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I won over $55M in the lottery, but didn’t tell my friends or family

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Re: I won over $55M in the lottery, but didn’t tell my friends or family

#51

Post by jessaustin »

Jxl180 wrote: post #31
post_break wrote: post #7

This is the right thing to do if you want to keep it and stay sane. If I won I'd delete all social networking, change my phone number, set up an LLC and make purchases through that. The quote of "I know that my parents would not have asked for a thing, but my sister would have told me to donate half to her church" makes my stomach turn.

Setting up an LLC to be used as your personal incognito identity is definitely illegal. LLCs are meant to be for operating a legitimate business, not a second personal identity.

IANAL, but this seems more theoretically correct than practically correct. The truly wealthy have hierarchies of LLCs for the purpose of tax "minimization".

Re: I won over $55M in the lottery, but didn’t tell my friends or family

#52

Post by dwaltrip »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #6
jnwatson wrote: post #3

Other than not donating any of it, he made the right call. The fact that the winner still has the money after 10 years is evidence he took the correct course.

I would not consider not donating to be wrong, or donating to necessarily be right.

If one is extraordinarily wealthy and never uses any of their resources to help others, that is rather fucked up in my opinion.

And I will even take a pretty broad view of “helping others”. But one should have put some real thought into it and sincerely believe in whatever approach they are taking.

Of course, you need to take of your own basic human needs as well. Which is sometimes easier said than done, even with immense wealth.

Re: I won over $55M in the lottery, but didn’t tell my friends or family

#53

Post by adventured »

ibaikov wrote: post #11
42069 wrote: post #5

I made ~50 million in crypto. By far the most satisfying part was buying a house each for my friends and family. Having a paid off house is really a massive stress reducer for most people which imho gives you the 90% of the financial freedom of being super wealthy.

Wonder if people like you think about funding startups that are not attractive to traditional investors. I'm talking about funding outsiders with something that doesn't sound very exciting, but might work out

> funding startups that are not attractive to traditional investors

It's a great way to lose a lot of money. It's why venture capitalists prefer to play with other people's money.

You better absolutely love playing god with start-ups, because there is a hellish nightmare that can go with allocating capital to high-risk new businesses, tracking everything, being responsible for it, enforcing legal agreements, dealing with lawyers and accountants, dealing with conflicts, watching people do incredibly stupid things with your money, and on and on and on it goes.

And you can't just hire people to entirely remove you from the annoying aspects, because that's an even faster way to lose a lot of money.

Re: I won over $55M in the lottery, but didn’t tell my friends or family

#54

Post by derekp7 »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #27
alecst wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's such a low bar to pass. The guy in the article is 67, makes 1MM+ in interest a year, and won't even consider telling his friends or family? Or donating a penny of it? Is there not room for a middle ground here? What about: "Hey, I made a million bucks in the lottery/stocks/crypto. I heard you're having a tough time, take this -- you don't owe me anything. Wishing you well, -Dave."

Psychologically, the middle ground turns out to be an unstable equilibrium. You can give them some money, but then they come back for more. If you say no, your family may find itself breaking apart unless you give up everything you got in the lottery

In that Reddit thread (assuming it is the one I'm thinking of) it seems there is also a high likelihood you get sued for giving people money because you didn't give them enough (under the same line of thought that if you regularly feed wild birds they will become dependent on your bird feeder and starve if you quit [don't know how true that is, but that is a common "wisdom"]). You also get harassed by local police, in addition to friends of your family breaking into your house/car.

Re: I won over $55M in the lottery, but didn’t tell my friends or family

#55

Post by speeder »

thepasswordis wrote: post #9

Not that much, but I did make a ton of money in crypto. Similar thing: bought a house, also bought myself a nice car. I didn't tell any of my friends, but did mistakenly tell one of my parents, who then felt it necessary to share this information with the rest of my family. If you make a bunch of money: I would highly recommend not telling people. The will treat you differently (not in a good way).

When I was right out of college, I got a contract.

The contract was for 1/3 of the wages a person with that job would get, and zero benefits!

Thing is... for many people in my family it was still the most money they had ever seen, after I told my parents what my wages were, soon the entire family knew, and people started to treat me in weird ways, like making a tons of "jokes" asking money.

Re: I won over $55M in the lottery, but didn’t tell my friends or family

#56

Post by Hamuko »

donmcronald wrote: post #16

> I also do not believe in loaning money to friends and relatives, no matter what. This guy sounds like a special kind of asshole. Who wins $55 million dollars and thinks about “loaning” money to their parents? Lol. I get why you wouldn’t want to tell anyone you won the lotto, but you can tell a little white lie and claim to be doing well career wise so you have an excuse to give your parents some money. This guy wan…

Unless his parents were about to be evicted due to payment delinquencies, why would he need to give or lend them money?

Re: I won over $55M in the lottery, but didn’t tell my friends or family

#57

Post by cf100clunk »

jnwatson wrote: post #33
lotsofpulp wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not consider not donating to be wrong, or donating to necessarily be right.

Bioethicist/philosopher Peter Singer disagrees. "if you are living comfortably while others are hungry or dying from easily preventable diseases, and you are doing nothing about it, there is something wrong with your behavior." [1] I'm inclined to agree with him. This is my current moral quandry, since my income is about to dramatically increase. I'm looking for a new car. I can pay in cash. I could pay $90K for a Po…

The donor's dilemma: to whom when so many are needy? I'd suggest donating to a reputable agreggator, such as the United Way or Red Cross.

Re: I won over $55M in the lottery, but didn’t tell my friends or family

#58

Post by zsmi »

technothrasher wrote: post #39
42069 wrote: post #5

I made ~50 million in crypto. By far the most satisfying part was buying a house each for my friends and family. Having a paid off house is really a massive stress reducer for most people which imho gives you the 90% of the financial freedom of being super wealthy.

At my current ~2% mortgage interest rate, why do I want to pay off my house? I make more putting that money into investments returning me much better than that. I don't think the super wealthy keep their money needlessly tied up in real estate like that.

The super wealthy keep their money tied up in lots of things, including real estate. It's called diversity and investing in lots of things is significantly easier when you're... super wealthy.

Re: I won over $55M in the lottery, but didn’t tell my friends or family

#59

Post by lazyeye »

donmcronald wrote: post #16

> I also do not believe in loaning money to friends and relatives, no matter what. This guy sounds like a special kind of asshole. Who wins $55 million dollars and thinks about “loaning” money to their parents? Lol. I get why you wouldn’t want to tell anyone you won the lotto, but you can tell a little white lie and claim to be doing well career wise so you have an excuse to give your parents some money. This guy wan…

Multiply this comment by x10000 and thats precisely what youll be dealing with as described exactly in this previously mentioned Reddit thread

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/24vzgl/you_just_...

Re: I won over $55M in the lottery, but didn’t tell my friends or family

#60

Post by abeppu »

Jxl180 wrote: post #31
post_break wrote: post #7

This is the right thing to do if you want to keep it and stay sane. If I won I'd delete all social networking, change my phone number, set up an LLC and make purchases through that. The quote of "I know that my parents would not have asked for a thing, but my sister would have told me to donate half to her church" makes my stomach turn.

Setting up an LLC to be used as your personal incognito identity is definitely illegal. LLCs are meant to be for operating a legitimate business, not a second personal identity.

Can you elaborate on this? I think perhaps there's a gap between what the structure is "meant to be for" (meant by who?) and what's legal.
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