Does anyone remember this blog? Why it's Shades of Gray, the famous blog which started out quite funny, then got shit, then was almost completely forgotten about. Well I'm back for another attempt at turning this failed abortion into something resembling a good read. I was inspired to do so when my friend Simon asked me if I ever planned to do another entry, leaving me wondering why after a point I stopped trying with Shades of Gray. To put a long story short, the ideas were no longer forthcoming and so I abandoned it. However there has been occasional interest to see this blog come back, so it has, at least for one more entry.
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What would you do with a lottery win? I don't mean one of those ridiculous Euromillions wins of up to and over £100 million, I mean one of those ordinary, worthless Wednesday lottery wins of around £2 million. If it were me I'd take the boring route and bank it. I'd buy a reasonably sized yet modest house in a picturesque location, a classy car, and the rest would get banked. How very dull you may think. However, this is about the wisest thing you could do. The interest payments alone would keep you living in comfortable circumstances, although perhaps not lavish splendour. If you're content with that, which I would be, then great. That's you sorted for the rest of your life. No work, enough money to go on holiday a few times a year, unlimited time to devote to your hobbies or creative ambitions (well not unlimited time, since money won't prevent your inevitable death), enough money to keep your family doing well, and the list goes on. Furthermore, should anything go wrong, something that requires a lot of money to rectify, you have a huge reserve of cash in the bank with which you can avert disaster.
The big mistake too many lottery winners make is not realising that their money, while vast, is not inexhaustable. I was of course joking when I called £2 million pounds worthless earlier, as I do have a lot of respect for money. However, it is nonetheless true that £2 million is not the same amount of money it once was. The house I said I'd buy earlier would still likely set me back over £100,000, and could get closer to five times that amount depending on various factors. As such, that's a quarter of this Wednesday's jackpot. Add a car into that and a few treats for yourself and your loved ones, and what you're left with starts to resemble a rump of its former self. So bank that rump if you want to guarantee financial security.
Of course many people don't give a moment's thought when they recieve this money. Instead they buy a huge mansion, a house on the French Riviera, half a dozen top of the line sports cars, and some even try and get their greedy hands on a boat or a private jet. There's nothing wrong with those if you can afford them, but generally speaking a smaller lottery win will not adequately cover all those costs. These people may think they've managed it in terms of upfront costs, but it's the hidden costs which snooker them. What are they going to do when their £2 million has all gone, but the utility bills for their large mansion in Cheshire still need paid? Or what about fuel for all their cars? What happens when the roof starts severely leaking in their badly undermaintained highland retreat? Presumably they've jacked in their jobs at this point, leaving them with absolutely no income whatsoever. These are very often the pitfalls which end up reducing these lottery winners to a worse position financially than they were before they bought a ticket.
They say that a fool and his money are soon parted, and this is the unfortunate truth for many past lottery winners, often trying to make ends meet in the same shitty jobs they had before, only with the additional burden of bankruptcy on their shoulders, a situation that should have been entirely averted by their winnings. So my advice is to bank it after a few modest purchases, and enjoy your life however you see fit. Make your money work for you, or you'll soon be back to working for money.
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