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

I think the important thing is not to make huge changes to your life unless you are sure you’ll enjoy them. You’re still you. So leaving a job you hate, fair enough, but make sure you will have something to fill your time. A bigger house, but not a ten bedroomed mansion for two people and don’t move away from your family and friends.

I’d love to be ruined by money!

I think if you are grounded in life, it won’t ruin you. I know exactly what I’d do with it, and I would just be open and tell the truth. Friendships and relationships are better with the truth, true ones.

Depending on how much I’d won:
1 million or so. My mortgage paid, family health care for everyone, and for my mother, portion to charity, biggest amount to have life long care for DS who has SN.

More than a million or so - I’d set up a couple of charities myself that are close to my heart. Pay off friends and families mortgages.

And I’d go around the world and pay everyone I know to meet me in various places (not all at once!) and we would have a ball. Also pay for once a year reunions for everyone and once a year holiday for various friendship groups.

It’d be amazing!

Not as of you can travel the world at the moment.

I think that someone did a study that found for most lottery winners it did improve their lives for the better. We only hear about the people for whom it goes wrong.

There are a lot of people who have won who don’t do the publicity and have a nice life without being in anyone’s faces.

I always said to OH that if I won something like 120 million on the lottery, I would wait to tell people so they thought I only won 3 million instead. I have a big family so 3m would soon disappear.

I know someone who won megabucks on her country’s lottery - she was actually in the process of moving overseas at the time so that made keeping it secret quite easy. She just bought a much swankier house, car, etc in her new country than she would have. Her parents were dead, no siblings, not close to other family, she’d moved to the other side of the world for a job so too far for friends to visit. She’s moved country a couple of times now. Only a tiny number of people know. We always took turns buying the coffee when we met, that never changed even after she told me. She was a real bargain hunter though and loved a thrift store, which I think helped her remain normal - no swanning around in Chanel and Gucci!

I think my ideal win would be about £10m. I’d manage it nicely like this:

1. Tell family and close friends only and make it a ‘small inheritance’ to explain away the changes I couldn’t keep invisible.

1. Mortgage-free houses for me, my (separated) parents, brother and sister. Not lavish or ostentatious but comfortable. We are in the SE so that would take about £3m for fairly ordinary family houses all round.

1. Invest for the long-term, again for all my family - especially parents so they have no worries and any care they need into old age.

1. Quit my stressful job and immerse myself in a full-time PhD for the love of it. I’d go back to my career but would relish money not being a factor.

1. Have enough time (because not working) to see friends, go to the gym a lot, pursue hobbies and have a dog.

1. Be generous with friends. Make charitable donations.

1. Replace ‘things’. E.g. new but not lavish car.

1. Hire help - cleaner and laundry service.

1. Done.

1 million: I think I't just invest it. I have a cousin (or two) who are financiers so would have them manage it all for me. I'd live off the interest and spend most of it on OU courses (and Waterstones!).

I guess I'd do that up to about 40 million, when I would buy a house/garden in London and move back there (have missed it so much since we moved out to the bloody country). I'd give my brother enough for a house too. In fact, I'd buy two houses next door to each other and have one for me and the other for dh......

I'd also endow a Chair at my old Uni.

People who say owing a mansion or large estate would reveal their wealth - just buy your mansion with a modest home down the road instead! When anyone wants to visit you can just go to your smaller house and sit there whinging about those annoying, entitled poshos down the road who are making your life hell.

I always think that instead of 1 person winning 109 mill it should be 109 people winning 1 million each. 1 million would be enough to make most people financially secure - mortgage free house, no debts, some savings, some luxuries etc. Maybe start up a business. Send kids to uni etc.

109 mill winner might buy several houses etc but a lot of the money would go into investments and possibly overseas etc. 109 people buying a house/car etc would be a lot of stamp duty etc going back into the coffers. And would probably end up with more money being spent in the economy that just one winner.

I've always wondered why people with ridiculous amounts of money (not necessarily lottery winners) don't spend lots of it helping people who need it. Or maybe they do and don't make a big thing of it. I think that Taylor swift does this actually.

But that's what I would do. Make sure my family and I were comfortable and always would be and then set up something whereby I could fund various ways of helping people.

Since I have a more normal amount of money there's always 52 lives to support, but a bigger scale would be good!

@Sophiesdog2020 - without saying too much, the situation I was in made it clear that I was to be financially better off, so presumptions were made.

I also had my best friend make it really obvious to a group of people that I had money. It wasn’t done with malice but it revealed more than I wanted people to know. I only told two family members and her the actual facts of the situation (amount).

I also had a person look through personal documents in my home, who decided to then use it to say horrible things to me when they didn’t get what they wanted from me.

I don't understand how it makes people miserable either. I'd just buy a really nice home for each of the DC, a country house for DH and a London one for me, budget how to maintain these all very comfortably for the next fifty years, set a chunk aside for some really good holidays and then give the rest away to family, friends and charity. Once it's gone it's gone and you can just tell people you gave it away.

I agree with BrieAndChilli .
109million is an obscene and pointless amount where as 109 1millions are life-enhancing, useful sums.

So I have won, and I am going public. Who's gonna help me with advice on how to spend tonights £4.70?

Just send it my way. My life won't be ruined. I promise
It is my dream to win at least one million! I have it all figured out....

I don't understand how it makes people miserable either. I'd just buy a really nice home for each of the DC, a country house for DH and a London one for me, budget how to maintain these all very comfortably for the next fifty years, set a chunk aside for some really good holidays and then give the rest away to family, friends and charity. Once it's gone it's gone and you can just tell people you gave it away

If you think about it, it's quite easy to see how it makes people miserable. I think if you're a well-adjusted person with a supportive family, it's like going to be a great blessing. But many people are not that.

It's kind of like saying I don't know how alcohol makes some people so miserable. I love a few glasses of wine with my husband, I love going out for a few with my friends, etc. and it makes me happy and never causes any problems. But it's still easy to see why for many people that's not the case.

@Bloodylovecheese get two ruby magnums! Best investment ever! Once you tried, you will never give them up. They are gorgeous! They do not make you much money, but they are worthy

@The80sweregreat

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.

If I had to guess, I'd say by the time the winners have been called or have phoned Camelot themselves, they've already told a lot of people that they know, who've kept passing the details along, and by then the people sitting in your local pub probably know, so Camelot will give them a spiel that if they don't go public someone will sell their details to the media regardless.

The Daily Mail even advertises on their articles asking for information if you know who has won whenever a big win has happened in the UK, and I can imagine they pay for that information. If you don't have someone somewhere in your family tree or sphere of friends/acquaintances who'd sell your information to the daily mail for a couple of hundred quid, I'd call you naive.

If I ever won, I'd tell no-one, would only tell my partner after I'd confirmed it with Camelot, and even then, immediate family wouldn't find out for months, and never find out what date I won and subsequently, how much was won.

Well sorry for the dampener but if you're over 40 don't buy the ticket until the day of the drawer. You actually have a higher chance of dying between the Sunday and the following Saturday night than you actually have of winning the jackpot.
We're actually quite fortunate to have had a winner in the family, my long lost Nigerian uncle won the other day, he's decided to share his good fortune around and asked for my bank details. Better get off MN and send them on to him.😁
Good luck with your numbers!

@BrieAndChilli

I always think that instead of 1 person winning 109 mill it should be 109 people winning 1 million each. 1 million would be enough to make most people financially secure - mortgage free house, no debts, some savings, some luxuries etc. Maybe start up a business. Send kids to uni etc.

109 mill winner might buy several houses etc but a lot of the money would go into investments and possibly overseas etc. 109 people buying a house/car etc would be a lot of stamp duty etc going back into the coffers. And would probably end up with more money being spent in the economy that just one winner.

There wouldn't be the interest to generate the winning funds if it was only a million, people pay the money to win the big amounts, I don't want to just win a million when I play the euromillions, I want to win £109 million. It wouldn't be viable as the odds would need to be a lot better.

If you want to win a million there's already multiple games available that offer that. You can play the same numbers on 2 lines on Thunderball for £2, and you'd win a million pound, the odds are also better at 1/8m instead of the 1/150m odds of the euro millions, you'd also save 50p on the ticket price.

It would NOT ruin my life i can tell you that much!

Stay anonymous
Keep working
Set up a trust for the money/will
Hire a financial planner
Don't splash the cash

I've been sat daydreaming all evening about winning the lottery after reading this thread! Let

Sorry I pressed send too quick and I don't know where the "lets" came from!
I was going to say I've already decided I'm going to find my dream house then go on an amazing holiday whilst it's being renovated to perfection!