Oh Christ I'm unexpectedly wealthy

[awesomekillick]

Not a stealth boast but a cry for help.

I'm a normal middle class person. I'm approaching 60, been retired 5 years.

Fuck knows how but my business has grown beyond what I ever anticipated. Like into what to me is stupid money. I'm talking millions.

What the fuck do I do?

I'm no wheeler-dealer. Never bought a stock or a share in my life. I buy clothes off eBay and material things don't make me happy but dopamine does ! (ADHD) so maybe stock market might be exciting for a while.

Do i set up a charity? Buy shit I dont want or need? My lovely adult kids don't want money. My financial advisor keeps telling me "pension", but honestly my business is my pension and it keeps growing.

Do I go round handing out cash?

I'm a normal m/c intellectual who never ever set out or expected to be, wealthy.

My dear grandparents got much joy from sponsoring kids in Africa into education, both primary, secondary (because sadly it’s a luxury not a requirement) and then into college. As a teen we flew out there to meet them/visit the schools and it was a lovely (and humbling) experience to see how excited these kids were for just a chance to better themselves thru knowledge. My gpa (gma passed last year sadly) still gets letters from one of the girls, now a young woman with a degree in hospitality and hotel management, running a hotel in Mombasa.

Of course similar closer to home sponsorships can be found, especially in this last 18 months.

I'm delighted for you! You may believe you are not business/financially minded but you have worked hard to achieve this.

Don't worry about what you will do with it, relax for now and opportunities will present themselves.

It's wonderful not to have to worry about money in retirement, this is a good situation to be in.

I have a few friends who are in similar financial positions to you and I can’t say what to do but probably more what not to do!

The assumption is big house, flash cars and generally extravagant lifestyles will make you happy

I just don’t see that with friends I have, it just seems to complicate everything. Your life becomes very high maintenance, and people see that before anything else. Once you have taken the plunge to become visibly rich, it’s like you just cut off ‘ordinary’. You hang out with other visibly rich people where you enter another game and competition is on again, but in a different stratosphere, almost all of which is pointless. It also becomes very difficult not to spoil your kids...after all when they ask for stuff, the answer isn’t a genuine no because you don’t have the money, you have to contrive some moral reason as to why they shouldn’t have it. That’s pretty tiring so easier to spoil them and just buy them shit.

All I’d say from observing huge wealth is don’t do the visible cliche wealth stuff, it’s seems extremely problematic over time.

My beg is not thinly disguised I'm happy to take as much money as OP needs in order to alleviate her misery, I wouldn't find it a burden at all

I'm sure there must be something you think is worthwhile pouring your money into. Have a look for small charities in sectors you care about and maybe local projects/animal rescues/youth centers/homeless shelters etc.

I see a lot of begs are out in force on this thread.

@toiletbrushholder

What a wonderful problem to have! Buy some land and rewild it 😊

Yey!!!

Protect it. Safe pensions/investment.
Keep it quiet.
Travel.
Charities.
Enjoy it.

Good for you OP!

@awesomekillick

I'm so sad that I can't even plan travel ideas cos I couldn't leave my cats :( how pitiful. Id love an around the world cruise but my poor cats can't be left for more than a few hours a day.

I like the idea of a charitable fund and I'll talk to my FA about that.

I also like the idea of supporting students. But my passion is young women who find themselves making bad, life changing decisions. I'd like to set up a refuge for young women fleeing home-based violence

Do this

Sounds like a good way to go

What a nice problem!
Surely you are taking financial advice.
I think it's £40k max you can put into pension. You can also backdate that into previous years, I'm not sure how many.
Buying a property for both children?
Accountant and financial advisor should get helping you pay the least tax, but also protect you for future years. And the business for years to come.

OP as a small business owner, I understand your situation. It sounds like you've put the work in though so you've definitely earned it. I'm still at the 'working myself into the ground whilst trying to raise a young family' phase... which during Covid has been hard work. Just sent off our accounts to the accountant and it's incredible we've stayed alive during the pandemic. We have epic amounts of debt and no way of paying it off.

But If at any time in the future I was fortunate to find myself in your shoes, I wouldn't be beating myself up or ashamed. Own it. And then work out how to use it to make you feel happy about it. Whether that's opening a shelter for women, supported housing, funding low income residences etc. There are plenty of ways to channel the money so it makes the maximum impact you want it to. Maybe a good first step is contacting a local charity who serves the part of society you're looking to help and see if there's a way you could work together. They'll have the know how and infrastructure in place and no doubt will be desperate for funds.

If MD has grown it do much has he been paid well? Max pension to him too?

Have a look at effective altruism - all about how to have the most impact with charity donations.

Your money will have so much more impact in the developing world

Financial security in old age first

Then do as my grandparents did and leave some in trust it wasn't a huge amount but it's really helped us at a time when we were struggling and helped their great grandchildren who they never meet

Then charities the problem is there is so many that you could get overwhelmed so I'd focus on only a couple to make a real difference.

@BagpussTheBold

I was in this situation 5 years ago - sold a company and received about £4m. It took me a while to get my head round it, but I had some excellent advice from others in the situation. Very few people know about my financial situation - a friend and a relative, basically, plus my financial advisor. I bought a house mortgage-free and the majority of my money is invested. I take up to a 4% return each year. I now work for a charity part time in a senior role. It’s not well paid, and I use my income to ‘pay’ myself enough to top it up to a monthly income similar to my social circle. (I top myself up to the equivalent to a £45,000 salary.) This means that I’m having the same lifestyle as my friends and family, which is more important to me than spending a lot of money but being alone. I aim to donate £50,000 per year, across 7 charities. I selected 7 themes that matter to me (eg mental health, early years education, dementia etc) and selected a charity in each theme to support with monthly donations. I check in on each charity annually and see whether I am happy to continue to support them. Giving money to individuals, including friends, is problematic, I’ve found. You have to give with them full understanding that they may not use the money in the way you think is sensible, or may use it in ways you think are actively harmful. You can find yourself tapped for money on a recurring basis, and people can phrase it in terms of asking for loans when realistically it needs to be a gift. I would be very cautious about giving money direct to individuals. I’ve had a couple of recent successes with Kickstarter, funding people I know of (but don’t have close relationships with) to do specific projects that I know they have the skills to achieve. Again, though, that’s money where I accept that it may go tits up and the money wasted. But most crucial of all is having a good financial advisor and a good relationship with them. Best of luck!

Wow!

This is one of the best things I've ever read on MN!

I run my own business, I get what you are saying. Have you already put away enough money to see you through the rest of your life? You say the business is your pension, which implies you can live off the regular dividends/monthly income it generates, rather than capital that has already transferred to you. That is a key issue and it is very different living off an income directly related to one company than living off a pension income. With a pension you no longer have to worry about the business, the ‘family’ of staff, etc. That MD may leave, that harmonious staff group may disintegrate and cause headaches. What happens if someone sued you for some huge professional failing? You may have retired but your personal responsibility will remain all the time you are dependent upon the income. So the most important thing is to make sure that you have ‘banked’ into a pension twice as much as your financial advisor says is needed. If that cash hasn’t been built up and invested already in a pot then get that done ASAP.
Most straightforward way will be to organise an MBO, allowing all your staff to benefit as well. Wealth mgmt advisors can organise funding to allow your employers to take on such an investment even if they don’t have money themselves. You can stay on as an advisor but lose the moral
Responsibility which will always be a tie around you (even if you’ve never experienced it to date). An MBO will leave you with an absolute block of cash after your pension is sorted. Then you have a clear idea of what you have available for ‘getting rid of’ and can distribute it if you wish and forget about it.
Personally, first thing I’d do is hire a house sitter to look after your pets and take a break from day to day life for an extended period before doing anything.

I would definitely be setting up something with my financial advisor to make sure I had a nice income for all the years until my death. Whatever that amount that you need is. Say £40k?

Hello everyone

We've had a number of reports from people concerned about this thread so, as we usually do in these circs, we're putting our heads round the door with some important reminders.

Right now we can't see any evidence to indicate that the OP isn't above board – if we did, we'd remove the thread straight away. But the truth is that, sadly, we at MNHQ can't know with 100% certainty that any poster is genuine, no matter who they are or how long they have been here. As frustrating as it is, we're not able to vouch for anyone here.

So we always ask users to remember that not everyone on the internet is who they say they are – and remind folk not to give OR take more to another poster, either financially (in cash or gifts) or emotionally (in time or care and support) than they'd be prepared to lose if things went wrong. We strongly advise against parting with any cash or giving away your personal details.

Sorry to hijack your thread briefly there, OP

Sort out your retirement. Get a will done. Pay off mortgage (if you have one). Make yourself financially secure for future.

And as others have said if you can help your employees do it. My firm gives children of staff money if they go to uni. £5k to help out a bit per year.

OP it's not clear if you still own, or have sold your business.

If you still own it and are wondering about succession planning /looking after your staff, you could consider setting up am Employee Ownership Trust. It's a way of transferring the control of the business to the staff in a tax efficient manner.

It doesn't mean you can't still run the business MD but you need to transfer a controlling share (51% - 100%).

You can choose to get paid fair market value for your shares. If you do, the way it works is that value is paid to you from surplus cash/profits, usually spread over a 5-7 year period. There is zero capital gains in the 'sale' of your shares in this way whereas normally it's 20% for gains in excess of the ER relief of 1 mil (or whatever dividend tax is to extract the profit if you weren't selling).

The staff can't get dividends from the business but can be awarded tax free bonuses of around 3.5k a year. They have more personal investment in the success of the business so employee owned businesses often grow faster.

I've seen mumsnet's update. Obviously I have no idea if OP is real but this is not as uncommon a situation as others may think. Businesses become successful and that can lead to sudden unexpected wealth for the founders.

I'm an accountant. You need a proper financial advice as to how to hand your wealth down. You can give as much as you like to charity. Do some research into causes local / important to you. Who do you sympathise with? Do you actually want to give money to help specific things ( hospital equipment say) or just donate large amounts to charities.

You need a tax adviser. I work for a mid tier firm and we charge a lot but our advice is good. Small accountants can be variable. Again do research, seek recommendations.

You could look into an employee ownership trust where you can give a proportion of the company away to the employees.

Plus I'm sure your dc would appreciate financial security and a nest egg for your dgc. Life is not getting any easier for the younger generation so think about young family members being able to afford a house or education in the future

OP PLEASE don't give in to the frankly embarrassing & impertinent (there are less polite words) begging posts here.

God I knew there would be people on here talking about how they are on their last tenner, been awake all night due to having no money, need IVF but cant afford it, jesus how beggy can you get?

OP tbh I do think it's a bit distasteful talking about how much you hate having lots of money.. I've genuinely been suicidal due to money worries in the past..you're in such a privileged position and it's just a shame you dont know or appreciate it.

@IntoAir

OP PLEASE don't give in to the frankly embarrassing & impertinent (there are less polite words) begging posts here.

What IntoAir said. How awful.

Yes, it's pretty distasteful but at least you've posted in the right section!

All the faux hand wringing is quite funny though. If you've been smart enough to make this money - or at least facilitate it being made - then I'm quite sure you're switched on enough to seek proper advice on how best to invest it.

FWIW, we use a wealth management firm, one of the decent ones. Why not do the same?

And don't encourage weird begging posters to PM you. What's wrong with you? Who knows who's the scammer eh - it could be them but equally, it could be you.