I won Mega Millions, should I support my friends and relatives now? (siblings, retired)
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Hire an attorney familiar with trusts and limited liability corporations. If you choose to have an LLC - it would eliminate the gen pop from finding out who you are. Hire two financial advisors and between the three, they should be able to give you competent advice.
Wrong: LLC's are listed on the state's website, outlining exactly who owns it. Google would nail it for those that are not computer savvy.
Trusts are anonymous, especially when named something unrelated to you. John A. Williams Family trust isn't a good name for John Williams if he is trying to be anonymous. But if a guy has 2 kids named John and William then it would be a clever play on words!
I like the NWA trust (not google friendly due to the rap group named NWA) and NWA would be the acronym for "Not Working Anymore" for me!
"If I really won, being in my sixties, my wife and I don't have the energy or health to spend all that money the same way someone young could." A thought: charitable trust?
"So maybe I should: Finally give lots of money to my sister, who is in an out of homeless shelters because she does not want to work." Um, no. The want to work is the bit that is bothersome. Enlist her to do something that she likes to do and pay her a reasonable amount for the reward. But do not reward laziness/sloth.
"Give a guaranteed income to my much younger brothers, who all work in low wage unskilled labor jobs, and have been broke since they moved out of the house since they were 18." Yes, but moreso, teach them how to aspire to something better, and help them to better their positions. Minimum wage nor or low wages were meant to be a lifelong realities. Low wages also hurt families who do better by old-world middle class income. Poverty never really helped the majority of people who have been under its grip.
"Support some of my friends who would cut me off if I did not give them a lot of the money." These are the friends that no one needs. Cut them off.
"I would be rich, rich rich, don't they deserve a significant amount of the money because of their connection to me?" No. I still say that the moolah is yours. Do good deeds, but also make your good deeds smart deeds that will have generations of future benefit, not a one time benefit. Trusts. Trust me. : )
A man in Calgary, Alberta won $40 million in the Lotto Max this year (tax-free $ in Canada) and he's donating it all to cancer research because that's the disease that killed his wife.
If I really won, being in my sixties, my wife and I don't have the energy or health to spend all that money the same way someone young could. So maybe I should:
Finally give lots of money to my sister, who is in an out of homeless shelters because she does not want to work.
Give a guaranteed income to my much younger brothers, who all work in low wage unskilled labor jobs, and have been broke since they moved out of the house since they were 18.
Support some of my friends who would cut me off if I did not give them a lot of the money.
I would be rich, rich rich, don't they deserve a significant amount of the money because of their connection to me?
Excellent point - it's a shame that it's lost on so many in here.
If I won the lottery, I'd be glad that I don't have a social circle and I'm a bit of a recluse - I have a few close friends (who I'd be very good to) and keep family members I interact with to a minimum. I would hire a lawyer immediately and they'd have to get through him to me. That way no one - relatives, acquaintances or otherwise - begging for money could contact me directly.
Except for my brothers - I have two unmarried brothers, and we have an agreement: whoever wins a substantial amount of money in the lottery will buy our dream farm or country place - far away from everything and everybody. They are the only relatives on my side of the family really close to me, and I'd set them up for life so that they'd never have to work again. I'd give substantial amounts to my daughters and set up a college fund for my grandson. As for me, other than the big isolated country place, I don't want anything. I would give once and done monetary gifts to the few relatives on my side I communicate with sporadically (and a bit to the ones on DH's side I don't otherwise bother with), but I'd give a lot to charity, too.
Last edited by Mrs. Skeffington; 12-18-2013 at 03:17 AM..
I would not give anyone a large sum of money. I would buy a lot of land (I even know where I would buy) and I would have a house built for myself and each of my children to live in. I'd pay my bills of course, and I would buy 1 or 2 new cars. I'd take my kids on a couple of nice vacations a year, but otherwise they would support themselves. I'd make a Will out so that if I passed the money would be split between my children, but I wouldn't tell them I had done that.
I would assume that no matter how much I gave my friends and relatives it would never be enough in their eyes, and they would always be complaining that I did not give them enough and was too tight with my money.
If I told people I was spending money on things or travel and ended up spending money on things like first class air, 5 star hotels and fancy meals everyone would wonder how I was affording this and would try to get me to share the wealth. Lots of fake friends would come out of the wood work.
If I won the lottery big time (By that, I mean at least $100 million), I would probably kick a lump-sum payment to my mother, my in-laws, and my brothers and sister. Something like $250,000 each, done in a way that minimizes their taxes. That way, I could say that I did indeed share the wealth.
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