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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

#141

Post by bagacrap »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #18

What is the point of writing a letter like this to a money advice column? His only question is, "Was I wrong in not telling anyone about my winnings?" Surely by 67 you should understand that wrong is the eye of the beholder. Only you can answer whether you did right or wrong, although I will say that sending a letter to an advice column is a signal that you are not completely satisfied with your decision. Honestly th…

is there some age at which it stops feeling good to be told you did the right thing?

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

#142

Post by prewett »

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…

Think of spending $70k in Haiti (for example) as investing in the Society of Haiti, Inc.: what level of the problem would you like to address? Buying food will help people eat right now, but will not solve their long-term problem (unless it's truly just short-term). On the other hand, long-term thinking is unhelpful if they die of starvation first, so you need both. You could also invest through an organization that teaches Haitians skills that let them earn more than subsistence farming would. You could invest through an organization that (re)built homes and buildings. You could invest through an organization that drills wells to provide clean water. In a discussion a few weeks ago on Haiti here, one post compared the Dominican Republic and Haiti and noticed that Haitians were unwilling to learn (to overly summarize) and insisted on patterns of belief and thinking that keep them in poverty; you can invest through an organization that attempts to change culture. You could use the money to take six months off work (theoretically speaking) and volunteer in Haiti personally.

I think you'll be happier about your decision if you are investing in an area you really feel benefits, e.g. Haitians. I also think you'll be happier about the decision if you decide how much money you want to invest, rather than doing it out of guilt or from a reason-based ideological imperative.

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

#143

Post by samstave »

philwelch wrote: post #2

Classic Reddit thread: https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/24vzgl/you_just_... > Congratulations! You just won millions of dollars in the lottery! That's great. > Now you're fucked. > No really. > You are. > You're fucked. This guy did exactly the right thing.

There wasa reddit thread previously where a guy had 1,500 BTC in a wallet he couldnt recall the password for... I wrote to him calculating the value of the wallet at the time at $13 million.. I encouraged him to pay someone to help him crack the wallet and he agreed to give me 1% to assist him, which I did...

Then when he got the BTC, he ghosted.

If he succeeded, that BTC is $72 million today...

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

#144

Post by [deleted] »

stagger87 wrote: post #102
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No no, see, once you actually have money you stop caring about other people and just want to protect what you have. "Got mine, fuck you" and all that. At least, that's how it seems from all the advice that gets thrown around about people who suddenly come in to wealth. Weirdly no one gives advice related to the documented ways that people tend to change when they suddenly have much more money than the people around t…

> the documented ways that people tend to change when they suddenly have much more money than the people around them Please share said documents. (Genuinely)

[deleted]

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

#145

Post by ghaff »

cf100clunk wrote: post #44

This would never fly in Canada, where lottery winners must present themselves in person for wins, with publicity and all. Full names are given to the press, complete with home town and smiling face. Some winners have tried to skirt or directly challenge those regulations, to no avail. A winner cannot disappear behind an LLC or other apparatus. Frankly I'd be greatly worried about collecting a huge win from a Canadian…

I believe it's true to at least some degree of some US states as well. I assume this is a transparency thing so people know that the governor's brother didn't by "sheer chance" win the lottery.

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

#146

Post by ollifi »

In Finland tax records are public and papers make articles and search engines so anyone can look up how rich any person is (as long as they make more than 150k or so)

People complain and there has been talk and steps forward about changing the system but in the end I don’t think that much harm comes from it.

Ironically lottery winnings are tax free so they are the only people with stealth wealth.

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

#147

Post by bittercynic »

asciimov wrote: post #82

Way to humble brag about your winnings there fella. I'd want to know did he at least help his parents be more comfortable in their final years. Has he enjoyed the money at all; taken some trips or had some experiences that only money can buy you? It's fine if he didn't, but what's the point if you aren't enjoying it to some extent.

I think you can enjoy money without spending it. It's nice to think "Hey, that's pretty cool, and I could buy it if I wanted to."

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

#148

Post by yupper32 »

throwaway210222 wrote: post #72
technothrasher wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> why do I want to pay off my house? Because its the poor-man's version of F-You money. It instantly and dramatically lowers the monthly takings to have to make to keep your household going, and noticeably shifts the balance of power in all financial negotiations in your favour. Try it. Trust me.

I can't parse this comment. Shifts in power? Lowers the monthly takings? What?

If you expect to make 6-8% a year in the stock market and pay 2% in interest on a loan, you'd miss out on a lot of money paying it off.

You're essentially making another 4-6% a year on the amount of the loan. If that's a million dollar loan, that's $40-60k a year.

There are reasons not to do this, like if your interest rate was higher, or you want to be safer (it might not be 6-8% a year! You might even lose it all for some reason!), but I have no idea what your comment is saying.

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

#149

Post by andi999 »

alecst wrote: post #74
andi999 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much do you donate annually? 10 Million people donating 100$ per year is substantially more than he could ever donate.

Therefore he should not donate any? I don't see where to go from this position.

Everybody can choose to donate, nobody should donate (otherwise it is also not really a donation if you should). Singling out rich guys to donate who do not donate could actually be counterproductive (since people just feel the responsibility lies with the rich guys). Encouraging everybody to donate small amounts of money might lead to a better outcome.

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

#150

Post by murph-almighty »

edgyquant wrote: post #110
mbesto wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Word of advice: don't tell your family how much you make either. YMMV. I don't have any immediate family members who are at risk for monetary issues (luckily) and I have not had any issues with them knowing how much I earn. I'm also lucky that my family has been taught the value of a dollar since I was little. Not everyone has that advantage so I can definitely see why the default advice should be "don't tell them"…

Yeah I told my parents when I started making six figures and the only thing that changed was now my dad doesn’t pay for all my food when I’m visiting.

My parents will still try to pay for me sometimes, but my mom has venmo now so I can at least fire her whatever my costs were.

For all the weird shit I put up with in my family, at least money doesn't really come up as an issue in that sense.

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