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 think I’d definitely try and keep the amount secret. I’d like to be able to pay off my DD’s mortgage and give my DS money for a house so I couldn’t keep quiet about the whole thing.

I’d go through Go fund me and donate to all the worthy causes that make a difference to people’s lives and donate to lots of local community funds for things like new play areas.

There’s a lot of local people who’ve supported me in my job and I’d love to anonymously give money to them, but haven’t worked out how I’d do that (cash through letterbox in the dead of night, dressed all in black with a fake beard maybe)

Then on top of that I’d pay for a therapist to help me cope with keeping such a big secret 😂

Criminal gangs. They will be on you in a second if you are not careful.

The vast majority of wealthy people worth 100 million plus don't have access to the cash, it's tied up in property and investments.

Lottery winners just have the money sitting there.

As for keeping it quiet, as soon as the money hits the bank, word will be out. The bank will straight on at you trying to get you to buy their investments. You might keep your name out of the papers but these things have a way of coming out.

There was a woman in the RoI won a lot and she had to spend a lot on security, even then you have the problem of can you trust the security.

Dolores McNamara.
https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2025/06/18/dolores-mcnamara-whatever-happened-to-the-115m-lotto-winner/

I think the main problem for me would be who gets what, I have a lot of cousins, some off whom I wouldn't recognise in the street, I have friends who would do anything for me and me for them, whom gets what?

Nice problems to have, it would be great not to quibble over the price of a pint in a pub.

I would spend half the 110 million in the pub, then waste the rest.

This!! I would maybe do some anonymous gifting via a solicitor too haha - and tell people that I too had also received the anonymous gift.

Not really. E.g George Michael and Bill Gates had no problem giving away vast amounts of their money to charities.

Youre assuming that the OP would fund her dd's whole life. I think it's very important for kids to not rely on the bank of mum & dad and find their own way in life. I certainly wouldn't be funding my kids' life. It's important to keep learning & to appreciate the value of money

I’d definitely give some to one of my friends so she could be a home owner once more.
Family would get a lot of it.
Investments and charities would feature too.
I feel it wouldn’t ruin my life, but I can see why you would need more security and careful who you tell.
The banks would be like vultures I’m sure :(
It would be life changing.

I checked…. It wasn’t me

I’m sure I’ve read that 1/3 of lottery winners go bankrupt. I guess that’s to be expected as you have to be a bit of a gambler to play in the first place.

I would only tell immediate family and I wouldn’t be rushing out to buy a sports car and mansion with a butler. I inherited some money quite young and used it to help buy a house. A few friends were really iffy about that. Not sure if they’d have been the same if I won the lottery as the winners are random (but no one has to die for that!)

I think I’ve also read that one of the problems with having lots of money is that you can get quite overwhelmed. Most people live within their means and know how much they can afford to spend on e.g. a dinner out, so they have limited options. But when your options are unlimited, it can be more stressful to make choices. Still, I’d love the opportunity to find out how stressful it is!

Oh to have this problem! I often think about what I'd do. For a start I wouldn't move - I love my house - but I'd buy a few holiday homes around the world. Obviously I'd give work up although I'd think about starting a business to keep busy and set my kids up in a business of their choice. I would help out friends and family by possibly paying their mortgages off. I would try to keep it on the down low to start off with although it would probably get out once I'm jetting off to my holiday homes all the time!

I was reading about a French village where someone has wine the euromillions, no one knows who it is but they silently are donating and improving things in the town like ensuring all school children receive free meals, building community centres, improving the transport links. I really like the idea of this.

You could go bankrupt if people do silly things like buy a massive expensive yacht or a house far too big to keep going or something like that ( or bad investments)
I feel that with so much advice out there , most would be fairly sensible. Although it would also be daunting.

I agree. I’d go on go fund me and donate to worthy causes to make people’s day!

I'm prepared to take one for the team and give it a go!!

My dad once told me that research had been done on football pools winners and the ones who are happiest 5 years on are the ones who win roughly what they earn in a year. Because in that circumstance you pay off any debts, pay a chunk off your mortgage, buy a new car, go on a nice holiday and the money is gone and you carry on with your normal life but everything is just a little bit easier and nicer.

If I won the £110m I think we would be fine because we just wouldn’t tell anyone. Our life has many different strands that don’t really overlap so we would be able to quietly upgrade each different bit of our lives without people putting it all together. Not in a £110m way but in small ways. In time I might invent an inheritance from a random aunt we never really knew just in case anyone questions things. We would then have time and space to think about what we actually wanted to do with the money. I like the idea of picking a disease and giving enough money that a cure could be found. I also like the idea of locking up the money in some kind of family trust so that all my descendents for the next 100 years don’t have to worry about boring things like student loans and house deposits but still have to work as normal.

This was from when it was under Camelot, not sure if new lottery runners do things the same way. But interesting insight into how it works - www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-32921080

You would seriously sit on that amount of money and not give any to your DC until you die?

I think these amount of winnings would bring issues. If you are someone with modest amount of money and your friendship group is similar, so no huge disparity of wealth, with the best will in the world some things must change between you all. How many times would someone in your group say can’t join you in that event as can’t afford it, or if having a weekend away choose basic accommodation or if having a get together bring basic bottle of wine etc. Going forward you would never have those issues, do you offer to pay for the friend who couldn’t afford it, upgrade your own accommodation or treat everyone and bring expensive bottle of wine to parties. How many of us worry about money and share those worries with friends, mortgage rate, bills going up, unexpected garage bill, helping fund DC at uni etc. None of these things will touch you any more. If you won that amount of money and just carried on as normal what would the point be.

I wouldnt tell anyone except DH. I would tell my DC I have won a modest amount of money, enough to settle their mortgages. I would put money in trust for the DGC.
New kitchen , new bathroom (things we are already planning anyway)
Small local volunteer charities who struggle financially (especially animal charities) will get a big boost. I would also help those who have suffered catastrophes, house fires, illness, crime etc.
I would do all this quietly and anonymously and get on with life with a smile on my face ☺️

DH and I spent some time fantasising about how we’d spend a big win last Sunday morning. But the reality was after sorting out our immediate family (and some of them don’t really want for anything!) we were a bit stumped. So we’d soak up as much financial advice as we could. And immediately resign from our jobs 😆

I think it is actually really irresponsible as a prize. It would be far better for more people to win such a sum broken down into smaller prizes of ten million each.

It would be worrying if a person with very extreme views won it. And used vast sums to promote their ideas.

Arguably it already happens. But it could be dangerous. There seems to be an assumption that whoever wins is decent and normal.

It’s interesting that you frame life in terms of ‘problems’. I wonder how prevalent it is, but I do feel like most people are worriers/ see the bad and what they don’t have, rather than make the most out of every day and focus on things they love/enjoy.

To offer a perspective, I have worked professionally with many such people, some of whom have become friends.

Many people who have made their fortune through working don’t see it as ‘new problems’ at all as that’s what they always imagined their life to be, and have surrounded themselves with aspirational mindset peers from a young age, staying away from the negative nellys.

Now, if you have won that amount of money, you may be quite unprepared for it, and what comes with it.

If you have a chaotic life, high drama relationships and grabby people around you, they’re not going anywhere unless you actively keep them at bay and change yourself. Your mental health issues/ addictive behaviours may be amplified much further. You’re likely to be taken advantage and learn from your own mistakes, stop trusting etc.

Essentially it’s a steep learning curve.

Talking of kids, it depends on what kind of values they’ve cultivated. You have kids whose goal is money and consumption. And you have kids whose goal is changing lives, shaping the world, self-development.

The latter can massively benefit from resources - look at our British no 1 tennis player whose parents are billionaires, or any number of ‘nepo babies’ who could do nothing but choose to do something and become someone.

From my own social circle, children of super successful/ wealthy parents are regularly the biggest delinquents, getting arrested for drugs at 13 etc. Boarding schools for HNWI children are quite extreme when it comes to alcohol, sex etc. Coming from money you feel different kinds of pressures.

It’s not black and white, it hugely depends on the individual.

But I’d frame it much more as an opportunity than ‘problem’ - you’re given a resource, how you use it is up to you.

Personally I wouldn’t quit my job for example but I think that’s an unpopular opinion.

I agree. I think people underestimate how difficult it would be. I came from very humble beginnings and unexpectedly made a lot of money in a short space of time (albeit nothing like £110m!) and it has been great in lots of ways but strange in others. We choose not to move house but pay off our mortgage. I still work but sometimes find motivation difficult when I was always v driven before. Financial security has been a blessing but has thrown up some unexpected effects.

I would not tell anybody at all, apart from having a discussion with my bank on the best way to invest and inheritance tax planning.
Would carry on with my life much as before, although would move house, but keep my existing one, have it done up and rent it out.
I would do some volunteering and a bit more travelling.
I would review the overall situation in 18 months to 2 years and possibly tweak a couple of things.
Most importantly I would engage professionals to handle the nitty gritty.
But then I am quite boring and have done most of the things I wanted to do in life.

Here's a problem if you won 110 million, what about the begging letters?

I would continue to send them.

Spike Milligan I think.

I think it would cause a crazy amount of resentment to let your children and relatives struggle with with relatively trivial money problems whilst you were sat on over £100 million. This is is why winning this kind of money creates different kinds of problems.

At the moment we all live our lives with very limited ability to achieve meaningful change in our loved ones' lives, let alone at a much grander scale. Knowing that you could do this obviously gives you great power but also great responsibility. How many rich kids have huge issues because they lack purpose? You could ruin your children's lives trying to help them with the money but equally you could hold it all back and this could make their lives worse. You could give money to lots of different charities but which would be the right ones?

I guess it would come to the point where you might feel that you're depriving people or organisations of money by not giving to them when you easily could do so. Why didn't you give the homeless guy money? How much is enough? What about the kids dying of illness or starvation in Africa?

I think we all like to think we are a good person and judge the super rich for not sharing their wealth more but when it came to it, what we actually do? It could lead to some kind of personal crisis where you suddenly realise that actually you aren't as generous as you thought when the money was just hypothetical.

I think Id quite happily accept the problem of finding out which of my friends/family are greedy fuckers for £110m tbh

I wouldn't tell anyone anyway, id maybe say Id won £5m. I have no desire to live in a mega mansion, the house Id buy right now I reckon would cost me just over a million. Give a million to my brother and my parents and my best friend. Thats it.

DD will still have to do her A levels, education is important. Again I probably wouldn't tell her how rich we were.