Lottery winner goes from rags to riches to rags

Coin Toss you made stated some valid points here! Until you actually win the lottery or come into a large amount of money no one really knows what they would do. Oh we would all do the obvious (pay bills, buy a new home, new cars, invest etc, etc.....) But what about the rest of your life. How would you deal with the constant harrasment from strangers asking for money. That is why you should definetly remain anoymous if at all possible. To me winning the lottery could be a blessing or a curse! I don't feel  the least bit sorry for Mr. Edwards though, We all have to live with the decisions we make. (HE HAD THE OPPORTUNITY OF A LIFETIME AND HE BLEW IT!!!!!)

Umm no one wants to hear that. The media and the public in general want to hear about failure, hardship, and controversy among other things. They want to hear the most extreme negatives in isolated situations like this one, as it affirms their own unhappiness; being misery loves company. I followed David's storyline form the beginning, and I knew he was destined for ultimate failure. I wouldn't even spend $3 million my whole life let alone in months.

This is just another example of someone being ill-prepared and careless with a fortune that should have easily lasted many lifetimes. However your past can always come back to haunt you...as it did here. No one wants to here how good the West family is currently doing with their $300 million.

I  like  the  advisor ; he  was  just  not  able  to  over-ride  his  boss  a  junkie  and  a  real  bum

because , " money  don't  make  you  smart  or  better ".  The  bigger  you  are  the  harder  you    fall ;

He made this bed for himself, says his ex-wife, Gail Blanton. She says she hopes he recovers, and that she wishes he had set aside some of the money for Tiffani, now 17.

"If he followed my advice," says James Gibbs, his former financial adviser, "he'd be pulling in about $85,000 a month for the rest of his life."

Gibbs says he put about $16 million of David's winnings in bonds and annuities, to protect David from himself. David cashed them out.

you  make  a  good  point ......just  yesterday  I  thought  about  what  I  wuld  do  if  I  won  the  jackpot  and  how  much  I  would  give  to  my  son  and  daughter :

it  came  to $10,000 .00  ea.  because  I  knew  my  son    would  blow  it  in  90 days  or  less;

but  in  one  day  I  could  blow  a $100.000  just  giving    ten  thou  to 10-  family  members  and  no  one  would  be  happy  with  such  a  small  amount ;

There  are  concerns  I  have  with  so  much  money  and  what  people  would  do  to  get  it  and  what  they  do  with  it ,  could  ruin  their  lives  or  make  it  better !!!!!

Wealth: No one should be rich except those who understand it.

Johann  Wolfgang Von Goethe

Wow! What a Cautionary tale.

Money just makes us more of what we already are.

If you are an ass while working a 9 to 5 making $350.00/month.  A 27 million dollar windfall is not going to induce you to become "born again".

Sadly, David Lee Edwards has cemented himself alongside Jack Whittaker as the poster twins for frivolity and imbecility.

When money is seen as a solution for every problem, money itself becomes the problem.

Richard Needham

Did I say $350/month?!

Damn, I think I would be an ass too!

I meant $350/week.

  Edwards was profiled on a show called, "The Lottery Changed My Life." I remember thinking, even as I watched, that this man was on a mission to destroy himself.

   Edwards told a story of how he went to pay for his gas one day, and he tipped the cashier $1,000. She blurted, "Sir, you gave me way too much money!" Edwards replied, "Oh, no, honey; that's your tip, but here's another thousand for being honest." This is the man who drank twelve-dollar bourbon from an $18,000 eighteenth-century beer stein. He was a poser, plain and simple; he wanted people to know, "Hey, I'm rich and you're not; don't you wish you were me?"

   The simple fact is, Edwards was more concerned with, and more intrigued by, playing the Big Shot with deep pockets than he was in planning for the future of his family. He believed, as most people do, that money is an end in itself, rather than a means to an end. The money he won could have, and should have been sufficient to last through the lives of his grandchildren and beyond. But, because it was so important to Edwards to be the envy of everyone he met, he spent more time showing off than considering his wealth and how to manage it properly.

  $85,000 per month equates to an income of $1,020,000.00 per year. Edwards defiantly spurned that security in favor of a lifestyle his fortune would not support. If one's income is $85,000 per month, but he's spending $100,000 per month, he should realize very soon that something must be done. Edwards had some very good people working in his interest, but he chose to ignore their advice because it didn't fit with his spending habits.

  I'll say it again, folks; if you're planning to win a major jackpot (in excess of $10 million), pick up the phone and make an appointment to speak with a QUALIFIED financial planner. A qualified financial planner is not your brother-in-law who works at the bank, and she's not your sister who's a CPA. Look in the yellow pages under, "Financial Planning" or "Financial Planning Consultants." Call them and make an appointment; they'll be happy to sit down with you for an hour and walk you through the intricacies of what you'll need to do when you hit the big one. He can tell you what needs to be done in order to set up a trust, he'll explain your tax liabilities (present and future) and how you can minimize the taxes you'll pay on the income from your trust.

  He'll also explain why you should make an effort to live within your means, no matter how much money you make. If you make $400 per week, and you want something that costs $1,000, you have up to three choices available to you: You can go to the bank or a family member and borrow the money; you can take the money from your savings, assuming you have that much in your account, or you can save $50 a week for five months. If your income is $85,000 per month, and you want something that costs $255,000, are you willing to commit your next three paychecks to that item just so you can have it right NOW? The samrt thing to do would be to wait a couple of months or so, until you can afford to spend that money without having the expenditure affect next month's check.

  If you want your fortune to outlive you, talk to a qualified financial planner BEFORE you win your jackpot. If you do, all the information you'll need to make intelligent and informed decisions will come flooding into your mind just when you need it most. If you fail to take this step, or if you decide to wait until AFTER you cash in your winning ticket, you run a very significant risk of ending up like David Edwards or Jack Whittaker, simply because you won't have the knowledge you'll need at that crucial moment when you discover that all six numbers on your ticket match those that were drawn.

  I'm just not smart enough to understand why people continue to pursue the lifestyle of a junkie once their wildest hopes and dreams have come true. What, exactly, are they trying to escape? How can illicit drugs possibly enhance one's current status as a multi-millionaire? If you find yourself buying cocaine and heroine to make your life easier following a jackpot win, maybe you should consider talking with a qualified psychotherapist, because you surely have issues which need to be addressed. I'm really not kidding about this; many, many rich people spend three to five hours a week in counseling sessions, because managing a large fortune can be somewhat stressful (notice, please, that I said managing, not spending).

  Edwards should have realized he had some major problems; he had enough good people looking out for him who told him so. Had he listened to them, it's likely that he would be healthier today, and that his fortune would be largely intact. That was his first mistake - he hired a good financial planner, a good attorney and a good CPA, but then he failed to heed their advice. If you're going to pay people for their skills and services, you're simply throwing money away if you don't allow them to do their jobs.

  Sudden wealth is called that because it's unexpected. That's why it's important to prepare yourself before it happens, in order to prevent what happened to Edwards and his family from happening to you and yours.

Lately I read it over and over like 5 times... I still find it very hard to believe!!!

I guee one observation we can make is a rich druggie is still a druggie. 

Sad.

I was thinking along those lines also.

Gosh, to imagine having all of that cash, then, because of just being, for lack of a better word, Stupid/Pig Headed your broke and, at last report, very ill in a charity hospital.

It's clear, if you've been around such folks, that they lacked the insight and self discipline to act as you noted above.  Given that, it was a safe bet to assume he'd blow the dough.  I know many out there are blaming it on drugs, etc.  I don't agree, this was just a classic case of someone who had only one plan; blow the cast.  The drug habits, of course, didn't help matters and, probably, reinforced whatever spirits were motivating him in the first place.

Most of us could blow cash like he did.  No problem.  Drugs don't really cost all that much, so that's not the major issue.  Ultimately, he is responsible for his actions.  And his decisions.  And, he made some really bad ones.

When I first saw him on the news when he won, he reminded me of a good ole' boy from the same area I knew in the Army.  He could charm the birds out of the trees and get away with just about anything.  Even worked on old senior NCO's.  I had to double check his name to make sure it wasn't the same guy.  My first feeling about Edwards was 'this guy is working a con'. 

Guess he ended up working a real good one...on himself and family. 

Oh my.  Old habits die hard indeed.  A self-destructive personality.  He couldn't handle being a winner, and was more comfortable a loser.

I hope when I  win big on the lottery someday I just don't be sucked into temptations into making bad judgements & bad decisions like him. I know if not smart with your money you are going to fall by the wayside just like him & his wife.

The truly rich wear common clothes and carry their treasure in their hearts

Tao Te Ching