So You’ve Just Won The Lottery… Now What?

Have you just won the jackpot on the lottery? If so, congratulations on your epic win! Finding out that you’ve just won the lottery is often a time of mixed emotions, with the first one usually being denial followed by shock! Quite often, lottery winners will quit their day jobs, buy expensive properties and cars, and travel around the world first class. And who can blame them? They have turned into overnight millionaires, after all!

Winning a life-changing amount of money can be both good and bad for a variety of different reasons. I’ve mentioned some of the good things that can happen with those millions, but such large amounts of money can also bring misery too.

I’ve heard of people going bankrupt relatively soon after winning the lottery because they blew their money on an extravagant lifestyle, gave away some cash to hangers-on, and so forth.

Considering you are reading this blog post, I will assume that you are not entirely sure what to do with your winnings. Don’t worry – I won’t ask you to give them to me (not unless you want to, of course)!

But what I will tell you is how to put your winnings to good use, and how to behave around that amount of money! Intrigued? Continue reading to learn more!

Don’t tell anyone

If you have just discovered that you have won the jackpot, your first thought might be to share the good news with your friends and family. I strongly recommend that you don’t do that!

Remain anonymous (in terms of media coverage) and only tell immediate, trusted family members, such as your spouse. That will ensure that you don’t end up with people knocking on your front door, cap in hand, demanding that you “help” them.

Don’t quit your day job

You might be tempted to go into work tomorrow and tell your boss to “take this job and shove it” but resist that temptation – for now!

At this early stage, you need to consider what you are going to do, as whatever path you choose will affect your finances in the long-term.

Pay your debts off

Now that you can be considered rich, you have the funds available to pay off any debts that you owe! It’s always a great feeling to finally pay off a loan or credit card, but instead of spending years to achieve that goal, you can sort it out in the space of a few minutes!

Paying your debts off will also mean that you don’t have as many outgoings to pay for on a monthly basis.

Invest in property

The thing about investing in stocks and shares is that the market is quite volatile these days. A safer option would be to invest in bricks and mortar. For example, you could check out some posh homes for sale in Chelsea and buy some to rent out to wealthy tenants!

You can also take this opportunity to upgrade to a bigger home for yourself, but I wouldn’t go too wild if I were you, as you need to put some money aside for a “rainy day” and use the rest to earn you more money over the long term.