How do you stop your life being ruined by a lottery win??

[Foliageeverywhere122]

Inspired by the euromillions thread!

Ever the optimist, I started thinking about how exciting it would be if I won...and then started thinking about all those news articles you see in the daily fail about people who claim their lives were ruined by it.

So how do you actually enjoy a lottery win? Has anyone won (or inherited) a large sum of money and has advice? :D

@Freshprincess

Putting yourself in the papers seems like madness to me. My current list of people I would tell stands at 2, just my mum and dad. I might expand that to my sister. She rents a lovely little one bed cottage which I’d buy for her if it ever came on the market. I’d quietly upgrade everything in my house, nobody would really notice me switching from ikea to high end furniture. Not sure how I’d keep the DCs quiet about first class travel and super fancy hotels.

They don't put themselves in the papers

When you win you're given two choices

Accept the help from the lottery organizer and they will help with PR and after care, but part of that is going public

Or you can keep it quiet but receive no after care or support

I used to work for Camelot

@LolaSkoda

Having received a significant sum of money (not lottery) I can tell you that there definitely are some people who either presume that you will pick up the tab, or say some of the most disgusting things to you due to their perception of your wealth.

Money makes some people pretty nasty.

Money brings out the worst in people.

My siblings turned on me over a sum in my Nana's will that turned out to be around 2k (everyone got significant house deposits and my 3 siblings had their weddings paid for). It was also due to a decision they all made when I was 12

Even offering to pay them all the difference didn't help. Money brings out the absolute nastiest side of people

I would get a new job as a "project manager" for a building project (my own new house, shhhh) which would impress my client so much he/she would offer me a new job (see below) where the house comes with the job.
Buy a house each for the kids (reasonable size to suit their current needs, they can move up under their own steam) or build annexes for them in the grounds.
Money into trusts for other younger family members to be paid on reaching certain milestones (holding down a full time job for 12 months comes to mind).
Pay off other family members mortgages anonymously.
Anonymous contributions to certain small underfunded charities.
Make sure parents are comfortable.
Buy an escape pod near the sea.
Employ a mrs Wembley and a gardener/handyman.
I would never pass money over to family or friends, it would be secretly paying off stuff or gifting a thing.
Post covid I would spend time in a luxury health spa getting into shape and being beautified.
I would then focus work on seeking out really genuine recipients for my "rich boss" to benefit. Like a weird secret santa.

a) Tell as few people as you can, certainly dont go public, if it was me i might not even tell close family!

b) If you do tell people, say you get less then you did.

c) don't act as if EARN that money. You can't live the lifestyle with a stagnant income. Live off the interest ideally after you have splurged a portion.

The thing is people overextend, then when tax needs to be paid/business goes into debt/the mansion heating bill needs to be paid things can go wrong very quickly and you are depleting a fixed amount with no way to make it back unless you have made some sensible decisions.

[quote Imissmoominmama]@Thegreymethod- it’s all hypothetical because I don’t actually do the lottery .

But no, he’d spend it on flash cars.[/quote]
Haha fair enough! Yeah I don't actually do it but am still convinced I'll win it by putting it on, on a whim one day!

Wouldn’t people guess you’ve won once you move into a better home? I dream of moving out of this neighbourhood into a nicer one. Surely if you’re a multimillionaire you wouldn’t still have the same house did as minimum wage worker.

I have a relative who is always checking how much anyone paid for their house. It’s all on zoopla I think. So people like her would very quickly see you’ve won the lottery

I would definitely want a house with a pool. Might be hard to explain away...

In ordinary times (not covid times), I would book a lovely three week holiday somewhere and spend some of the time on holiday researching very good financial advisers.

Both DH and I only have very small extended families so we could easily help them all out. My Mum would be first on the list as she’s about to retire but only has her state pension. We also have a fair few close friends who we would help out no problem if we won the euro millions - they’ve been good friends for many years and been there through good times and bad.

DH and I would love to travel so would spend a few months doing this with DS. Would stay in nice hotels but not excessive.

After that would sit down and decide what to do

I'd just say that we had a small win, enough to enable me to give up work and concentrate on our disabled son. We have very few relatives, we have zero social life other than with each other. A few months later and moving home (to a mansion in a lovely area with a huge garden and pool) wouldn't even be noticed by anybody other than Royal Mail's redirection service. I might have to close down my FB account as there would be a temptation to post photos, but "coming off social media" is not unheard-of.

And then we could start on our plans to really spend the money. But I think there's a different thread for that!

Would tell people that I had won a small amount (like a million) so they wouldn't expect much - bearing in mind you can spend that on a house. Otherwise how do you explain moving house, buying a new car, giving up work etc?

I wouldn’t tell anyone other than my dh and we would have to wait until dd had finished school to make drastic changes. I would buy some woodland with a stream, where I could have a holiday house. My main home would be in the Cotswolds and would have a laundry room with a tumble dryer. We would both stop working and do lots of travelling (I really want to go to Italy and Japan). I’d go to the theatre and concerts . I’d probably give lots away to all kinds of people and charities.

Of course people would question my new place with the pool and the sauna and look it up on zoopla etc etc.
You could say ' I only won x amount' it but they wouldn't buy it!
You could say ' auntie sally won the big one and gave me x amount'
Gets you out of giving them anything much I suppose ( unless you wanted to)
I think most people would twig or dig around. Then be jealous and you'd lose friends and family and be depressed and turn to drink , so maybe winning big isn't all great after all!
(I'll never find out and always be poor I bet)
It's a fascinating subject though.

The worst thing you could ever do is go public, if we won we'd say it was inheritance when ppl close ask questions

@AuntyPasta

I have promised the dog that if I win the lottery I’ll pay someone to dress up in a squirrel suit and run around the garden for her. It’s the only way she’ll ever catch a live one.

Love this! My dog goes nuts for squirrels too (pun intended!)

Why do people go public though?
Ok , the press might hound you a bit, but it's worth fighting them off in order to not have to spray champers around and try to not look too smug! The lottery people must do a number on people to get them to do it!
I couldn't go public with it at all.

@LouiseTrees

Tell people you won less than you did. Enough to explain your extra holidays etc but not enough they’d expect a huge huge chunk. Then give them a couple of hundred pounds each to look generous given the fake size of win you said.

That’s what I think.

@AnytimeIsWineTime

Never won the lotto but have had a hefty inheritance. It didn’t ruin anything for us. It was a bit weird getting it because it meant that our much lived grandad was really gone😢 All I did was exactly what he would have wanted me to do. I got on the property ladder and only needed a small mortgage.

Just a side note, any lottery winners who have this fear, I am here to help. I will take the burden of that win for you. Just say the word and I will send details for a PayPal transfer

That’s a lovely story about your grandad, I’m sure he’d be delighted to know he’d set you up in your own home.

As a side note, you sound like such a generous person. I am a rich princess and need to send money to the UK, if you could send me your bank details that’d be ever so helpful 😄

I’d give gifts anonymously. If possible I’d send myself a gift too to put people off the scent (ie I’d give my colleagues a share, so send bank orders to the main office and include one for me.)

Nobody (inc DP) would know the true amount.

Large amount to charity - buy many cheap houses and give them to Womans’ Aid and homeless charities for use as temporary homes. Animals more thanks welcome.

As others have said, I’d buy lots of land and start an animal sanctuary.

i will send you my paypal details and you can watch how i do it?

id donate a LOT to charity after helping people who helped me in my lowest points.

massive trust funds for the kids at 25 +

new car which would be needed
pay off the mortgage and buy my "dream" house. Which is 500k

keep working!

i know a couple who won about £3m in the fairly early days of the lottery. They were reasonably well off with their own business and apparently didn't tell anyone for a quite a while. They invested a lot of money in building up the business, bought a slightly bigger house, had a couple of fancy holidays and put some aside to put their kids through private school. A few years later they told a few friends and family but by that time all the 'cash' had been spent or invested.

Their business is still going strong.

Very good friends of ours won £1.9 million. It was in the local paper but not on TV I think that helped.
They moved into a flat (penthouse) after living in a caravan and helped their children. They are in their late 70's. They have a son who
lives in the USA so they can travel in luxury. I don't know how it works but they can phone a number and all
travel is arranged for them.
The 6 close friend couples were taken out for a lovely meal. They haven't changed he still drinks 1/2 pints and she drinks a small sherry.
We still all met up before covid every 6 weeks and split the bill.

Having received a significant sum of money (not lottery) I can tell you that there definitely are some people who either presume that you will pick up the tab..

But how did they know you’d come into money? My DC got an inheritance as teenagers. We impressed onto them the need to keep quiet about it, money is no one else’s business. Only one local friend of mine knows, and that is because her DC had also inherited substantially and I wanted advice on how they handled it. As far as I can tell, none of our DCs friends know they have a nest egg tucked away.

We have also had an inheritance, which friends could guess at as I lost my 2nd parent, but they wouldn’t know how much, nor about the other windfalls that came around the same time. We spent some on a US holiday, but no one knew we paid for an upgrade on the flight, other than the 4 of us!

I occasionally do the lottery, not very often but if I won, I’d keep quiet. Finish work, put some in trust for DC and other young family, maybe buy a bigger but not OTT house, then use the rest to travel. As a pp said, no one knows exactly where you stay, or that you have the top suite on a cruise etc. We would just say that we were enjoying an early retirement.

It’s not hard to keep quiet...

I think I'd just sit on it for awhile - maybe 6 months without really going on a massive spend.
That way you can come to terms with the win and spend some time coming down from the immediate high and the sudden rush to buy the house and a heap of new cars.

I read once that the secret is to set up a trust fund for family and friends and then they have to speak to the fund manager about handouts rather than yourself. Allocate certain amounts to whoever then direct anyone else to apply to the fund.

I've thought about it a lot , and it would be impossible to pretend you haven't come into some money without questions being asked. You'd need a good cover story, small windfall invested in a money spinner business, etc.

I think I’ve heard somewhere that if you don’t go public you don’t get access to as much financial advice etc from Camelot.

Everybody gets financial advice if they go public or not, Camelot will help with PR if you do go public, but if you don't plan on going public you won't need it. All the private bankers will be lining up to talk to you after you win anyways, so you wouldn't really need camelots help anyways. They can put you in touch with previous winners and organise events where you all meet from what I've read in the past as well.