tesco spending hundreds of pounds every weekend on more tickets. It wasn’t a complete waste as they won another few million.

Student I taught won £250,000 literally days after she was just old enough to buy a scratch card. She said she intended to continue her intention to work in a care home, but I don’t know if she did. It was 20 years ago.

not much back in the day, dont play it these days due to the very slim odds, overall if i won £250,000 or higher then id retire, but i would do my notice to keep it in good terms.

I know someone whose parents won £5 million about 20 years ago. Her dad was a financial advisor so certainly well placed to handle the cash.

Sadly, her mum became very unwell and died and my friend now has a very strained relationship with her dad.

I win £2-5 regularly. Once I won £140! Didnt do anything in particular with it lol

I know someone that won about 200k on the lottery but it was about 25 years ago, they bought a quite big house which is now valued at about 900k.

I also had a friend who won 25k in the postcode lottery. They had a new kitchen and car and took all their family on a holiday, that was probably a decade ago nearly.

This is good to know! I’ve always wondered if it would be the usual email. So I can stop getting excited when I see “we have news about your ticket! 😀

Mums friends won a very substantial amount a few years back.

when the lottery was first a thing, one of the work canteen ladies parents won about £250k.

I love hearing about people wins! 🥰

A man I used to know allegedly won years ago. To stop his ex wife having any money he bought a house and put it in his then girlfriends name. When the girlfriend left him she kept the house.

I'd love to win. And win big. I'd sleep, then travel. Never had more than a few quid though.

I wouldn’t buy cars- they depreciate.

So what, if you buy a new one and keep it till it's fit for scrap? It's only the people who get a new car every 3 years who'd feel the depreciation.

But absolutely terrible in terms of inflation etc!

If it was only a million I could probably burn through it easily. I'm a non homeowner with barely any pension so by the time I'd bought a house, put enough in my pension for a comfortable retirement and put some away for DS's future I'd not have much left. I'd definitely have to carry on working. I'm not particularly financially savvy, having never had much money so I wouldn't have a clue how to invest and you hear tales of financial advisors screwing over their clients!

Well that's fair enough if you do that, that's sensible, but we're talking about plonkers who blow it on hookers and coke!

I really need a new loft ladder so I'd definitely agree with your MIL 😆

I knew someone who won £1m a good few years ago. He was a lovely man but sadly died from cancer at a young age 🥲

I just don't understand how this happens? Do winners completely lose their minds and spend beyond their means? Don't they educate themselves about what a million pounds means nowadays and what the purchasing power of it is?

Oh, I can understand it easily- if you're bad with money then you just do it on a larger scale - it would only take several extravagant purchases to blow through 1 million. If you're smart, you don't blow it on luxuries, you would invest it to make more but that takes self control and few people have that when it comes to sudden money so it's easily gone.

No, £150k is nowhere NEAR enough. Wouldn't buy you a 3 bed house on a decent road round here. A flat maybe. You'd have nothing to put towards a pension.

I know someone who won a million and someone who won about 250k

I almost won 2k on Heart FM this week. But won slippers instead .. 🤷‍♀️

A friend of mines Aunt won £3.7 million about 20 years ago now...they originally kept it secret from the family and my friend kept saying 'Im sure my Auntie has won the lottery!'
After a few months, the aunt told them all that she had infact won £3.7 mill!

I won 32 grand 23 years ago!

Amazingly, it's long since spent

It was nice at the time though!

@StrawberryFizz27

oh no!!

this is why I've never done 'my numbers'. Only ever lucky dip!

We used to have the loads in premium bonds (not anymore), so we were winning up to £100 pretty much every month. One month my husband checked the draw, then turned to me and said in a very serious voice, "You're not going to believe this. We've won big money." My mind instantly went to thousands but it was only £550 in the end! 😅😅😅

Think we went out for a nice meal and put the rest in savings.

Have not done the lottery for many years but back when I did I got 4 numbers and won £64. That was about 20 years ago and we went out and had a very nice meal. I do not know anyone who has ever won anything substantial and these days none of my friends or family bother with it. I would be interested to know how sales of tickets today compare with what they were when it first began

A woman on the estate where I grew up won £50K on a scratchcard when they first launched in the 1990s. I was working in the local shop for a year to save money for university and it was me who sold it to her!

She was an older lady and working as a dinner lady and cleaner at a primary school when she won, and she was able to give that up and properly retire. I remember being pleased for her because she had some kind of joint/bone issue that seemingly made working on her feet particularly arduous.

We got 5 numbers just a few weeks after the National Lottery started. Everyone watched the draw live on TV then, so it was really exciting. We had to wait till after 9pm to ring up a claim line and find out what we’d won. It was £1200, but by then we were imagining huge amounts, enough to retire on. 😊It was a nice amount though - enough for a family holiday abroad in those days.

The number we didn’t get was 13. 😂

A few years ago my car broke down and I had to get the bus home. A middle-aged lady got on with her 2 daughters and a toddler. They were absolutely laden with bags from all the upmarket stores and another passenger, as a joke said "Wow! You must have won the lottery!". The woman replied " I did " then laughed and said " I forgot I could afford a taxi". She sat next to me and seemed so happy and a genuinely nice person, told me about all the people she would be helping thanks to her very substantial win.