The three lucky recipients of last night’s $150 million jackpot have been warned to do very little with their money until they can take the emotion out of last night’s result.
Speaking to nestegg, financial planner Adele Martin has explained that winners of such large windfalls need to get themselves a good team around them that includes accountants, lawyers, financial advisers and, potentially, life coaches.
“If you’ve suddenly have this wealth and you haven’t created it along the way, you might not necessarily have the skills,” Ms Martin said.
And while the rest of us only dream of what we could do with such a large amount of money, she advised that despite not being the most interesting way to spend $50 million, recipients could simply put money into a bank account and live off the interest.
“You don’t necessarily have to go and invest it. When you win the lotto often, it can be about protecting the capital,” the financial planner argued.
As a word of caution, Ms Martin cited a US statistic that around a third of lottery winners end up in a worse financial position after winning the lotto than they were in previously.
Plan and set targets
Ms Martin said planning and setting targets would ensure last night’s winners protect the capital they have luckily won.
To ensure the capital remains, Ms Martin advised setting a target “for how much you can give each year or put away”.
And while an immediate resignation is what many people dream of, the financial planner also advised winners to continue on with daily life, until they have set up their plans.
For her clients who have suddenly found themselves responsible for large windfalls, she advises: “Don’t rush in, don’t make any big decisions straight away.
“Take your time, still turn up to work and keep everything normal and really think about this before rush[ing] into doing anything.”
What should winners do with the money?
Despite three winners last night, Ms Martin explains if one person had won the money, they would likely be eligible for $3 million in interest a year just by banking the money, meaning they do not need to invest the money.
She said that “this is where lotto winners get in so much trouble”.
“They go out and they do these development or start these businesses and they split it to all these investments thinking it’s what they have to do and they don’t.
“If you won the $150 million and you could get 2 per cent a year from it, you’d get $3 million a year from it in interest before tax.”
The financial planner concluded: “They should have a proportion to play with and have a large majority of capital protected because you could just live off the interest.”
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We Translate Complicated Financial Jargon Into Easy-To-Understand Information For Australians
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