To be a bit depressed by the Euromillions story?

[MobLife]

I find myself wishing I knew nothing about it and hadn't read the story about the winning couple!
All day I've been ruminating over that extraordinary sum of money and what it must feel like....it's left me feeling really flat especially when the imagination suddenly dissolves and I'm left mulling over my actual reality of bills and debts and whatever.

It's not even like I have a bad life in so far as I've got a roof over my head and a secure job, no posh holidays or particular luxuries but in the fortune position of not having to worry too much about the food bill and can have a meal out once in a while. And we're all healthy which £184million cannot buy.

The irony is I don't even play the bloody lottery!!

But yeh, very very flat

There really are a lot of nasty, bitter people on here.

Lots of bitterness on this thread
The whole point of the lottery is that we'll a Lottery ,if you buy a ticket you have just as much chance as anyone with a ticket of winning, whether you live hand to mouth each month ,or have a relatively nice life anyway
It's the huge prize winnings that generates that sale of the tickets
Winners are not obliged to give any of their fortune away

Tbh I don't do the lottery anyway. They seem a nice couple. Who knows how they will use the money. They already had a nice life. Sometimes I think they may be overwhelmed and it probably brings its own worries as well.

Well, I wasn’t depressed about the lottery win until I read this thread.

Redistributing the prizes to help and reward the deserving isn’t the aim of a lottery. Everyone who plays knows the rules and they agree to it. Then there’s the judgement on this particular couple - too rich already (see above - it’s for everyone, not for alleviating poverty), they look old, they probably won’t spend it wisely, they’ve said the wrong thing... And the many, many comments predicting misery for them.

As for dividing big prizes up to $1m each, sod that! That won't even buy you a big house any more in lots of places! I buy the odd lotto ticket to fantasize about exotic 5 star holidays and buying several houses and maybe an island in Tahiti, not just paying off the mortgage and going part time (nice as that would be).

This. I only play once in a blue moon when there’s a bit of a buzz about a big win. I’m paying for those few days of dreaming about a jackpot and how it would change my life, not to take part in a worthy exercise. That’s not to say that I wouldn’t make donations to good causes if I did win big, but part of the fantasy is being able to do that AND completely upgrade my life.

But they don't. They are given the option by the support team at the lottery. They will also go through the pros and cons of both. They don't go running to the papers or the tv.

But if they hadn't gone public there would be no need to control the narrative. They wouldn't need to tell even the adult children how much they had won - they could just say they had won a couple of million and that's not really a news story.

The speed at which they have gone public makes me think that Camelot pressured them into it, the shock of the winning won't have even sunk in yet, I don't think they can possibly be in the right headspace to consider all the ramifications of going public - like now their young children are kidnap risks, all their school friends will know and perhaps treat them differently and all other kinds of scenarios that wouldn't be an issue if they had kept quiet.

A lot of people are completely Ill equipped to win that sort of money. I reckon I could hide up to around 3-5m quite easily but 180m is a completely different kettle of fish.

I’ve had hypothetical debates with my husband on this. He’d want to keep control and I’d want to start a charitable foundation. £50m would mean it would be self sustaining as could run on the dividends/investment growth. It would give me purpose and would be set up with the intention of supporting children and community micro grants. I would then do some specific donations to local schools.

I think the biggest problem would be deciding how much to give to family. We had a hypothetical debate and our in-laws were upset by the amount my husband said he’d give them. Whatever you do would be wrong.

I also think they were mad to go public with young children. I cannot imagine the primary aged children will be able to stay in their current school. It has the potential to really affect their sense of identity, friendships etc. how on earth do they just do the school run as normal?

I wouldn’t say no to a lottery win of your to £5m but I do think the massive wins could bring a lot of upset as well as joy. It would be different if you moved in very wealthy circles before but the change from normal working people to that sort of money is just too big.

Can you imagine the relatives you upset by not giving them enough money ? .

I can read the threads .. aibu that ex has 148 mil .. ? ..

Yes, I agree that it's way too much for one family to win. Different if you've come from a wealthy family and already live that lifestyle.

But imagine family members being hacked off with 'only' getting £250K, £500K or £1Million?

I'd be happy with 250 k.
Depends on the family though , many wouldn't give them anything if they had all fallen out over the years . Could be v tricky indeed

My OH always says it could be dangerous to share it out between family & friends - how would you feel if something bad happened to them because they suddenly had a large amount of money.... so we'd pay off our mortgage, give some to charity and finally start a childrens project weve been working on for ages. All hypothetical of course, as we hardly ever do the lottery!

It's their postman I feel sorry for.

Can you imagine the sacks of begging letters that poor sod is going to be carrying from now..................

I don't think it's unreasonable to feel bitterness or a bit deflated by something like this. It makes perfect sense to think "why not me?".

I never understand why people say jealousy is such an unreasonable behaviour, what's unreasonable is to act on jealousy and let it influence your behaviour and perception of people, but feeling envious of someone else's fortunate situation especially when things are perhaps a bit dire for yourself is a normal emotion.

I am jealous, I do wish it went to a family more in need of a massive life changing event, or went to me. I don't say the word 'deserving' as I guess anyone who participates by buying a ticket is equally deserving. But in saying that, I do wish them all the happiness, and wish them well. And I have no judgement or ill thoughts on the couple themselves, I am just jealous of their windfall.

I hope they do help others with it though. There were a few sarcy comments claiming its all bull that people's first thoughts would be charitable. I think there are many people who's would. I've honestly fantasised about a big lotto win, and living in quite a deprived area, my first thought is how many lives I could improve.....then I'd start looking at holiday homes dotted around the world.

I am not sure travelling the world forever or having endless free time is something I would want. Yes I like to go out and travel, but I also get a lot of satisfaction from working.

There’s no rule that says you have to stop working. There’s plenty of CEOs, film stars, musicians etc with more money than that who still work… Ed Sheeran’s worth £260 million and he hasn’t given up the day job.

I have friends who’ve earned this sort of money. They don’t seem to have suffered anything particularly negative as a result, and some of them still work.

This is the whole point of a lottery, to drop a huge amount of money into the lap of a random entrant, so it seems a bit strange to worry about whether they are “deserving” or not.

You have multiple friends friends that earned in the region of £184m! Wow - what kind of work do they do - I'm guessing the music industry?

I idly look at houses with no upper limit quite regularly and imagine I'd do exactly the same post lottery win, not because I'm a selfish shit who doesn't deserve the win or because I'm going to immediately buy a mansion, but because presumably, there's a wait for the money and browsing dream houses with the knowledge they're in reach is probably quite wonderful/strange/unbelievable. Doesn't mean you're not going to use the money for good, rather you're browsing a website in wonder.

Banking. I’ve some friends who moved into hedge funds early in their career and who’ve had bonuses of nine figures.

Not many, and this is still very rare even in the top end of the business, but there are a few.

While they continue to work their life is not massively different to those who earn six-figure salaries. No-one chooses to start hanging out with Russian oligarchs or having a sex basement full of escorts; they just have a nicer house and a newer Range Rover than colleagues on more “normal”’city wages.

I can't imagine having that much money to be honest , it's always intrigued me that song writers and pop stars or those in the media / authors etc can have the potential to earn such amounts , even the people that are not household names!
It must be nice not to have to worry about the gas bills though.

Pissing myself laughing at the suggestion in this thread that they should donate it to the NHS. Reminds me of the insane lockdown NHS cult. The NHS is the last institution I’d give it to, it’s shit and has left me and many others suffering in pain for years. Also it’d be gone within minutes and spent on bureaucratic shit anyway.

Exactly ,it's a gambal ,whilst it's lovely to think somebody could win,that's on the bones of their arse ,scraping from pay day to pay day equally it's just as likely to be a criminal or whatever its just random there are no more deserving winners .

its true , a millon sounds a lot , but look at the price of houses today , some of them are over a million on their own, if thats all you won it wouldnt be anywhere near enough to buy yourself a big house , give some to family or friends and then retire and live in luxury for the rest of your life , after just buying the house there wouldnt be much left over , its a given you would have to carry on working at the least

Yep it certainly wouldn't be spent on patient care ,and they would be tying themselves up in legal red tape thus wasting the money
You would be better off donating to a random stranger than the NHS

id be straight onto rightmove as well if i won that amount 😂 and i do like the one you would go for , its truely beautiful and im in bucks so its not far away from me although ten bedrooms would probably be too much considering its just me and dd , i would want a four bed though at the least

Yes, a million really isn’t the amount in the UK that some people think it is. It’ll get you a small-ish flat not on the river in London, but then leave you nothing at all for the service charge, or if you bought an inflation-linked annuity you’d get perhaps £20,000 per year.