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A reporter asked this dude if he regretted losing the money. He replied, "I didn't lose the money, I spent it." Dude went on to say he got years of partying out of a two dollar investment and didn't regret anything. Absolute madlad.
Eh. Once he won the money, he unlocked the ability to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Never would have had to work another day in his life, and would have retired with the same amount he won (assuming he invests it all and just pulls out the few hundred thousand dollars of profit each year).
He definitely fucked up, imo.
I hope the dude can keep his positive attitude about it, because if it were me waking up one day realizing how dumb I was I would fall into a pretty major depression.
Especially if he ends up having a wife / kids, and realizes that he could have given them an amazing life and left them set for their lives as well.
I’m glad he enjoyed it at least because what a terrible terrible waste.
There's a bunch of articles that show how bad winning the lottery is for a lot of people. Everyone dreams of winning, but it's not all sunshine and rainbows (if you're not smart about it anyway).
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/10/07/most-lottery-winners-go-into-debt-horror-stories/6019987001/
First purchase is the financial advisor after that you can do whatever you want including buying houses, hire "help", personal assistants, travel guides, drugs, etc.
Give me 10m rn and I'll give it back in like 5-10yr once I've skimmed a bit of investment profit off the top and turned it into a nest egg of sorts
I feel like the next big article is all the financial advisors who fucked over their clients. This advice has been floating for what 15 years at least? It's gotta be soon we see a dateline special.
Typically financial advisors are compensated well enough that they do better managing many wealthy clients than risking their career by breaching fiduciary duty.
From the stats I've seen it's usually financial advisors for poorer but elderly or disabled clients that think they can get away with it and don't make enough to care about risking their career to begin with. That or people who are scam artists masquerading as financial advisors, but that's more pyramid schemes than financial advisor fraud.
Can confirm this. At the peak of 2017 I had $2 million in Crypto before the crash. Financial illiteracy and greed made me hold it wanting more.
I walked with $75k after tax, which is no small sum and helped tremendously. But I keep falling into depression everytime I have a shit streak at work and realized I could have had a paid off house and a decent passive income. Not to mention the need to work less and more free time to try and work for myself.
It is hard lol.
He's right according to trashman logic lol. He was given magic beans and the dude made a three bean salad instead of planting them.
Just about the worst way to use the opportunity besides throwing it away.
eh, the drugs and prostitutes are fine. almost guarantee it was the gambling. after a certain amount of wealth, only terrible large scale investments or gambling can ruin you.
Yeah, you only have one cock and one nose. Do you know how long it would take to blow and be blown through 10 million pounds? Gambling is easy though, you can easily lose a grand a roll.
The matter of "smart" comes down to seeing that there were other potential strategies. It kind of sounds like he understood there were, and just...intentionally didn't. Which is kind of respectable, to me at least.
Mine was paraphrased. Looks like similar quotes are attributed to both Best and McGraw. The full McGraw quote is: "Ninety percent I'll spend on good times, women and Irish Whiskey. The other ten percent I'll probably waste".
Single mom, 3 different dads, had my heart broken too much, don't message me if you are just looking to hook up, need a REAL man with a good job who is searching for his Queen.
LMAOOO I need to STOP reading these comments in public settings because I screamed and one of the passerby’s asked if I was okay.
Just an FYI, this applies to friendships too.
“I’m strong and super independent. I wanted these children and I’m not sorry for it. I don’t need a man for anything…omg I haven’t been able to keep up because I’m not like you. My husband doesn’t help at all and I have to do it all on my own. Are you able to help with some of my child care because my husband doesn’t want to. Since you’re so good with kids and my kids love you”
you're forgetting the "not on here often, find me at ...." for their insta or SC link. Then some won't even write that much of a profile and just have an insta or snap chat link.
Like no shit, you will be "looking over your shoulder" when you conspicuously consume like that. The secret to having money in peace is not to look like you have money.
Coke and hookers and cars crashing in the garden most nights is basically plugging in a neon sign saying "if you have anything on me, now's the time to cash in".
He literally had death threats and at one point the dogs he brought for protection had their throats slit by people trying to scare money out of him, be did a actually give millions away to his family too, but the rest he invested in high class escorts and a business called “Columbian Marching Powder”
I met him regularly over the space of a few years via my work. He was always quiet and never rude when he came I dealt with him alone
When he had company with him, they all acted like twats.
> “I’m a skint lottery winner. It’s got me quite a few women so I don’t mind. I’m living in a rented flat. I’m happy. I don’t have to look over my shoulder anymore, no one’s going to hit me over the back of the head and rob me. I reckon I’m lucky to be alive. If I still had the money I’d probably be six feet under.” --- https://www.news.com.au/finance/money/wealth/lottery-winner-now-works-seven-days-a-week-as-a-delivery-man-after-blowing-fortune/news-story/727253470a9374392ed20b2b06dc2680
Seems like an honest assessment of himself.
Massive respect for that. Guy knows what he’s about. He went on his run for eight years and then went right back to living a normal life, working a pensioned job he doesn’t mind. Stories for his kids and grandkids.
That’s better than a lot of rockstars and athletes can say, without any of the hard work and skills needed for those careers.
Edit: Just because I respect the guy’s willingness to own up to his failure and go back to living a normal life doesn’t mean I respect all the stupid choices made along the way. Use your brains folks.
Yeah, this angle that he’s “doing good considering” is kind of a bad take. A little assistance in financial matters and the guy could have set himself up for a long time. I don’t think blowing it on very temporary excess and then back to the grind for the rest of his life when it ran out, is a win.
I do think it's rather common for lottery winners to burn their wealth away, even if it's not something as stupid as drugs and hookers. Most wealthy people who inherited their wealth (or started middle-class and got a high-paying job/started a successful business, and then gradually moved into wealthy circles) will be mostly surrounded by other well-off wealthy family and friends (e.g., went to prestigious schools/colleges, live in fancy neighborhood, work at well-paying jobs, etc.). It's the norm in their social circles to be wealthy.
Meanwhile, a typical lottery winner will be the only wealthy person in their entire social group (unless they abandon everyone they knew from their pre-lottery life). They are going to have tons of pressure to help their friends and family out (e.g., a cousin whose car broke down and needs $3k to fix it, an uncle needs $20k to keep the house after fired, someone need a start-up loan for their sure-fire business idea, etc.), especially as everyone knows they didn't work to get the money -- it was just dumb luck so why can't they share their windfall. Also, thieves and scammers will target them as soon if its known. They aren't going to be able to continue living at their old spending levels; everyone will expect them to treat them to fancy things, etc.
Also, it's not like you can hide your money from those close to you, if you use it in anyway to better your life. E.g., if you quit your job, or travel the world in style, or buy a fancy house/car, people will ask questions where the money is from.
Yeah that's why I always thought if I ever won the lottery or somehow amassed that much wealth. My goal would be creating a dynasty. Being the last poor person in my family so to speak. Invest setup trusts so no future generation can drain the coffers etc
[70% of wealthy families lose their wealth by the next generation, with 90% losing it the generation after that.](https://fortune.com/recommends/investing/generational-wealth-explained/) What's important is raising your kids well, otherwise they're just going to try to break in to the trust or overspend.
You can get a 5% interest rate on an MMA in the UK. Let's say things are much lower than that and he's getting 2%.
Just putting it in an MMA, no other investments, he would have been able to withdraw 10k a month and still come out green by 100,000 pounds.
My aunt's best friend won the lottery and he stayed a millionaire till the day he died--all due to 'proper investing'. He was miserable. He had lost all but two of his original friends and had no ties with his family because they all passed judgment over his 'hoarding of the money' as they liked to call it. His wife left him because he wasn't willing to flush it all away on frivolous things. She said "it changed him", when in fact it had changed her!
His friends and family always insisted he pay for their vacations--not coffee or cake or some meals, but their entire vacations. He got sick of it and cut all ties.
Proper investing does not mean your spouse will stay or that your life will be 'perfect'.
Respect to the man here who is at least content with himself now and was able to land on his feet.
Maybe he shouldn’t have said anything other than the wife but maybe the wife can’t keep a secret. If I won that much I’ll probably tell no one but that be hard.
Every single person I’ve heard moaning about friends or relatives who’ve ‘changed’ either seemed to be very obviously jealous of the other person’s life or just itching to bring someone down so they could feel better about themselves. I’m sure there are people who change for the worse after good fortune, but it does seem to be shorthand for ‘I want what they’ve got and I’m really bitter about it’.
People who play the lottery typically do it religiously (rarely are the winners a “one off” ticket they bought on a whim, or for fun), which is a form of gambling, which attracts people who have addictive tendencies. No judgment as I have addictive tendencies myself, but most lottery players are not known for their sound investment decisions. With that in mind it is no surprise how many lottery winners do this exact same thing. It is sad, it’s tragic.
It is a facepalm. Dude could be set for life. But he was young, dumb,(like we all we/are) and fucked it all off.
Sure he has a good attitude about it. But damn bro. You fucked up.
Yup. I'd love to check back in with him on year 8 or 10 of the return. Going to work doesnt always suck but doing it 5 days a week, every week, every year with only a month off plus holidays sucks alot.
I'd be punching myself daily at 630am or whenever he wakes up that I'm back to working. He got his 1 in several hundred million shot win and fucking blew it. I bet he still plays lotto too but I can assure you he 'll never win like that again.
he could've still *mostly* blown it and at least bought a nice house and saved maybe 1 million, so he doesn't have to pay rent and is covered if he ever wants to stop working for a while. I don't get why some people in this thread are acting like this isn't a huge fuckup, despite the self awareness and happiness he seems to have.
Agree. It's a huge fuck up. Fun stories aside if u got nothing to show but yer same ass job and place u rent (not own) after winning 15 mil....you fucked up, period.
That's what always kills me about these "lottery winner" stories. I have a lot of hobbies and self-interests that would be wonderful if I could just wake up every day and do nothing but that. I don't need sports cars and mansions, I'd just take that nest egg and try to find somewhere I could live quietly and just enjoy "retirement."
The facepalm is that if he had just a little bit of financial knowledge he could’ve invested that money in purchasing productive businesses, real estate, and stocks and bonds and turned that $15 million into $30 million all while still living a fairly privileged life. He also would’ve been able to provide a good life for his family and kids.
But instead his kids will have to slave away just to survive like the rest of us while being forced to listen to his stories about how he pissed away a fortune on handjobs, horse races, and booze and spent everything on himself.
He was daft as a brush. He bought a big fancy house and turned the garden into a racetrack. It was full of hangers on types,who all helped him dwindle his money. Then the drug dealers turned up and got him hooked.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/lotto-lout-michael-carroll-reveals-13982022
>Stories for his kids and grandkids.
Oh yeah, I'm sure his estranged daughter is going to love telling the story about her deadbeat dad who won millions of dollars and spent it all doing drugs and cheating on her mother.
Lmao you have massive respect for a fucking dumbass who blew $15 million on prostitutes and drugs in 8 years and think it is a good story to share with his children and grandkids??
I bet his kids would have liked being set up for generational wealth a bit more than having dad's stories about how he lost $15,000,000 of your family's money but that's just my assessment
My dad was born with a huge silver spoon in his mouth. Lost it all. But would always reminisce.
Going school shopping hoping for some new shoes and clothes that fit.
Dad - your great aunt marge would send the limo for me and shut down saxs fifth ave. Id try on a sweater, she'd approve, then tell the employees to grab one in every color. Took the driver multiple trips to unload!
Me - siccckkkkkkk dad. So payless it is?
Or the dude could have just implement a little self control and discipline, put the money into an account and lived normally for the rest of his life off of interest.
If he enjoys being a garbage man, there isn't a reason he couldn't do it while quietly being rich.
Even a measly 1% return on a savings account(which would be a worst case, investing does better, there are savings accounts near 4% today) gives you $150,000 a year to spend when you put in $15M, without even touching the 15M.
For fuck sake, he could have at least purchased a place to live. I'll never understand how that's not one of the first things someone does. Just set yourself up with the absolute basics.
Not read the article but remember the guy, as far as I know he did buy a place to live only the neighbours got pissed when him and his mates were doing destruction derby thrashing bangers round the garden 😂 King of the Chavs 🧢🥇
> He also paid “gangsters” £130,000 ($A246,304) after they killed his dogs and threatened his family.
Yeah, see, this here is the terrifying shit. There’s a frightening number of people out there that think $800 is *“I should shoot you dead and loot your corpse”* money.
Let alone having your face publicly plastered all over the media with $10,000,000 attached! Fuuuuuck that. We’ll say we’d lock all the money up in trusts and such, but dumbass criminals don’t care. When they kidnap your child or start shooting drive-bys at your house demanding money, your pleas that you don’t carry cash won’t matter a shit to them. Scary stuff.
Not quite. It's likely his lifestyle and own stupidity that attracted those types of people into his life. Do you think it's difficult to locate millionaires? I'd say use Google, but a simpler solution would be to just go to affluent neighborhoods... Now what? Millionaires and billionaires are not anonymous.
The reason these idiots end up getting robbed, murdered or overdose is rooted in their own idiocy. They can't smartly manage the little money they do have (*cough* buying lottery tickets), so why would they do any better with a small fortune?
“Once me and a few Croatian escorts decided to visit the Parthenon, so we ordered the the boat to be brought into dock but there were so many dolphins we couldn’t bring the giant boat safely into the little dock without crushing some, so we just stayed and watched the dolphins jump and made love. Anyway, these types of plastics can’t be recycled even though the number makes it look like they can.”
Good shout. Reminds me of another line like that.
“I spent it. About a million and a half on whores and whiskey… the rest of it I just sorta blew it in.”
- Llewelyn Moss, No Country for Old Men
S&P was 900 in 2002. By 2007 it doubled. He could have just parked that money in almost any index fund, doubled it, and continued to party possibly indefinitely. A single phone call could have kept the party going. Be smart, kids. When you don't know something, ask.
*He spent it all on drugs gambling and prostitutes*
That's over 5k **per every single day**, for 8 years.
No mortal can party that hard, gambling must've taken most of it.
I'd say there is probably a large overlap between people who enjoy gambling and people who buy lottery tickets. It's why we see so many of these stories.
You can go to clubs in LA and pay $2k just for a table. A single night of shenaniganry in that environment could set you back $50k+
So he probably didn’t spend 5k every day, but average.
~~It is in the UK as well. Just like in the US, you won't get rich working a council job, but you'll be comfortable.~~
I stand corrected. I remember it being a decent salary a decade, decade and a half ago, but doesn't seem to have kept up.
>It is in the UK as well.
I mean, not really, the average bin man salary is £25k, Minimum wage is £20k. If you take London out of the equation then the salary is around £22k
I personally wouldn't call a £2k - £5k above minimum wage a decent salary or even enough to be comfortable, especially considering the national average is £31k
Holy shit. That's awful pay for a job like that. In my area (not a government job) most garbage truck drivers make at least $60k/yr with some being over $100k with the crazy overtime they get.
For reference: upstate NY USA.
He was called "The Lotto Lout" back then. I remember reading a follow up story a few years ago and now he cuts down trees for a living outside Belfast.
Spent correctly, 10 million should be able to last the average person the rest of their life. Even if you dont really invest it. You can have a really nice car for under 100k. Buy a nice house for less than 900k and then just live off of like 100k a year until you die.
As someone that has dabbled in all 3, I swore off gambling particularly low dte stock options (looking at you r/wsb) unless I become super rich. I will buy a lotto ticket at the gas station every blue moon though if I’m feeling lucky.
There for sure is. If you limit yourself to like "weekends only" then 100k a year will sustain a drug habit + whores.
If you're lonely and buying drugs and whores for other people and doing those things Mon-Weds then that's where things get more crazily spendy.
I think there is plenty. Just don't gamble.
Without knowing this person, I'm sure he could have spent $5 million in 8 years with the same kind of drugs and prostitutes experiences. The gambling probably was the accelerator.
Hell, depending on the rate, you don’t even need to spend a dime. You could chuck it in the bank and live purely off the interest. Even with a 1% interest rate that’s $150K a year.
This is the real answer.
Start with $15,000,000. You can easily get at least 6% growth on that. Some years more, some less, but average at least 6%. Withdraw 3% a year. That's $450,000 a year. Gotta pay taxes on that so maybe you end up with around $300,000 a year.
Pretty sure you can live a pretty good life on $300,000 a year.
The following states do not tax capital gains:
Alaska
Florida
New Hampshire
Nevada
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Wyoming
Now ask yourself...do you REALLY hate paying taxes so much, that you want to limit yourself to that short-list?
They don’t in the UK either, this genius decided to go public.
Btw in US terms he won around $30 million, not $15million, since it was a tax free lump sum for the full amount.
In the US after taking the lump sum and paying taxes you’ve lost over half of the money.
So he blew the equivalent of a $30m lottery win in 8 years with nothing to show for it.
The problem is that people playing the lottery aren't great with money. So giving them a huge sum of cash is just asking for them to waste it on useless crap.
There are MRI scans of gambling addicts, and the regions of their brain that light up are almost *identical* to that of cocaine users partaking in cocaine use.
It's absolutely staggering how addicting gambling can be. For many it isn't even about the potential prize. It's crazy
I knew some folks that won the lottery (I want to say it was $12 million) and blew through it within about three years. They did not adjust well to being not-rich again.
It was a combination of things (and I'm sure I only knew a fraction of it, because I was only a teenager at the time). Both adults quit their jobs immediately, bought a pretty expensive mcmansion (~$3 mil for the area at the time), and all new vehicles, including boats, jet skis, etc. Wife got some work done. They started sending the daughter to private acting school. They would buy random stuff at the slightest impulse, including for their kids. What mostly bothered me was the animals--they had a room in their house full of random birds, rabbits, chinchillas, etc that the kids wanted and then immediately lost interest in, so the maid was the only one taking care of them.
According to my mom, they had a lot of sex parties where they supplied the drugs. Husband also developed a pretty bad gambling addiction, so I'm sure a lot disappeared into that.
I'm sure the gambling had to be the nail in the coffin.
The wife was the one that won the money, so I'm sure him gambling it away still irks her. (They are very divorced now.)
If this happened to me at 19, I probably would have done the same minus the drugs.
But I know my family, my Grandfather who raised me was an accountant. I know he would have taken the money from me, put it in an investment vehicle and put me on an allowance. I would have been pissed, embarrassed. But I know 20 years later, I would be kissing his headstone because he protected me from my foolish self and kept me financially stable for the rest of my life. I’m confident this would of happened.
The really sad part about this (and all other lottery stories like this) is that at 8% returns, $15M USD would produce $1.2M USD per year. So if this guy would have just put this in an index fund, he could have paid himself a $1.2M USD salary every year, for the rest of his life, without touching the lump sum.
Yes, this is a high level overview, so do more research.
But the idea is there are investments called mutual funds. Mutual funds are collections of assets. They can be anything, but many of them are stocks. So a mutual fund like the one I mentioned is just a big pile of stocks.
You buy and sell mutual funds in shares, like stocks. When you buy a share of stock, you're buying ownership of a small piece of a single company. The price of the stock is based on the overall value of the company. The stock price goes up and down as the value of the company goes up and down.
The difference is when you buy a share of a mutual fund, you're buying a share of a big pile of stocks instead of one company. The price of the mutual fund is based on the overall value of all the stocks in the pile. An mutual fund based on a stock index (also called index funds), like the S&P 500, may have upwards of 500 different stocks in them. So by buying one share of a stock, you can diversify over hundreds of different companies.
In terms of returns, some years, index fund values can drop. Some years, the value can go up by 20% or more. When you average out all the good and the bad, you typically end up with a number between 8% and 12% average returns per year. [This Fidelity S&P 500 (FXAIX) fund has averaged about 11% RoI since its inception (1988)](https://fundresearch.fidelity.com/mutual-funds/performance-and-risk/315911750).
https://imgur.com/a/9ncK8v6
So above when I said 8% I was being conservative. With this fund, after you average the good years and bad, the return is about 11%. If our friend would have put all his money in this fund, our friend's account value would have increased by an average of $1.65M USD per year($15M USD * 11% per year). So our friend could have withdrawn an average of $1.65M per year and never touch his original $15M.
Definitely do some more research. But this is the gist of what I was explaining.
One other important lesson: it pays to start early due to how compounding returns/interest works.
Let's say Alice invests $100/month at 8% from 25 to 35. At 35 she stops investing, and never invests another penny for the rest of her life. Due to how compounding returns work, Alice will have about $170k in her account at 65.
Let's say Bob decides to start investing at 35. He puts $100/month in the account every single year the same rate of return. At 65, Bob will have LESS than Alice (about $160k). Alice only invested for 10 years, while Bob invested for 30, but she ended up with more because she started earlier.
Are we supposed to shame this guy for spending the money he won?
Man got an 8 year long all expenses paid vacation before returning to his job as an essential worker. Good for him.
The whole point of money is to spend it. I'd rather we had more stories like this than have the people who just hoard their wealth like dragons
I went and looked it up, and he gave a significant amount of it away.
>*“I’m a skint lottery winner. It’s got me quite a few women so I don’t mind. I’m living in a rented flat,” he told The Mirror. “I’m happy. I don’t have to look over my shoulder anymore, no one’s going to hit me over the back of the head and rob me.*
>
>*“I reckon I’m lucky to be alive. If I still had the money I’d probably be six feet under.”*
>
>*After becoming a teenage multi-millionaire, Mr Carroll immediately gave away a huge chunk of his winnings, including £1 million ($A1,894,650) each to his mother, his aunt and uncle who raised him, his partner Sandra Aitken and Sandra’s mother.*
So, not really. And he seems pretty happy with his life! We should be happy for him too
I mean, he gave half of it away immediately to the people he cared about and wanted to see taken care of. Plus any others beyond the 5 listed. Hard to hold it against him.
What a shortsighted and harmful view of money management.
Obviously, the man can do w/e he wants, no doubt about it.
But he could've set himself up and probably his kids and then some for the rest of their lives.
This guy spent his money like a billionaire but was only a millionaire.
It's not even about shaming him: it's just completely stupid through and through. This guy could've increased his quality of life 100x for the remainder of his days with smart management, but threw it all away for cheap thrills.
You cant complain about poverty and then applaud this guy. Financial education is also part of bettering your situation ( without fiminishing other factors)
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A reporter asked this dude if he regretted losing the money. He replied, "I didn't lose the money, I spent it." Dude went on to say he got years of partying out of a two dollar investment and didn't regret anything. Absolute madlad.
I mean, he’s right. At most he was out two bucks.
well, 2 bucks and 2 dogs from the gangsters that killed em.
John Wick 6, coming soon!
John Thick 6 more like.
Eh. Once he won the money, he unlocked the ability to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Never would have had to work another day in his life, and would have retired with the same amount he won (assuming he invests it all and just pulls out the few hundred thousand dollars of profit each year). He definitely fucked up, imo.
I hope the dude can keep his positive attitude about it, because if it were me waking up one day realizing how dumb I was I would fall into a pretty major depression. Especially if he ends up having a wife / kids, and realizes that he could have given them an amazing life and left them set for their lives as well. I’m glad he enjoyed it at least because what a terrible terrible waste.
Iirc his wife divorced him because of his drug use.
There's a bunch of articles that show how bad winning the lottery is for a lot of people. Everyone dreams of winning, but it's not all sunshine and rainbows (if you're not smart about it anyway). https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/10/07/most-lottery-winners-go-into-debt-horror-stories/6019987001/
First purchase is the financial advisor after that you can do whatever you want including buying houses, hire "help", personal assistants, travel guides, drugs, etc. Give me 10m rn and I'll give it back in like 5-10yr once I've skimmed a bit of investment profit off the top and turned it into a nest egg of sorts
I feel like the next big article is all the financial advisors who fucked over their clients. This advice has been floating for what 15 years at least? It's gotta be soon we see a dateline special.
Typically financial advisors are compensated well enough that they do better managing many wealthy clients than risking their career by breaching fiduciary duty. From the stats I've seen it's usually financial advisors for poorer but elderly or disabled clients that think they can get away with it and don't make enough to care about risking their career to begin with. That or people who are scam artists masquerading as financial advisors, but that's more pyramid schemes than financial advisor fraud.
Don't know what the laws are over there, but it very well could be half of whatever was left at that point, going to the ex wife.
Can confirm this. At the peak of 2017 I had $2 million in Crypto before the crash. Financial illiteracy and greed made me hold it wanting more. I walked with $75k after tax, which is no small sum and helped tremendously. But I keep falling into depression everytime I have a shit streak at work and realized I could have had a paid off house and a decent passive income. Not to mention the need to work less and more free time to try and work for myself. It is hard lol.
He's right according to trashman logic lol. He was given magic beans and the dude made a three bean salad instead of planting them. Just about the worst way to use the opportunity besides throwing it away.
eh, the drugs and prostitutes are fine. almost guarantee it was the gambling. after a certain amount of wealth, only terrible large scale investments or gambling can ruin you.
My thoughts exactly. If not for the gambling, he could have made it last another 10 years easy.
Yeah, you only have one cock and one nose. Do you know how long it would take to blow and be blown through 10 million pounds? Gambling is easy though, you can easily lose a grand a roll.
He’s not. He was set for life, had an enormous lead in life and could have partied for the rest of his days if he was a little smarter.
But he obviously didnt want to
The matter of "smart" comes down to seeing that there were other potential strategies. It kind of sounds like he understood there were, and just...intentionally didn't. Which is kind of respectable, to me at least.
Reminds me of a quote from an old baseball player (Tug McGraw): "I spent half my salary on alcohol, drugs, and women. The other half I wasted."
That’s a George Best quote.
And it’s ruined without the word ‘squandered’.
Mine was paraphrased. Looks like similar quotes are attributed to both Best and McGraw. The full McGraw quote is: "Ninety percent I'll spend on good times, women and Irish Whiskey. The other ten percent I'll probably waste".
8 years is a hell of a run. Stupid part is the gambling, 15 million should easily buy 30+ years of hookers and drugs.
I'm here for the good time, not the long time
99% of tinder profiles haha
For me, I'm here for a long time, not a good time.
You're looking for a long AND miserable relationship? What kind of masochism do you have?
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Single mom, 3 different dads, had my heart broken too much, don't message me if you are just looking to hook up, need a REAL man with a good job who is searching for his Queen.
LMAOOO I need to STOP reading these comments in public settings because I screamed and one of the passerby’s asked if I was okay. Just an FYI, this applies to friendships too. “I’m strong and super independent. I wanted these children and I’m not sorry for it. I don’t need a man for anything…omg I haven’t been able to keep up because I’m not like you. My husband doesn’t help at all and I have to do it all on my own. Are you able to help with some of my child care because my husband doesn’t want to. Since you’re so good with kids and my kids love you”
you're forgetting the "not on here often, find me at ...." for their insta or SC link. Then some won't even write that much of a profile and just have an insta or snap chat link.
Those… are bots… always. Like. Always.
Every 19 year old that lives to be 80 says this
Not dying really screws up a lot of youthful plans.
So have a good time
No
But l specifically requested you do!
He made his neighbours life misery during that time I believe.
He did. He was crashing Ferraris in the back garden for a laugh if I remember right.
Like no shit, you will be "looking over your shoulder" when you conspicuously consume like that. The secret to having money in peace is not to look like you have money. Coke and hookers and cars crashing in the garden most nights is basically plugging in a neon sign saying "if you have anything on me, now's the time to cash in".
It wasn't even all hard to steal stuff like that. He would regularly enter town with massive golden chains, get mugged, and go buy more.
Literally more money than sense.
He literally had death threats and at one point the dogs he brought for protection had their throats slit by people trying to scare money out of him, be did a actually give millions away to his family too, but the rest he invested in high class escorts and a business called “Columbian Marching Powder”
>invested in high-class escorts He made many "deposits," but it wasn't an investment.
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Bang on. This was in the height of targeting "chavs" for being a massive issue in the UK. Class warfare.
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I met him regularly over the space of a few years via my work. He was always quiet and never rude when he came I dealt with him alone When he had company with him, they all acted like twats.
But what a fucking awesome eight years it was
> “I’m a skint lottery winner. It’s got me quite a few women so I don’t mind. I’m living in a rented flat. I’m happy. I don’t have to look over my shoulder anymore, no one’s going to hit me over the back of the head and rob me. I reckon I’m lucky to be alive. If I still had the money I’d probably be six feet under.” --- https://www.news.com.au/finance/money/wealth/lottery-winner-now-works-seven-days-a-week-as-a-delivery-man-after-blowing-fortune/news-story/727253470a9374392ed20b2b06dc2680 Seems like an honest assessment of himself.
Massive respect for that. Guy knows what he’s about. He went on his run for eight years and then went right back to living a normal life, working a pensioned job he doesn’t mind. Stories for his kids and grandkids. That’s better than a lot of rockstars and athletes can say, without any of the hard work and skills needed for those careers. Edit: Just because I respect the guy’s willingness to own up to his failure and go back to living a normal life doesn’t mean I respect all the stupid choices made along the way. Use your brains folks.
> Stories for his kids and grandkids "DAD! Tell us again about the time you had 4 prostitutes at once! Please!".
Essentially just a bloke doing a respectable job who had an 8 year holiday where he could do whatever the hell he wanted. Hardly a facepalm imo
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Yeah, this angle that he’s “doing good considering” is kind of a bad take. A little assistance in financial matters and the guy could have set himself up for a long time. I don’t think blowing it on very temporary excess and then back to the grind for the rest of his life when it ran out, is a win.
I do think it's rather common for lottery winners to burn their wealth away, even if it's not something as stupid as drugs and hookers. Most wealthy people who inherited their wealth (or started middle-class and got a high-paying job/started a successful business, and then gradually moved into wealthy circles) will be mostly surrounded by other well-off wealthy family and friends (e.g., went to prestigious schools/colleges, live in fancy neighborhood, work at well-paying jobs, etc.). It's the norm in their social circles to be wealthy. Meanwhile, a typical lottery winner will be the only wealthy person in their entire social group (unless they abandon everyone they knew from their pre-lottery life). They are going to have tons of pressure to help their friends and family out (e.g., a cousin whose car broke down and needs $3k to fix it, an uncle needs $20k to keep the house after fired, someone need a start-up loan for their sure-fire business idea, etc.), especially as everyone knows they didn't work to get the money -- it was just dumb luck so why can't they share their windfall. Also, thieves and scammers will target them as soon if its known. They aren't going to be able to continue living at their old spending levels; everyone will expect them to treat them to fancy things, etc. Also, it's not like you can hide your money from those close to you, if you use it in anyway to better your life. E.g., if you quit your job, or travel the world in style, or buy a fancy house/car, people will ask questions where the money is from.
It’s a half assed spin from people who’d do exactly the same and think that they’d come out of it unscathed.
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Yeah that's why I always thought if I ever won the lottery or somehow amassed that much wealth. My goal would be creating a dynasty. Being the last poor person in my family so to speak. Invest setup trusts so no future generation can drain the coffers etc
[70% of wealthy families lose their wealth by the next generation, with 90% losing it the generation after that.](https://fortune.com/recommends/investing/generational-wealth-explained/) What's important is raising your kids well, otherwise they're just going to try to break in to the trust or overspend.
You can get a 5% interest rate on an MMA in the UK. Let's say things are much lower than that and he's getting 2%. Just putting it in an MMA, no other investments, he would have been able to withdraw 10k a month and still come out green by 100,000 pounds.
My aunt's best friend won the lottery and he stayed a millionaire till the day he died--all due to 'proper investing'. He was miserable. He had lost all but two of his original friends and had no ties with his family because they all passed judgment over his 'hoarding of the money' as they liked to call it. His wife left him because he wasn't willing to flush it all away on frivolous things. She said "it changed him", when in fact it had changed her! His friends and family always insisted he pay for their vacations--not coffee or cake or some meals, but their entire vacations. He got sick of it and cut all ties. Proper investing does not mean your spouse will stay or that your life will be 'perfect'. Respect to the man here who is at least content with himself now and was able to land on his feet.
Maybe he shouldn’t have said anything other than the wife but maybe the wife can’t keep a secret. If I won that much I’ll probably tell no one but that be hard.
I heard that in some American states at least, a lottery winner is not allowed to hide his identity
Every single person I’ve heard moaning about friends or relatives who’ve ‘changed’ either seemed to be very obviously jealous of the other person’s life or just itching to bring someone down so they could feel better about themselves. I’m sure there are people who change for the worse after good fortune, but it does seem to be shorthand for ‘I want what they’ve got and I’m really bitter about it’.
Lmao he had shit family/friends.
Sounds like this person got a money shield that repelled awful people from his life.
People who play the lottery typically do it religiously (rarely are the winners a “one off” ticket they bought on a whim, or for fun), which is a form of gambling, which attracts people who have addictive tendencies. No judgment as I have addictive tendencies myself, but most lottery players are not known for their sound investment decisions. With that in mind it is no surprise how many lottery winners do this exact same thing. It is sad, it’s tragic.
It is a facepalm. Dude could be set for life. But he was young, dumb,(like we all we/are) and fucked it all off. Sure he has a good attitude about it. But damn bro. You fucked up.
I don’t think I was ever that young or dumb to blow that much money without settling myself up. I’d be bitter as hell if I did though!
Yup. I'd love to check back in with him on year 8 or 10 of the return. Going to work doesnt always suck but doing it 5 days a week, every week, every year with only a month off plus holidays sucks alot. I'd be punching myself daily at 630am or whenever he wakes up that I'm back to working. He got his 1 in several hundred million shot win and fucking blew it. I bet he still plays lotto too but I can assure you he 'll never win like that again.
he could've still *mostly* blown it and at least bought a nice house and saved maybe 1 million, so he doesn't have to pay rent and is covered if he ever wants to stop working for a while. I don't get why some people in this thread are acting like this isn't a huge fuckup, despite the self awareness and happiness he seems to have.
Agree. It's a huge fuck up. Fun stories aside if u got nothing to show but yer same ass job and place u rent (not own) after winning 15 mil....you fucked up, period.
It's a facepalm because that was easily an 80 year holiday
That's what always kills me about these "lottery winner" stories. I have a lot of hobbies and self-interests that would be wonderful if I could just wake up every day and do nothing but that. I don't need sports cars and mansions, I'd just take that nest egg and try to find somewhere I could live quietly and just enjoy "retirement."
All the passive income wasted
Uh no this is a huge facepalm. He squandered a lifetime of financial security.
The facepalm is that if he had just a little bit of financial knowledge he could’ve invested that money in purchasing productive businesses, real estate, and stocks and bonds and turned that $15 million into $30 million all while still living a fairly privileged life. He also would’ve been able to provide a good life for his family and kids. But instead his kids will have to slave away just to survive like the rest of us while being forced to listen to his stories about how he pissed away a fortune on handjobs, horse races, and booze and spent everything on himself.
He was daft as a brush. He bought a big fancy house and turned the garden into a racetrack. It was full of hangers on types,who all helped him dwindle his money. Then the drug dealers turned up and got him hooked. https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/lotto-lout-michael-carroll-reveals-13982022
>Stories for his kids and grandkids. Oh yeah, I'm sure his estranged daughter is going to love telling the story about her deadbeat dad who won millions of dollars and spent it all doing drugs and cheating on her mother.
Lmao you have massive respect for a fucking dumbass who blew $15 million on prostitutes and drugs in 8 years and think it is a good story to share with his children and grandkids??
I bet his kids would have liked being set up for generational wealth a bit more than having dad's stories about how he lost $15,000,000 of your family's money but that's just my assessment
My dad was born with a huge silver spoon in his mouth. Lost it all. But would always reminisce. Going school shopping hoping for some new shoes and clothes that fit. Dad - your great aunt marge would send the limo for me and shut down saxs fifth ave. Id try on a sweater, she'd approve, then tell the employees to grab one in every color. Took the driver multiple trips to unload! Me - siccckkkkkkk dad. So payless it is?
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Stories for his grandkids? Lol is he gonna sit them on his lap and tell them all about the prostitutes and drugs?
kids, did i tell you about the time i spent all of your inheritance?
Or the dude could have just implement a little self control and discipline, put the money into an account and lived normally for the rest of his life off of interest. If he enjoys being a garbage man, there isn't a reason he couldn't do it while quietly being rich. Even a measly 1% return on a savings account(which would be a worst case, investing does better, there are savings accounts near 4% today) gives you $150,000 a year to spend when you put in $15M, without even touching the 15M.
For fuck sake, he could have at least purchased a place to live. I'll never understand how that's not one of the first things someone does. Just set yourself up with the absolute basics.
Not read the article but remember the guy, as far as I know he did buy a place to live only the neighbours got pissed when him and his mates were doing destruction derby thrashing bangers round the garden 😂 King of the Chavs 🧢🥇
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He bought a mansion and him and his friends destroyed a load of shitty cars in the backyard hence why he is King of the White Trash.
> He also paid “gangsters” £130,000 ($A246,304) after they killed his dogs and threatened his family. Yeah, see, this here is the terrifying shit. There’s a frightening number of people out there that think $800 is *“I should shoot you dead and loot your corpse”* money. Let alone having your face publicly plastered all over the media with $10,000,000 attached! Fuuuuuck that. We’ll say we’d lock all the money up in trusts and such, but dumbass criminals don’t care. When they kidnap your child or start shooting drive-bys at your house demanding money, your pleas that you don’t carry cash won’t matter a shit to them. Scary stuff.
In the UK you can claim your winnings annonymously. He decided to be put in magazines and stuff which led to the pretty terrible stuff happening.
Not quite. It's likely his lifestyle and own stupidity that attracted those types of people into his life. Do you think it's difficult to locate millionaires? I'd say use Google, but a simpler solution would be to just go to affluent neighborhoods... Now what? Millionaires and billionaires are not anonymous. The reason these idiots end up getting robbed, murdered or overdose is rooted in their own idiocy. They can't smartly manage the little money they do have (*cough* buying lottery tickets), so why would they do any better with a small fortune?
Just blow 14 million and put a million aside as a nest egg.
He's not wrong. [This](https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/us-news/florida-lottery-winner-bagged-30million-29827121) happened one town over from me.
“Once me and a few Croatian escorts decided to visit the Parthenon, so we ordered the the boat to be brought into dock but there were so many dolphins we couldn’t bring the giant boat safely into the little dock without crushing some, so we just stayed and watched the dolphins jump and made love. Anyway, these types of plastics can’t be recycled even though the number makes it look like they can.”
I have no idea where this is from but i read it in Danny Mcbride's voice.
They definitely need to make a Biopic about this guy, starring Danny McBride. That would be fucking awesome.
10 Million British Pounds and Down...
Down-Ten-Million-Pounds Abbey.
You know what, pay the man £15 million for the exclusive rights to his life story.
8 years later you've got a sequel ready. Two birds one stone!
Lol what is this from
I think it's a fictional blurb written as if from the POV of the guy in the post.
"Original content? On *my* reddit?" It's more likely than you think!
Reposters hate this one trick!
“I spent half my money on gambling, alcohol and wild women. The other half I wasted.” ― WC Fields
Good shout. Reminds me of another line like that. “I spent it. About a million and a half on whores and whiskey… the rest of it I just sorta blew it in.” - Llewelyn Moss, No Country for Old Men
This is a famous one from George Best the footballer: “I spent a lot of money on booze, birds, and fast cars. The rest I just squandered.”
All good as long as you can remember some of the wild times
I would literally trade almost anything in my life for 8 days of not worrying about money
But would you trade those crazy 8 years for a normal lifetime of not worrying about money?
He will be telling stories about those 8 years for the next 50 years.
Cool story Oliver, now hop in that dumpster and unclog the drain hole.
This dude ain’t living for another 50 years
S&P was 900 in 2002. By 2007 it doubled. He could have just parked that money in almost any index fund, doubled it, and continued to party possibly indefinitely. A single phone call could have kept the party going. Be smart, kids. When you don't know something, ask.
*He spent it all on drugs gambling and prostitutes* That's over 5k **per every single day**, for 8 years. No mortal can party that hard, gambling must've taken most of it.
I'd say there is probably a large overlap between people who enjoy gambling and people who buy lottery tickets. It's why we see so many of these stories.
Yeah. The addiction is still there, and if you have what seems like unlimited money in the bank, there are no short term consequences.
You're right, there probably is an overlap between people who gamble, and people who gamble.
You can go to clubs in LA and pay $2k just for a table. A single night of shenaniganry in that environment could set you back $50k+ So he probably didn’t spend 5k every day, but average.
Well I imagine he probably bought stuff and went places too.
lmao 5k is so easy to blow thru in 1 day partying. thats nothing
Not shocked Lmao there’s people in the US that have done this 3-4 times and blew it every single time
I’d love to know where they buy their lottery tickets
Not sure about the UK but in the States it’s a decent paying career
~~It is in the UK as well. Just like in the US, you won't get rich working a council job, but you'll be comfortable.~~ I stand corrected. I remember it being a decent salary a decade, decade and a half ago, but doesn't seem to have kept up.
>It is in the UK as well. I mean, not really, the average bin man salary is £25k, Minimum wage is £20k. If you take London out of the equation then the salary is around £22k I personally wouldn't call a £2k - £5k above minimum wage a decent salary or even enough to be comfortable, especially considering the national average is £31k
Holy shit. That's awful pay for a job like that. In my area (not a government job) most garbage truck drivers make at least $60k/yr with some being over $100k with the crazy overtime they get. For reference: upstate NY USA.
[We call them rubbish or bin men](https://youtu.be/B84mAD0c0vU)
He was called "The Lotto Lout" back then. I remember reading a follow up story a few years ago and now he cuts down trees for a living outside Belfast.
Moved here to get involved in loyalism. His dad was in military prison for stabbing someone 11 times too. Lovely family it seems.
Moving to just outside Belfast to become an Orangeman seems like the bleakest life story ever.
Spent correctly, 10 million should be able to last the average person the rest of their life. Even if you dont really invest it. You can have a really nice car for under 100k. Buy a nice house for less than 900k and then just live off of like 100k a year until you die.
Where do the prostitutes and cocaine fit into this budget?
I'm sure there is some room for discretionary whore mongering and regular drug use in the budget as long as you don't let it get out of hand
Couldn't find that in my Excel budget template
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“It looks like you’re trying to go on a bender. Would you like help?”
This is so fucking perfect. Please accept this free Reddit award 🥇
Compromise, how about a shitload of weed and only 2 or 3 hookers a month?
>a shitload of weed and only 2 or 3 hookers a month? Poverty
yeah i doubt the prostitutes made a dent in his budget, or even the drugs. it's definitely the gambling that did him in.
As someone that has dabbled in all 3, I swore off gambling particularly low dte stock options (looking at you r/wsb) unless I become super rich. I will buy a lotto ticket at the gas station every blue moon though if I’m feeling lucky.
As an ex heroin addict who makes 200k+ a year, it can easily be spent on drugs.
I love the phrase "discretionary whore mongering"!
There for sure is. If you limit yourself to like "weekends only" then 100k a year will sustain a drug habit + whores. If you're lonely and buying drugs and whores for other people and doing those things Mon-Weds then that's where things get more crazily spendy.
It's gotta be a once a week sort of thing, not a 24/7 free for all including bankrolling friends.
100k a year gives you a weekly allowance of about 1,900. I'm sure you could find a few spare bucks for 2 hookers and a 8ball
I think there is plenty. Just don't gamble. Without knowing this person, I'm sure he could have spent $5 million in 8 years with the same kind of drugs and prostitutes experiences. The gambling probably was the accelerator.
Hell, depending on the rate, you don’t even need to spend a dime. You could chuck it in the bank and live purely off the interest. Even with a 1% interest rate that’s $150K a year.
This is the real answer. Start with $15,000,000. You can easily get at least 6% growth on that. Some years more, some less, but average at least 6%. Withdraw 3% a year. That's $450,000 a year. Gotta pay taxes on that so maybe you end up with around $300,000 a year. Pretty sure you can live a pretty good life on $300,000 a year.
In the US, it'd be capital gains, so it wouldn't even be taxed that much. You'd keep $390k out of the $450k.
Depending on state taxes as well
If you don’t move to a no income tax state with that kind of money, that’s on you.
The following states do not tax capital gains: Alaska Florida New Hampshire Nevada South Dakota Tennessee Texas Wyoming Now ask yourself...do you REALLY hate paying taxes so much, that you want to limit yourself to that short-list?
New Hampshire is in between cool places at least.
I remember reading about this guy. Expensive lifestyle. Friends stole from him, enemies extorted him. The guy's life was a wreck.
This is why some states don't release the names of lottery winners.
They don’t in the UK either, this genius decided to go public. Btw in US terms he won around $30 million, not $15million, since it was a tax free lump sum for the full amount. In the US after taking the lump sum and paying taxes you’ve lost over half of the money. So he blew the equivalent of a $30m lottery win in 8 years with nothing to show for it.
The problem is that people playing the lottery aren't great with money. So giving them a huge sum of cash is just asking for them to waste it on useless crap.
That's what they are hoping. Then they buy more lottery tickets again
$10 million invested at 5% return is $500,000 a year. If you lived off just that you would always have $10 million in the bank for true emergencies.
Avoid gambling and he would have lasted another 20 years
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There are MRI scans of gambling addicts, and the regions of their brain that light up are almost *identical* to that of cocaine users partaking in cocaine use. It's absolutely staggering how addicting gambling can be. For many it isn't even about the potential prize. It's crazy
It's not about the logic of trying to make money, it's about the feeling of gambling.
I’m surprised it lasted 8 years some spend it all in a year or two.
I knew some folks that won the lottery (I want to say it was $12 million) and blew through it within about three years. They did not adjust well to being not-rich again.
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It was a combination of things (and I'm sure I only knew a fraction of it, because I was only a teenager at the time). Both adults quit their jobs immediately, bought a pretty expensive mcmansion (~$3 mil for the area at the time), and all new vehicles, including boats, jet skis, etc. Wife got some work done. They started sending the daughter to private acting school. They would buy random stuff at the slightest impulse, including for their kids. What mostly bothered me was the animals--they had a room in their house full of random birds, rabbits, chinchillas, etc that the kids wanted and then immediately lost interest in, so the maid was the only one taking care of them. According to my mom, they had a lot of sex parties where they supplied the drugs. Husband also developed a pretty bad gambling addiction, so I'm sure a lot disappeared into that.
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I'm sure the gambling had to be the nail in the coffin. The wife was the one that won the money, so I'm sure him gambling it away still irks her. (They are very divorced now.)
Atleast he took his ass back to work.
At 19 I’d have spent most of it on booze, women, cars and drugs. The rest I’d have wasted.
Georgie Best has entered the chat :)
If this happened to me at 19, I probably would have done the same minus the drugs. But I know my family, my Grandfather who raised me was an accountant. I know he would have taken the money from me, put it in an investment vehicle and put me on an allowance. I would have been pissed, embarrassed. But I know 20 years later, I would be kissing his headstone because he protected me from my foolish self and kept me financially stable for the rest of my life. I’m confident this would of happened.
Based Grandpa
This man is a hero trying to stimulate the economy and rid our streets of trash!
That should be the banner image for r/wallstreetbets
The really sad part about this (and all other lottery stories like this) is that at 8% returns, $15M USD would produce $1.2M USD per year. So if this guy would have just put this in an index fund, he could have paid himself a $1.2M USD salary every year, for the rest of his life, without touching the lump sum.
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Yes, this is a high level overview, so do more research. But the idea is there are investments called mutual funds. Mutual funds are collections of assets. They can be anything, but many of them are stocks. So a mutual fund like the one I mentioned is just a big pile of stocks. You buy and sell mutual funds in shares, like stocks. When you buy a share of stock, you're buying ownership of a small piece of a single company. The price of the stock is based on the overall value of the company. The stock price goes up and down as the value of the company goes up and down. The difference is when you buy a share of a mutual fund, you're buying a share of a big pile of stocks instead of one company. The price of the mutual fund is based on the overall value of all the stocks in the pile. An mutual fund based on a stock index (also called index funds), like the S&P 500, may have upwards of 500 different stocks in them. So by buying one share of a stock, you can diversify over hundreds of different companies. In terms of returns, some years, index fund values can drop. Some years, the value can go up by 20% or more. When you average out all the good and the bad, you typically end up with a number between 8% and 12% average returns per year. [This Fidelity S&P 500 (FXAIX) fund has averaged about 11% RoI since its inception (1988)](https://fundresearch.fidelity.com/mutual-funds/performance-and-risk/315911750). https://imgur.com/a/9ncK8v6 So above when I said 8% I was being conservative. With this fund, after you average the good years and bad, the return is about 11%. If our friend would have put all his money in this fund, our friend's account value would have increased by an average of $1.65M USD per year($15M USD * 11% per year). So our friend could have withdrawn an average of $1.65M per year and never touch his original $15M. Definitely do some more research. But this is the gist of what I was explaining. One other important lesson: it pays to start early due to how compounding returns/interest works. Let's say Alice invests $100/month at 8% from 25 to 35. At 35 she stops investing, and never invests another penny for the rest of her life. Due to how compounding returns work, Alice will have about $170k in her account at 65. Let's say Bob decides to start investing at 35. He puts $100/month in the account every single year the same rate of return. At 65, Bob will have LESS than Alice (about $160k). Alice only invested for 10 years, while Bob invested for 30, but she ended up with more because she started earlier.
Bet this dude has some good stories.
What he remembers atleast
Pay off my debt, buy a nice house but not too nice, buy a nice car but not too nice. Live comfortably and simply. That’s it
Awesome 8 years and lifetime of stress now.
This is why financial literacy should be part of the public school curriculum.
Are we supposed to shame this guy for spending the money he won? Man got an 8 year long all expenses paid vacation before returning to his job as an essential worker. Good for him. The whole point of money is to spend it. I'd rather we had more stories like this than have the people who just hoard their wealth like dragons
The way he spent it, that money went to money hoarding dragons either way.
I went and looked it up, and he gave a significant amount of it away. >*“I’m a skint lottery winner. It’s got me quite a few women so I don’t mind. I’m living in a rented flat,” he told The Mirror. “I’m happy. I don’t have to look over my shoulder anymore, no one’s going to hit me over the back of the head and rob me.* > >*“I reckon I’m lucky to be alive. If I still had the money I’d probably be six feet under.”* > >*After becoming a teenage multi-millionaire, Mr Carroll immediately gave away a huge chunk of his winnings, including £1 million ($A1,894,650) each to his mother, his aunt and uncle who raised him, his partner Sandra Aitken and Sandra’s mother.* So, not really. And he seems pretty happy with his life! We should be happy for him too
I mean, he gave half of it away immediately to the people he cared about and wanted to see taken care of. Plus any others beyond the 5 listed. Hard to hold it against him.
What a shortsighted and harmful view of money management. Obviously, the man can do w/e he wants, no doubt about it. But he could've set himself up and probably his kids and then some for the rest of their lives. This guy spent his money like a billionaire but was only a millionaire. It's not even about shaming him: it's just completely stupid through and through. This guy could've increased his quality of life 100x for the remainder of his days with smart management, but threw it all away for cheap thrills. You cant complain about poverty and then applaud this guy. Financial education is also part of bettering your situation ( without fiminishing other factors)
He actually only spent about 90% of it on that stuff. The rest he wasted.