I won the lottery twice and my wife won the lottery also two times.
The “big” wins feel amazing.
You feel lucky, you feel somewhat chosen and there is a huge feeling of relief.
You feel all your financial issues no longer matter and it’s like life has somehow just began, you really think about quitting your job and what is your true passion.
I thought it would be hard to fall asleep the day you find out, but actually I never slept better than the winning days, I noticed also that I not only slept better but longer.
You stop making decisions based on if you can afford something or not but if you truly want that and if it matches your lifestyle or not – can’t go grocery shopping in a Lamborghini.
Instead of immediately purchasing high priced and luxury things you actually think if you can or should have that in your current neighborhood.
The first advise the bank manager gave us was to first move to a more affluent area before we could start splurging on stuff.
We also decided to tell no one about the wins, not even family and that was the best decision we ever made.
We said I got a big promotion, then a while after we said our business took off, but only after we opened it.
So yeah, we also opened a business and never really spent mindlessly, we also chose to invest in real estate and solid things like that.
We took a great dream vacation immediately after winning, my wife bought some clothes and some purses, but nothing flashy or that would be easily recognizable as luxury – we steered away from monograms and very recognizable stuff and focused more on quality.
So yeah, it feels great and it is hard, but way better to keep it secret.
By the way, we lost most of our old friendships with our initial “success” – most people don’t really love when you are successful and I imagine it would have been worst still if they’ve known we won the lottery.
When people win the lottery they generally don’t respect that money, they treat it like magical money, and we felt that if we would have told anyone about our several wins people also would expect to receive gifts, money or something from us.
It was a bit hard to have to exercise self control and not go mad spending and not buying a Rolls Royce just because we can. But then once you have the money in the account these desires and things really stop to matter so much.