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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

#231

Post by 42069 »

lucasmullens wrote: post #49
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.

> By far the most satisfying part was buying a house each for my friends and family. How did you decide who made the cut-off of being a "friend"? Seems like every acquaintance you ever had would suddenly become a fake friend if you were giving away free houses, no? Genuinely curious what that was like.

4 friends, minimum 20-30 year friendships, been either best man or groomsmen at each other's weddings, gone through lots together, been roommates, always been loyal and cool to each other.. not hard really

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

#232

Post by 42069 »

hncurious wrote: post #124
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.

I'm curious about how this works in practice. Did you just pick and buy houses for all of them? Or did they pick and you paid? If the latter, did you set some kind of price range? Also, do you worry about any future expectations they might have?

Just gave them enuff money for a decent house each. Some already had a house they liked and paid off the mortgage and had a bit left over.

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

#233

Post by yupper32 »

theandrewbailey wrote: post #228
yupper32 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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're focusing all on the math, but nothing on what it means to the person. Three questions: 1. How much are your monthly expenses? 2. How much of that is your mortgage payment? 3. If you had no payment, what would you do with that money? Let's take an example: 1. Monthly expenses are $10,000 a month. 2. Mortgage is $4,000 a month. 3. If you had an extra $4,000 a month, you could work part time and volunteer more at…

...what are you talking about?

You don't just "have an extra $4,000 a month" if you pay off your house. You lose all the money that's currently earning you 4-6%.

$4k/mon is probably a million dollar loan or so, right? Well 4-6% of a million dollars is $40,000-$60,000 per year. $3,333 - $5,000 per month.

You can just fund everything you said using the interest gained on the million dollars, while at the same time putting money towards paying off the house.

Of course, we're talking about a 2% rate. If it was 4+% then it might not be worth the risk.

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

#234

Post by TMWNN »

ghaff wrote: post #133
MattGaiser wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Say you became a consultant.

In technology or really professional fields more broadly, saying you're a consultant is probably the best way to obfuscate a lot of travel, sort of vague job duties, etc. especially with friends and family who never really understood what you were paid for anyway. Now, it will presumably be obvious that you now are comfortably well off but, so long as you don't buy that penthouse suite in Manhattan, they don't need t…

>In technology or really professional fields more broadly, saying you're a consultant is probably the best way to obfuscate a lot of travel, sort of vague job duties, etc. especially with friends and family who never really understood what you were paid for anyway.

This is also what young women just out of college, typically having played varsity sports, do after setting themselves up as a call girl working for a madam: They say they are working in consulting.

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

#235

Post by philwelch »

ghaff wrote: post #227
philwelch wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Word gets around and eventually you're going to get harassed, conned, and maybe even robbed.

I'll point out that, like it or not, the sort of money you're talking about is in the range of many CEOs or other senior execs of large US companies. Yes, some of these do have security services especially those at the high end of the range, but tens of millions of dollars pretty much puts you in the wealthy but not Uber-rich in the US.

Yeah, I think it’s the shape of the transition that makes the difference, and even then it can be weird.

If you’re an executive at a large company, you’ve spent so much time working on that that your social circle has changed. Even if you’re a startup founder, you’re not surrounded by the kids you went to high school with, you’re surrounded by enough other rich people that they aren’t gonna mooch off of you.

Winning the lottery is more like a rookie in a professional sports league signing their first contract. Sometimes that works out fine—they buy their mom a house and a new car—and sometimes they go broke supporting an entire entourage.

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

#236

Post by zozbot234 »

nazgulnarsil wrote: post #154
hanniabu wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone wanted to donate, which are the top organizations you'd recommend and which are the top ones you'd avoid given your knowledge on efficiency and grifting?

As other commenter mentioned, EA is a useful framework for thinking about giving (what is my dollar really buying and is that a step change in something like foundational research). But don't give to the mainstream EA causes, they already are sitting on billions. Find small groups of people doing speculative stuff and fund them for exploratory research.

> But don't give to the mainstream EA causes, they already are sitting on billions.

I have to partially disagree with this, because EA organizations do select causes with a decent amount of "room" for more funding. It hardly matters that they're getting billions, your money will still easily contribute 100× or plausibly 1000× to society-wide benefit compared to just spending it on yourself. Of course some people might be aware of some kind of neglected opportunity with even larger returns, but that's surely not that typical. And efforts like the Open Philanthropy Project exist to focus on higher-variance causes than what GiveWell deals with, that for this reason might not appeal to mainstream donors.

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

#237

Post by exolymph »

donretag wrote: post #156
edgyquant wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 still insist on paying everything, and they earned relatively little in their lives.

They get pleasure out of treating you <3 I hope you can find ways to return the favor and spoil them without embarrassing them.

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

#238

Post by throw123123123 »

dwaltrip wrote: post #52
lotsofpulp wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

Why? What is the consequences of having a resource and not spending it?

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

#239

Post by bradlys »

TheMerovingian wrote: post #67
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).

I don't think you need to win the lottery to be in this situation. Imagine having a cushy job in a FAANG company, where your base salary is probably more than what your parents make combined. It is in my case. I made the mistake of telling them (roughly) what I earn and it definitely has changed the way they interact with me. I get remarks about my 'wealth' and that I can easily drop $10K on something frivolous. I ge…

Meh. I have $1.5mm by 30. Make $400k/yr.

Parents at their peak earned maybe $60k together. Most of life they earned less and our house we got when growing up was only $120k. (They didn’t have a house until they were in their 40’s btw)

They have no envy. They still pay for dinner if I visit. You know why? Cause they know how hard I worked for it - they saw how many years I spent grinding. They’re proud more than envious by a large margin. They’ll brag to their peer group while still conveying that it wasn’t them that made it happen.

I think if you worked hard for it. I think if it’s apparent how much effort went in and that you’re not a person who is callous to others then people will treat you with respect.

This is one area of my life that does differ from some. I’m very upfront with how much I’ve struggled to get where I am. Extremely upfront. No one has a single ounce of envy for my life. I’ve professed many times that if I end up being a billionaire - I’d never relive my life even knowing I’d be a billionaire later because no amount of money will make up for the pain, suffering, and agony that I had to endure. Even now, it’s not like things are fantastic. I still don’t have what I want because what I want requires 10x what I have for SFBA. If I moved to BFE then it’d be no problem but then I wouldn’t have a job or a hope of a social life.

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

#240

Post by silicon2401 »

tasty_freeze wrote: post #222
silicon2401 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would have a very high opinion of him if he lived by his own standards. It's not special or rare; there are plenty of Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, (etc) ascetics who renounce everything from income all the way to even clothing altogether. Or if he acknowledged his own hypocrisy, like another philosopher (Diogenes? don't remember) who said something like "if you ask me directions, I'm not obligated to go down that wa…

In his book, "The Life You Can Save" (free to download as an audiobook or ebook from thelifeyoucansave.org) he does talk at length about the question of "how much is enough? how much is too much? what obligation do you have to your family and community vs helping distant strangers?" In Chapter 10 of that book, "A Realistic Standard" he brings it all home. He has no problem recognizing that the philosophically perfect…

> Do you still feel he is a hypocrite?

Unequivocally yes, because the bar he set was (apparently) saying that living in comfort beyond hunger and pain (or whatever the comment I responded to said) is "wrong". Random numbers don't change the fact that he's still living quite comfortably, which by his own standard is wrong. If he admitted to changing his views, or acknowledged his hypocrisy, then I'd think highly of him for his intellectual honesty. Otherwise I don't see much value in his points unless you happen to already agree with him, again, like the commenter I responded to originally

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