If you won the lottery...

[Ando85]

If you won a significant amount of money from the lottery... basically set for life financially and can buy almost anything you like how would it effect you? I notice a lot of people with plenty of wealth and success can still suffer from depression. Money doesn't buy happiness.

 

[Endersgate1321]

First not tell anybody if possible. Move away were family wont bug me. Then give to people friends family blah blah. But secretly even if they are sure it was me never tell them or admit it so they wont ask. I would buy a farmhouse for me and my wife to live on not a mansion buy some animales a horse or two maybe two dogs. Continue to work my job and give alot to some personal orginzations maybe buy me a full movie theater just for fun and screen special midnight showings for close friends and family. Oh and make sure my mom, dad, and sister are takin care of for life for everything they've done for me beyond that nothing else really.

 

[krazykidd]

If you won a significant amount of money from the lottery... basically set for life financially and can buy almost anything you like how would it effect you? I notice a lot of people with plenty of wealth and success can still suffer from depression. Money doesn't buy happiness.

Money doesn't buy happiness but the lack of money causes unhappyness .

OT: i would only need 5 million $ , i would stop working , live a moddest life and play videogames all day . Maybe pay for a hooker or two . But only plus size hookers , because i like my women plumP

 

[Zantos]

I'd buy a few nice things. A decent city pad, big tele with surround sound, that sort of thing. Probably spend a while playing games through the day and partying through the night. Wouldn't want to live like that forever though, after that got boring I'd probably take up placements for 2 or 3 months at a time, possibly finding something I liked and was good at to go full time in. Maybe fund my way through a PhD, though not for a while. Basically I'd like to have stuff, but I'd still like to go and do things with my life.

 

[NightHawk21]

I'd still like to finish my degree, but I'd take the majority of it and invest it in a relatively safe way just so that it generates a nice yearly wage. Other than that I might use it to buy a small apartment or small house outfitted with a computer and internet, and a nice sized library, and depending on how school goes use it to fund some of my experiments (depending on the amount won).

 

[antidonkey]

Well, first thing....myself, family, and friends would probably no longer have any debt. After that, I'd get myself a nice house. Nothing huge....maybe medium sized but nice. I also wouldn't work anymore if there was enough left over. My fulltime job would be to get in shape and be healthy.

 

[DazZ.]

Friends and families houses would be bought for them, then big party in my new abode.

Followed by a jet ski and then I would rest and figure life out from there.

 

[Jedoro]

I'd get every license the ATF has to offer, then buy all sorts of fun things like tanks, rocket launchers, machine guns, artillery, and a lot of land to shoot them on. I'd probably let people pay to shoot them, offset the costs a bit.

 

[Scarim Coral]

I would do this-
Paid back my student loan.
Give my family some of my money and my friends aswell (if they are willing to accept it).
Get a good apartment in the city.
Fill that apartment with stuff like couch, tv etc (not overly expensive).
Buy stuff that I always wanted (CD imports, figure etc).

Anyway at some point I pretty sure I relationship will suffer for it since I would be paranoid if the girl I'm dating is only interested with me money (I mean I will ahve to tell her how I got so much cash).

 

[OmniscientOstrich]

Think I'll repost my answer from a similar thread:

Shoulder Angel: Use the money to bring about financial security for myself and my family, getting a nice reasonably priced house and donate the rest to Oxfam.

Shoulder Devil: Genetically engineer my own Gyarados, Fuck Yeah >

 

[Drenaje1]

I'd hire Stephen Fry to read the newspaper for me one morning.

This.

OT: I really would try to keep as many people as I could out of the know, as it were. I don't want any kind of giant fuss. My first priority would pretty much be my family and their well-being. And I suppose once that's all sorted, save the money in a bank, get a house later, get all the necessities. I'd like to say I wouldn't turn into a spoiled little arseface, but I probably will. My only real want right now though is plenty of money for games...

 

[rayen020]

i would buy a house for my family, fix my car, set aside about 10% of whatever i won for kids college funds, and then reinvest the rest in the stock market. oh and new furniture for my new house, the stuff i have is mismatched cheapo or hand-me-down stuff. it works but looks terrible.

 

[Vegosiux]

If you won a significant amount of money from the lottery... basically set for life financially and can buy almost anything you like how would it effect you? I notice a lot of people with plenty of wealth and success can still suffer from depression. Money doesn't buy happiness.

But it's still somewhat more comfortable to feel miserable on a yacht than it is on a bicycle isn't it?

On a more serious note, I'd move out of my country. Then, I'd see where to go next.

 

[Rowan93]

I'd put up posters around my room full of information about lottery winners that have died penniless or just had a really awful time since winning the lottery.

Thus equipped with a mind not to waste it all, I'd get a competent money-person to set up a diverse portfolio of investments that can reliably earn more than inflation, and have about 80% of the amount by which it beats inflation be directed to my current account on a weekly basis.

My income might not even be all that impressive, but I probably won't have to actually work in order to have food and a bed and a computer with internet access. And to be honest, that's pretty much what "set for life" means to me, anything more is just gravy. Obviously at this point I would take down the depressing stuff on the walls and put up a bunch of nerdy posters.

EDIT: (wanted to say more and more address the original point of the OP)

If money doesn't buy happiness, you're spending it wrong. If success doesn't make you happy, you don't actually have success, maybe because you've set even higher goals than what you've achieved (my best guess as to why anyone high-achieving might be depressed). Personally, while ambition is cool and all and achieving all of my goals would be nice, I think I'd be fine with a life of not contributing to society in any meaningful way, so depression is not going to happen if I win the lottery.

 

[Keoul]

Hostile takeover of another business

 

[The Abhorrent]

I wouldn't change many of my plans or that, just carry on with business as usual. I'd certainly acquire a few luxuries, of course; a new vehicle for one (old one is starting to go), but not a whole lot else. I'm about to graduate with no debt (I may not have much to spare, but I don't owe anyone anything), so at most it just means I can be a bit more selective about which job I get (got the time to look around). Grad school seems like an eventuality for my chosen field as well, so getting the funding need to go there sooner would also be nice.

That being said, it's largely because of what my focus has been for my degree -- structural engineering, bridge design in particular. I haven't been this interested in any subject in a long time, and I'm more or less set on it being what I want to do. It's also something where the idea of a cheap project is all but unheard of; the last leg of a local ring-road project (probably about a third of it) is estimated to cost around a billion dollars, with something like fifty overpasses and one major bridge over a river valley. With numbers like that, any reasonable amount of money I'd come into at once would seem insignificant.

However, what I could see me doing is getting involved in such projects as an investor. While having the expertise is one thing, that doesn't mean you get a great deal of control over what sort of project gets made; the investors get more say over what's approved and what isn't. Being an investor, or an expert who can fund their own projects, means I can have a lot more fun that way.

Which reminds me... I'm definitely in the position to design and build my own home, and coming into a large sum of money just means it's likely to happen sooner. Finding a good location would be the main challenge (I'm not a fan of the sizing of lots in most new developments), but I don't see any other issues.

 

[BathorysGraveland]

Well.. after I had come out of the hospital due to the heart attack I would have received, I'd give some money to my friends and family, but I guess that is quite obvious. As for what I would buy - every music CD I ever want. I cannot stress that enough. When you like 200+ bands, each with an average of, say, 4 albums, it is quite impossible to buy them all. This would certainly solve that. I would also buy any video game that interested me. I'd pay for some quality time with the best whores on the planet as well. I'd buy myself a nice little house, no mansion or anything (fuck that) but you know, a nice little place out by the coast or in a forest or so. I'd also travel a lot, see places like the almighty deserts in Africa or so, tropical islands, great rainforests, massive waterfalls that you see on television, the huge grasslands of the Steppes, ruins of civilisations long past et cetera, et cetera.

Past those things, I don't know what I would spend my money on. I'd probably donate some to a charity or so, but I don't know. At least I'd never have to work some bullshit job, which would be the single greatest thing out of all this.

 

[sms_117b]

invest, buy lots of awesome things, live off of interest and travel the world.