Lottery Jackpot: Etiquette for Becoming Embarrassingly RichPrev TopicNext Topic

• jimjwright

  

  Crested Butte, CO
  United States
  Member #69,862
  January 18, 2009
  1,394 Posts
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  Dec 13, 2009, 11:33 pm

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  In response to eddessaknight

  Quote: Originally posted by eddessaknight on Dec 13, 2009

  Perhaps, chance (bonne chance) or luck is just a fool's word for fate ???

  EddessaKnight
  

  "I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it. "
  -Thomas Jefferson
  
  Jimmy
• rdgrnr

  

  100

  The Hall Of The Mountain Kings Tennessee
  United States
  Member #73,902
  April 28, 2009
  15,378 Posts
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  Dec 14, 2009, 2:05 am

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  In response to eddessaknight

  Quote: Originally posted by eddessaknight on Dec 12, 2009

  Not to be cynical, but overly courteous people pleasers take notice:

  You will never be loved if you can’t risk being disliked.....
  

  Good Weekend Wishes,

  EddessaKnight

  I've heard that a pompous, holier-than-thou attitude doesn't help much either.
• eddessaknight

  

  LAS VEGAS
  United States
  Member #47,728
  November 22, 2006
  9,382 Posts
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  Dec 14, 2009, 3:49 pm

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  Consider: that we maybe entering a world where players just aren't interested in whether something is true or not,            or whether they believe it or not, but whether it simply works!

   

  May Fortuna smile upon on all-

  EdessaKnight 
   
• jwhou

  

  United States
  Member #83,698
  December 13, 2009
  225 Posts
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  Dec 24, 2009, 4:07 pm

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  In response to eddessaknight

  Quote: Originally posted by eddessaknight on Dec 11, 2009

  Enjoy Miss Manners Q & A : Etiquette for Becoming Embarrassingly Rich

  No Worries

  EddessaKnight

  Dear Miss Manners,
  Some friends and I were discussing what we would do in the unlikely event that any of us won the lottery, and find we need to appeal to you on one major question that came up. What is the etiquette involved in suddenly becoming embarrassingly rich?

   Of course, we all agreed that none of us would flaunt it, but the fact remains that, even if one accepted the winnings anonymously, one would have a moral responsibility to use large portions of the winnings to help out friends, relatives and charities. It would be impossible, in that case, to hide the fact that one had "come into" a bit of money.

   How does one politely refuse to divulge the exact amount of winnings received? Or for that matter, the amounts given to various people and causes, or even the amount of winnings currently remaining? How does one politely refuse to become a fairy godmother to everybody and their sister? If one wishes to, say, fund the college education of a cousin's three children, is it necessary to gift an equal amount of money to the comfortably well-off cousin's childless sibling? Is it possible to give money to charities and not have them hound you for the rest of your life?

   These are burning questions to which we all hope to need the answers soon.

   

  Gentle Reader,
  Ah, yes, the curse of the newly rich: Everyone you know turns competitively greedy; you have a load of new security worries; and you suspect that no one really loves you for yourself.

   

  But then you would be able to buy that dream thingamabob.

   

  No. At least not yet. Not unless you want everyone to go around saying, "Have you seen that thingamabob of hers? Do you know what that cost? And here she's grudging me the little house I need to put a roof over my children's heads."

   

  Still want to win?

   

  Miss Manners was afraid of that.

   

  Change your name to Anonymous. Not only in requesting anonymity from the lottery itself, but from the charities you support.

   

  Do not blow your cover by shouting from the rooftops. Or by changing your life dramatically.

   

  By all means, help your friends and relatives, but do so on an irregular, spaced schedule, so they don't see the pattern. Tell each one that you have "come into a little money" (if pressed, you can say that an investment paid off, as indeed your expenditure for the lottery ticket would have) and ask them not to talk about it.

   

  When it gets out that you won the lottery -- as indeed it will because none of the above strategies will work -- say that you have hired a financial advisor who has put you on a strict budget, so that you do not have funds available for everything everyone suggests. This will be true, as hiring that person is the very first thing you should do.

  I would add that you may want to hire two independent financial advisors to audit each other and a private investigator to make certain they are not colluding.