Million $ winners

Hi rosebug, I can fully understand how this sort of thing can happen - it's just too easy for it to hapen IMO and more likely to happen than not when someone who is unfamiliar with having lots of money suddenly comes by it. 12 million is a LOT of money - just putting it into a decent interest-bearing bank account would mean a life of luxury for the next few centuries. That's the way people SHOULD think of it - as CAPITAL to be PROTECTED. But they generally don't. Instead, they view it as MONEY to be SPENT. And spending only works one way in this world, unfortunately. Which is why the RICH get RICHER and the POOR get POORER - or if the poor momentarily get rich, it won't be too long before they're back to being poor again... I reckon it should be possible to survive indefinitely on a well-invested $200K. These gys you're talking about had 60 times that amount. Now THAT hurts...

This is total and complete stupidity actually firstly for them to waste that much money and now to get into debt to try and keep up with their so called friends. If they are genuine friends, they will not be concerned with how much money they have or do not have. It does sound to me like their aquaintances are totally lacking in self-esteem, if they are going this far. Actually it would have been about 10 - 12 years ago that when people won a substantial amount of money in Lotto here in Australia that the Lotteries Commission started offering free financial planning services for the winners. They were entitled to so many sessions and they could have them over an 18 month period. Of course after that time, the winners had to pay for the services if they wanted to retain them. Some people took them up on the offer, and they were the smart ones of course. The reason Lotto made this offer was because checks had shown that there were a lot of people like these ones you know rosebug. They had never had a bean before, but as soon as they won this enormous amount of money, they went and blew it. We know a couple who won a substantial amount of money and they took advantage of the lottery offer. Basically, they took over the mortgages of all of their children's houses but it was a loan from the parents (winners of the money), so the children still had to pay it back for so many years and the interest rate was something like 0.5%, but the money was owed. Eventually they "forgave" each of their children so much per year, within the allowable limit, but at the same time the "children" knew that their parents had to put it aside for their retirement. The only thing they spend on themselves was a dinner to celebrate their win plus the trip to Melbourne to see the financial planner. Oh and they also bought a new car because the one the had was about 15 years old. The new car was a standard Toyota Corona type one, which is not flash at all. Now they had their first appointment with the financial planner before they even received the money, so when the money came through they knew what was going where. Also other than those few things, they invested the lot for 6 months while they thought about what else to do. At the end of 6 months, they decided to get new curtains and carpets for their own house as they had been saving for that before the win. After the 6 months, 75% of the balance was reinvested and 25% used to buy some shares. At no time did they touch the principle and this is still the case. They still live in the same house that they have had for a very long time but are now driving a car that is 5 years old, although they had been thinking of getting a new one. He still has the same job as well, and is due to retire this year sometime. :) When we saw them last year they told us that they had recently been contacted by Tattersalls and had an interview with them. Just a follow-up and they were told by the financial people that less than 10% of the people who had won more than $5 million, had anything to show for it after 5 years. What a very depressing thought. Anyway our friends are very proud, as they still have the original win and the money from the investments goes to a charity bcause they don't need it. Most of the charities is local to where they live, i.e. keeping it in the community so to speak. I know if I won that amount of money, I would be doing what our friends did, except I wouldn't tell anyone that I had won the money. They said their only regret was that they found some friends weren't really genuine friends, because they expected to get a share of the money and that didn't happen of course. They had a lot of begging letters from people they knew as well as others they had never heard of before.

What a shame! We hear so much about that today, and I also say it's silly or stupid. Why wouldn't they put money aside for their retirement? They should work for a financial planner, like I do; or at least should have talked to one when they won all that money. I would never try to keep up with anyone, and especially not put myself in debt to do so.

come on no one can spend 12 million dollars just like that, did they never heard of saving for the rainy days and wined and dined everything away? Gosh how stupid people can be, money does turn your mind sometimes thsi just proves that.