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 🙃

But how do you then explain reducing your working hours if you want to do that, or take fancier holidays than you used to? People notice a change in lifestyle jus tfrom from social media posts about lavish restaurants or hotel stays, exotic travel etc. You'd have to have a long time of slowly easing off social media, and only picking and choosing which type of stuff you posted. It could involve fibbing to people you know in real life about where you're going on holiday.

How do you explain eg landscaping your garden, redoing the kitchen, getting an interior designer/gardener/cleaner etc if you never did these before, and now you're doing those ON TOP OF "taking out a huge mortgage combined iwht your life savings that you've been saving up since age 15"?

I think it would be VERY difficult to keep a massive win quiet. Unless you had hardly any friends or family, posted nothing on social media, and lay low for a couple of years trying to keep your lifestyle the same. The minute you start giving money away to family then someone would put 2 and 2 together, make the connections and know you were the common denominator.

I enter and then get personally offended when I win nothing 😂

Me too! So glad I am not alone!

(does mean I don't gamble often as I am such a rotten loser!)

Lost count of the times that I’ve been just five or six numbers off being a millionaire, in all seriousness I think ive won £100 once,dread to think how much I’ve spent playing it, though did stop playing on a regular basis a good few years ago

But how do you then explain reducing your working hours if you want to do that, or take fancier holidays than you used to? People notice a change in lifestyle jus tfrom from social media posts about lavish restaurants or hotel stays, exotic travel etc

I wouldnt immediately leave my job or do anything wildly different or impulsive at first- I think that's the mistake a lot of people make. They go from their familiar routine and jump immediately into an unfamiliar environment where they have no knowledge, experience or friends and thats when it all unravels. Regarding SM, I rarely post on it anyway as am very private so I wouldn't be posting exotic holidays anyway (even if I went on them).

With regards to explaining- why do I need to explain anything? what are people going to do?- flatly tell me I am lying and insist I go into minute financial detail or show them my bank accounts? Yes, they may wonder but at the end of the day they don't actually KNOW what is going on and they have no right to know. If someone told me they had a massive mortgage, I would never keep on and on at them about their finances demanding to know how they afforded it as thats really bloody rude and intrusive. Noone can force information from you if you don't allow it. I'd let them wonder. They won't get any info from me and if they kept insisting I'd flat out tell them they were being rude AF.

Years ago a person at my work won. They cared for a parent and when the parent died they put a ticket on using their parents numbers and won a couple of million.
Another work colleagues relative won a million.
Neighbour a couple of doors down won the euro million lottery.
In-laws neighbour won the thunderball.

So think I’ve got no chance of winning myself now !

@Curioushorse This has made me so happy ❤️❤️

When I was little our neighbours directly across the road from us had friends that had won the Spanish lottery. They lived in Spain and would visit my neighbours every so often.

It would absolutely boil my mum's piss every time they showed up 😂. Shed curtain twitch at the window while slagging them off in an "ooh bloody hell, look at them in their nice car, bastards" kind of way. They'd done nothing wrong, didn't look down their noses or anything but she was just fuming.

I run my own business that is doing well, it could continue to do well just even better than it used to. I’d give a lot of money away to family, set up trust funds for my kids and then live in a productive way.

A friend of mine bought a couple of scratchie tickets to pop in with a Father's Day card. DF consequently won £50,000 and to thank his lovely daughter he bought her ...a coffee! DF is known for having long pockets and short arms!

I won £100 on a scratchcard
my grandad gave me when I was really skint. He refused a penny. That’s the most I’ve won.

he did tell me if I even won big not to tell my family because one half are dodgy scroungers and problematic gangsters but my mum can’t keep her mouth shut about anything so I’d have to just keep it quiet from everyone. I never buy tickets tho so it’s all a moot point 😂

Pre-lottery I won £500 from a pools syndicate I was in. This was early 90s so it was nice bonus. A few years before that, a syndicate in my work won about £100k on the pools, which would be a lot more in today's money. I think there were 5 of them in the syndicate and one person had recently left and there was lots of bad feeling as he thought he should get a share as he actually hadn't planned to leave the syndicate 🙄

I do one lucky dip every Saturday and haven't won more than £50 on the Lottery. However my sister matched 5 numbers a few months ago, however after her initial flurry excitement, she found out her prize was a non-life changing £1,750.

I still dream of winning big though!

One of our Tesco delivery drivers won 3.8 million just before Christmas. He's blooming back to work. Couldnt believe it when I saw him at our neighbours house

A relative won a number of millions about 30 years ago. It meant she and her husband could live a lot more comfortably until they died, and they helped out their children. We were all very happy for them!

I won the postcode lottery a few years back; I wasn’t the main winner but what I won was extremely welcome; meeting all the people in my postcode region was lovely & Jeff brazier was gorgeous such a sweetheart, the whole team from postcode lottery were fantastic they made us all feel very special I have continued doing it because lightening does strike in the same place twice x

I know a couple who won £2.5m over 25 years ago. The woman was in shock for a long time and actually appeared to not be very happy about it. After about a year they gave their house to a relative and bought a bigger one with a swimming pool etc.The husband dropped down dead with a heart attack 3 weeks after! It was so sad. I've always thought his wife must have felt no good was going to come out of it.

Yes my dad's wife fancy man won a million on scratch card fair to say she funked my dad off but he soon funked her off lol

I assume , like me, they’re defined benefit pensions. These pensions do mostly have an element of inflationary annual rises, but they are often capped at quite low amounts.. Some of my older pensions do not get inflationary rises at all.
my total defined benefit pensions have averaged an increase of 1.5% over last 5 years. With inflation higher than that, it means I am actual worse off now than when I retired 5 years ago. Significantly so.

whilst state pension is going up based on triple lock, I have never heard of any private pension scheme doing this- it would be a massive risk. Defined benefits are severely capped in almost all cases, and defined contribution pensions will be capped at what you agreed to pay for when you converted your pot to a draw down/annuity or whatever. Those defined contribution personal pensions charge a LOT for any inflationary increases. So, it’s a gamble on taking a higher pension, or lower with inflationary allowance.

Someone on here has won the lottery. There was an AMA thread.

I won a fiver and a free lucky dip yesterday. The most I've won is £120. I don't really do it regularly though. A friend of a friend won a large amount (multi millions). She started a business doing something she really loved and employed lots of people. She has a nice life! She's a lovely person too.

Might be a little outing if you know this person (!) but it was about 1997, a lady I worked with won a substantial amount (about £12m). She phoned into work to HR to say she wasn't coming in and one of the young HR managers read the riot act to her (we all heard it in the office) because she wouldn't say why she wasn't coming in, just that she couldn't make it and would tell them why tomorrow, or words to that effect.

She came in, went to HR and same HR manager started laying into her again, all condescending towards her. Lottery winner wiped the floor with her in front of everyone and basically told her what she thought of her and to fuck off because she was quitting with immediate effect. It was brilliant!

She did throw a party for everyone at work and substantially upgraded her wardrobe and general look! She packed in her job obviously. Don't know what happened to her, but given I also didn't like said HR manager, it was hilarious!

My husband's mate won £300k on a scratchcard and then a year later won another £100k. God knows how!

Annuities nearly died over last 20 years. They’ve only just popped back to being a half way decent option since interest rates went up in last 2 years. they’re still regarded as a fairly niche option for only some people depending on circumstances. They’re viewed by many of my generation (60s) as doggy due to their oversell on commitments and under delivery.

Unfortunately, for a lot of people they like the simplicity and predictability of a defined income for life. Which goes back to the whole flaw in private pensions vs state pension and NI being higher; private pensions are just too risky, way too complicated, and difficult for a huge group of people who don’t have financial or numerical acumen

if you go back to people retiring form 1970s up to 2008, people opted for annuities. BUT that’s pretty much all you could opt for. Draw down pensions had tax implications- it’s why the pension reform acts from 2008-2015 were introduced to allow people to do what they wanted (within reasons set by HMRC) with their own pots.

the rise in annuities was also a relatively short affair, as prior to 1970s most people retired with defined benefit scheme pensions anyway. Annuities were either for people who’d not had a big employer (eg not PAYE) or had a lot of wealth they’d self invested.

The most I have won is £1400 on the postcode lottery. Fortunately not enough to have Jason Donovan to come dancing to my front door.

How much you need to win to be able to stop work depends on your age and your personality. We are now at the age where £1m would allow us to stop work and live quite comfortably.

Closest I ever got was when I bought two Lucky Dips, one for me and one for my dad. I got three numbers and my dad got the other three. Tenner each, but slightly frustrating!!