A Fool And His Or Her Money
Someone from Independence, Missouri — a town about an hour from where I live — is Missouri’s newest millionaire, thanks to the state lottery. Sad to say, that person is not me and, as of today, no one knows who they are.
Smart move, that.
Just ask the 8 lottery winners who lost their millions, which include one now living in a trailer (after blowing $5.4 million) and another, William “Bud” Post, who found out that $16.2 million just doesn’t go as far as it used to:
A former girlfriend successfully sued him for a share of his winnings. It wasn’t his only lawsuit. A brother was arrested for hiring a hit man to kill him, hoping to inherit a share of the winnings. Other siblings pestered him until he agreed to invest in a car business and a restaurant in Sarasota, Fla., — two ventures that brought no money back and further strained his relationship with his siblings.
Post even spent time in jail for firing a gun over the head of a bill collector. Within a year, he was $1 million in debt.
Post admitted he was both careless and foolish, trying to please his family. He eventually declared bankruptcy.
Now he lives quietly on $450 a month and food stamps.
I’ve always dreamed of winning the lottery. C’mon, who hasn’t, really? It’s a game VH and I love to play after, say, the third round of drinks: “How would you spend your winnings?”
My daydream always starts with something decidedly unglamorous: meeting with a financial planner and selling off my lump sum payment (an option I always choose because I’m not about to trust the lottery commission with my winnings, thankyouverymuch) and converting it into one of those structured settlements which, if wisely invested, can easily dwarf the total income received through lottery commission-generated annuities.
See, I’ve had a front-row seat for how easily fools and their money are parted. Back when I practiced law, a few of my clients won rather large verdicts and, sad to say, it was usually those least likely to use their heads when it comes to handling “life changing” money.
They’d hear they were getting $250,000 or more and you could see them mentally tallying all the crap they couldn’t wait to rush out and buy. Cars, designer clothes, new kitchen appliances, jewelry and “art,” quite often of the black velvet variety. Oh, I’d urge them to opt for structured settlements, but they wanted their money and they wanted it now.
Within months, three out of four had called to ask about filing bankruptcy.
Now, if you’ve done the math, you’re probably already thinking: “Hey, VK, three clients winning that kind of change, well, you weren’t doing too bad yourself. What happened, eh?” And you’ve got a point.
Let me just say this: there’s a reason I’d be meeting with a certified financial planner, just as there’s also a reason marital vows include the part about “for better or worse, for richer or poorer.” Just ask VH.
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I had a friend, OK, not really a “friend”, but a guy nice enough to rent me a room in his house when I needed a place to stay. He was a few years younger than me, and was married to a woman I had gone to high school with.
This “friend” was seriously the flesh and blood embodiment of Homer Simpson, only with hair. (If you ever have seen an episode of the Simpsons that includes a flashback sequence with Homer in it, the you have seen my “friend”. I swear he is Homer’s twin.) Not only does he look like Homer, he is also about as bright. Even so, I always thought he was a sweet and generous guy.
That was until his wife died in a car accident, and he was handed over $30,000.00 from a life insurance policy. You would think he would use that money to perhaps start a college fund for his wife’s two daughters from a previous marriage, children he claimed to love as his own. But nooooooo. He bought a used Corvette, a hot-tub, and put a large down payment on a new truck.
To make a long story even longer, he had a new girlfriend within a couple of weeks, and remarried about a year later. His new wife caught him cheating on her, and took him to the cleaners.
What goes around, comes around… sometimes.
I dream of winning the lottery all of the time. I keep hoping this will be one of those instances where I get what I wish for. But alas, I am still poor