To think winning £110M overnight would solve a lot of problems but bring a whole set of new ones?

[SereneFinch]

Someone in the UK won £110M last night and I was just thinking about how they’re feeling this morning.

All your money worries are gone, you can buy a nice house, quit your job etc.

But I wonder if those problems are replaced with new ones. Some people in your life might be jealous. Or expect handouts and get angry about who gets what.

And then your DC. Do you tell them they still need to do their homework? That they’ll still need to have a job/career one day?

I’m not saying it wouldn’t be great, I'm just wondering if it swaps one set of problems for another.

I wouldn’t tell people how much money I’d won - might say some shares have come in and I’ve now got some money to do lovely things with.

Wealth is health, so I’d focus on looking after my own and others’ health and having some lovely experiences - not necessarily mad, expensive ones.

It would be nice to have the cushion that money brings but I wouldn’t need that much for a cushion. Think I’d give a significant amount of money to a few charities close to my heart.

Except I said I wouldn’t tell all & sundry but I guess everyone has different relationships.

Yes, I rarely question my friends about their money so it would seem very odd to me. For example, I know one of my friends recently inherited as her mum died. I would never dream of asking her how much it was though, because it's none of my business and that would feel incredibly insensitive after a loss. I am happy for her. I dont need to know how much she got, it doesnt affect our friendship in any way and we have lots to talk about without me asking her about her finances.

You don't have to lie to people you simply don't have to give them access to your financial information in the first place.

If I normally holiday with family and friends, of course some of those holidays might become more luxurious. I could pay for nicer hotels, upgrade flights or suggest somewhere more expensive. That doesn't require me to announce that I've won the lottery.

And if someone asked how I was suddenly able to afford a particular lifestyle, I could simply say I've done well financially and prefer not to discuss my finances. That's a boundary, not a lie.

People aren't automatically entitled to know your net worth, where your money came from or what's sitting in your bank account just because they're close to you. If I chose to tell them, that's different but I certainly wouldn't feel that I owed anyone that information and anyone that kept persistently hounding me about it, isnt really someone I would trust with the knowledge in the first place!

Id spend a good amount of time working out what's a sensible amount to keep for me, DH and our kids and then I'd give the rest away, charities/friends etc.but the very first thing I'd do is bookan amazing hotel suite in London and spend a few days in a bubble of 'oh my god'.

I haven’t sad I feel like I owe it to anyone or they are entitled to know….

What I have said is if I am spending 50k plus etc on a holiday my family would ask how I am affording it….to me that is normal. Same for me paying off their mortgages or buying a new expensive home. My dad was also a FA so I would still use his advice.

We just have to agree to disagree.

Yes, that's fair - I think we're probably just very different in how we'd handle being asked. 😂

I do think, though, that if someone couldn't respect the fact that I don't want to discuss my finances and kept on and on hassling me about it, they'd probably be the last person I'd want to trust with “the truth” anyway as they clearly dont respect my boundaries or privacy and I wouldnt trust them not to tell everyone they knew

There's something quite telling about how someone responds when you set a boundary.

Well it wasn't me, I won a pound! I do love thinking about what I'd do if I won a massive jackpot though but the number one thing would be to stay anonymous.
I know someone who won a 5 million jackpot and they ended up having to leave the country permanently because of all the people begging for money - total strangers wheeling their sick kids up to the door and saying "You tell little Johnny here that you won't pay for his life saving operation ",

2 things

Bad people will want some of it and may/will use violence to get it. Dont imagine you can become/remain anonymous

Say you can generate 5% of £100m as an income, The tax man will want a good slice of the income from it in tax (like 50%) still leave you with £2.5 million a year and still £100million in the bank. Then deduct IHT of 40% when it gets to that time.

Bad people will want some of it and may/will use violence to get it. Dont imagine you can become/remain anonymous

Yep- this is exactly why I'd remain anonymous. Plenty of lottery winners have managed it- we have only heard about very, very few winners and know their actual names. The rest have managed to remain completely anonymous

People who have 100m don’t pay 40% IHT…

“On average, those leaving estates valued between £1 million and £8 million pay 20 per cent of what they leave in tax; those with estates of around £10 million pay just 10 per cent.”

I didn’t win though!

Never done the lottery because it's a waste of money and I'm mostly happy with how much money I have now. I do have a few premium bonds for thinking about how I'd spend a bit more.

Yes I'd move house but I wouldnt want a massive house, too much to clean so it wouldnt be too obvious I had lots of money. I might buy better versions of some stuff - like more expensive suitcases for my first class travel but they could have been second hand and my family arent status obsessed enough to notice the difference.

If you'd plan to give most of it away you could hide it and still enjoy the spending.

Would I move? I love my house! It’s just me here so I don’t think I’d want anything much bigger. Maybe a fourth bedroom for all my hobbies but tbh I’d rather have a decent amount of land so I’d probably buy a farm and try to farm it in a sustainable and nature-friendly way. But that would still leave me with £100m+ which would go to conservation and education charities.

Too big to clean! 😄 I think you'd have enough for a cleaner

I would love to win that kind of money, but agree that it brings an entirely different set of problems and worries.

Imo, money won't make you fundamentally any happier in the longterm, but it does give you freedom and choices and can make your life easier in many respects.

I think you'd have to move away if you wanted to keep it fully secret.

I wouldn't tell my dc or anyone else; certainly not for the 1st year anyway. I also wouldn't spend it for that sort of timeframe either (certainly not a big amount and not on anything out of the ordinary, anyway), I might go on holiday, but it would be my usual sort of holiday.

I'd get professional advice and I wouldn't want publicity at all.
I wouldn't buy a big house or new cars, etc, either, but I would move within my local area into a bungalow with a nice sized garden and not such close neighbours, and not worry if I lost money on it.

If we're talking about £110 million, I'd keep £10-15million for my immediate family, ie, me and my dp, and even that is more than enough.
I'd put aside £2 million per dc, as they'd also inherit from us, but I'd wait until they were settled and sensible before giving them any, and I'd want them to keep a job.

My eldest does something she loves, but the pay is awful, so this would enable her to keep doing it, but also allow her to be self sufficient, but a house, etc.
I wouldn't want them to give up completely, especially whilst young. I don't think it would do their mental health and self worth any good in the long run.

Taking the top end of these amounts I'd still have ~£90 million to play with.

I would then help out family, eg, parents, siblings, nephews, cousins, aunts and uncles, as well as close friends, but anonymously via some kind of trust or whatever I'm advised is best.

This would still leave around £50- 60 million, and I'd use this to set up a charity/trust to support those in need in various ways, eg, getting on the housing ladder, community services and initiatives, helping local hospitals/ schools, etc, fund specialist equipment or staff via grants, etc, and helping improve the lives of animals and people abroad, eg, getting spaying programs in place for stay animals, etc, paying for scholarships, etc.
I'd hope to get my dc involved and I'd get them to do related qualifications so that they do it well.

Even with all that money, the charity/trust thing would actually be the thing that brings me the most pleasure, and that is the bit I always dream about; how I can help others.

I don't understand people who receive such good fortune, but don't help others. That makes no sense to me.
The reason I wouldn't want others to know is that I've witnessed how even good relationships can suffer when one person suddenly comes into money or has really good luck that changes their life for the better. I just wouldn't want to risk that.

Not that I've thought about it much 😗🤔🤣🙄

@thecows but I wouldnt want a cleaner until I'm too feeble to do it myself. I wouldnt be doing any diy and I'd probably hire a gardener or 2 so I could just sit in the shade and enjoy it. I'd like to buy a good piece of land and build one medium sized house well away from neighbours. The orchard and lake wouldnt belong to me as far as anyone else was concerned, I'd just be allowed to walk someone else's property. I could put them into a trust so they were not legally mine. The sort of lawyers you can afford with that many millions would help me hide ownership 😁

Actually, just reading about the Cornell gang rape today, I’d be tempted to hire an assassin to slowly kill some rapists. Think how much good we could do in the world by getting rid of some violent rapists. That would bring me a lot of joy.

No, somebody else. Apparently she always liked a drink but once she had all that money in the bank there was no stopping her.

I agree with you , no matter how good the friend was I'd still feel beholden to them.
Also what happens if the winner makes some bad investments or gambles it all away then ask you to sell your house or remortgage it and give all / some of the money back.

I'd rather give the household a set amount and they choose to pay of their mortgage, save it for DCs uni, go on holiday, fritter it away.
There would be a caveat that I'd never ask for it back and they would never ask for more.