Connecticut man sues friend for share of lottery prizePrevious TopicNext Topic

Well one would deduce that a gated community would provide more safety and privacy and much cheaper than having your own security team.  I can definitely see the logic behind it.  I would certainly consider a move like that but have the sense enough to keep up with my dues!

IMO, being simply rich is like a lottery winner or people who inherit a large sum of money or a lot of celebrities and athletes or other professions. They have a lot of money that they've come into in a short time but that's it and they do nothing with it but spend, possibly with a disconnect between what they have and how it's managed, if it's managed at all and probably won't last over the course of their own lifetime let alone the following generations. Rich are the ones who go off and buy a bunch of useless crap without thinking that will only decrease in "value" over time, if they don't destroy it first.

Wealth is something that's amassed along the course of a lifetime of having your money work for you, through good investing over the years be it in the stock market, bond market, real estate market or whatever and can last for generations, though of course it doesn't mean it will since there can be many factors that can cause it to be lost also but generally can withstand the course of several generations and so on. But basically being wealthy is more than just having more money than you know what to do it. You can be wealthy without first becoming rich but it can take a long long time, it's a step up from being simply rich but it's a step that's possible to skip. A big component is how involved one is, becoming wealthy requires work and more than just having someone else do everything for you, you need to take a hands on approach. For example, Paris Hilton is rich, her great grandfather was wealthy, her grandfather continued that wealth and could also be considered wealthy.

David Edwards problem wasn't that he moved into a gated community though or even bought a $1.5M (I think it was that much) home, his problem was listening to the wrong people while ignoring the right ones and spending a lot more than what he was taking in (when some of the people he listened weren't ripping him off) David Edwards became rich overnight not wealthy IMO. Then there's the whole drug abuse issue... You know, Edwards had a messed up back before he won the lottery, after he won he was supposedly going to finally get the surgery he could now afford to repair it, but of course for some reason didn't, which IIRC is partially why he ended up living in a VA hospital for some time.  That home in Florida was basically foreclosed on over just a few thousand dollars in dues.

Generally in gated communities you're sacrificing some freedom for a bit of security and some of the time that security is just an illusion. Honestly, I probably would not give up some freedom just for a little sense of feeling safe. I've seen some gated communities where security was a complete joke. I wouldn't want to be at the mercy of a Home Owners Association either, especially if the president is a stereotypical control freak with an axe to grind. I'd build a 15 foot fence/wall (with the top being lined with sharp spikes) that's electrified and rigged with an alarm around my property with a gate or two that can only be opened by me or logged codes with some hidden cameras at various locations if I really wanted to feel "safe". It'd be like a nice prison that I can leave, at least until I go crazy and completely paranoid, don't leave the house and wear tin foil clothes.