What if you suddenly became very rich? - £££/$$$/€€€

What would you do if you suddenly got so much money, you could literally buy anything you wanted?

image - http://www.preowned.mclaren.com

Well for £750,000 you could by a McLaren Spider - this car is for sale, if you want to splash out.

Or how about a jet? 

or you could get yourself an awesome boat.

What would you do? 

Could you keep your feet on the ground if you became a big --- 

Seriously, is suddenly becoming rich beyond your dreams, good for you? Doing the research for this article I was surprised at the number of lives ruined by scooping a large jackpot. 

Take the woman who won £148,000,000 - She gave £20 million to her family, and now they don't speak to each other. And her parents have disowned her.

Then there's the young man who won £19,000,000 - He bought a fabulous house where he and his 'mates', lived the high-life, buying fast cars and having luxury holidays, until all the money was gone. His friends soon left. He had to move out of the house, by then an almost derelict hovel, and get a job working in an abattoir.

What about the elderly couple who won £12,000,000. They bought the house of their dreams, and promptly began giving £6 million away to good causes. As far as I know, they are still living happily in their home, and donating to good causes. So not every lottery story has a bad ending.

That said, statistically - 70% of lottery winners lose all their winnings within three years.

So what would you do? I'm thinking the smart money would be to not tell anyone. But how do you keep £100 million plus, suddenly appearing in your bank account a secret? 

Well for a start you don't put that amount of cash in your usual bank. Banks have been known to go bust. In the UK the cash in your bank is only insured for losses up to £85k. 

The alternative is to open a Swiss Bank account - 

Image by - Cartoonstock

Depending on how much money you want to invest in a Swiss Bank - A -you either go to Switzerland. B -the bank of your choice flies you to their office. Or C - if it's a seriously large amount of money you want to stuff into their hands, a representative will come to you. This last scenario is not a good idea if you happen to live in a semi-detached, and have neighbours who already know too much about you.

Then of course, you may not want to hide your millions. You might want to shout 'hey look at me I'm loaded with cash' - I wouldn't suggest this. Kidnappers like victims with cash. Makes getting a ransom a lot easier than if their intended victim has to liquidate assets in order to raise the ransom money. 

Or maybe you carry on as if nothing has happened. Like the man who won a million and didn't tell his wife. He made the guy from the lottery get all the paperwork done whilst she was out, so she wouldn't find out about the win. Why? Because he liked his life the way it was. And didn't want to lose what he already had. He was scared the money would change things. As far as he was concerned, it was enough to know they had the money, should they ever need it.

Clever? Stupid? Or unfair to deny his wife the pleasure of knowing he had won?

Me. I'm going with stupid on the selfish bastard level. How can you live with someone every day and keep a thing like that to yourself? What happens if you lose your job. Or get an unexpectedly large bill that ordinarily you wouldn't be able to afford to pay? How are you going to tell your partner that you have all that money in the bank, and have hidden it from them, without repercussions on your relationship? I don't think you can. Not only did he break trust with his wife, his action said, he didn't think she could handle the situation. Ergo - he didn't trust her. Would any woman forgive a man for doing what he did? I wouldn't. Would you?

But, if you are worried that the next time you have a flutter on the Lottery, you are risking a divorce, estrangement from your family or simply your happy well being, then don't be. The odds on winning a jackpot are not good. 

UK Lotto odds are  - 45,057,474 to 1.

Euromillions, 139,838,160 to 1.

Other nations lotteries are just as statistically depressing.

Still you know what they say, 'hey buy a ticket. what have you got to lose?'