Comments on: Avoiding a one-way ticket to misery …

By: Adrian

Adrian — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 00:12:05 +0000

@ Scott – I think that is the point: if you understand finance enough to deal with that kind of windfall, you are probably not the kind of person who would enter the lottery in the first place.

By: Scott

Scott — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 15:32:43 +0000

I completely agree with the article in that if you haven’t developed the money management skills to deal large sums of money like that, you will simply lose it, or worse yet, be harmed more by it(enter addiction or superfast toy injury of choice).

And I agree that most of the people winning the lottery are people that come from a background with little to no financial accumen, nor did they choose to develop the accumen later for themselves.

On the other hand, if a well-disciplined, well schooled, student of finance, investing and overall money stewardship, working on a plan toward his/her number by his/her date has this windfall, another outcome may present itself. But the fact is, those individuals are mostly not playing the lottery, but instead opting to ‘win’ their own lottery with a higher chance of success, just a few year longer down the road.

By: siliconprairie

siliconprairie — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 14:51:27 +0000

Steve makes a good point – even a basic education could help a lot. It seems that the default for a lot of people is “if I have a positive balance I can spend it”. Throw in a few unexpected surprises (or agreeing to things you don’t really understand) and it’s easy to overspend. Multiply that by 1000 and you have a problem.

By: Steve

Steve — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 02:14:43 +0000

Personally I think a bit of both here. Too Much Money too Soon. Plus Personally I wouldn’t fall into this trap, but the advice is really great for many Adrian. If ever I would receive a large payout of any kind, the largest part of that would instantly go to investments(I.E.) Real Estate ,Stocks My Biggest Mistake Early in Life was allowing My Wife to Handle our finances. She wasn’t read for that. And I don’t think others will handle your money as carefully as you would your own.So, I would never have any kind of Money managers. Too Many Celebs have gone Broke trusting their wealth to Money Managers.

By: Adrian

Adrian — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 02:00:35 +0000

@ SiliconPrairie – VERY insightful comment, Silicon … one worthy of further exploration!

In fact, let’s kick it off now; what do other readers think? Is it: (a) too much money too soon without the ‘training’? (b) the wrong mindset going in? (c) Both of the above? (d) Something else entirely???

By: siliconprairie

siliconprairie — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 21:46:27 +0000

The original forum post/article has a lot of interesting stories, but you have to wonder how much can really be blamed on the winning. Maybe it’s the fact that people who buy tickets frequently come from a certain mindset that doesn’t handle winning well, but most of the winners have to come from that pool of people.