“If I would win a million dollars..” is something many people have asked each other to play a game of “what if…” fulfilling dreams or making things right with debtors. The question of what would you do with a lot of money is pleasant, as there are no wrong answers and the question completely skips the part where the money is received in the first place. It’s easy to imagine what would you do with the prize, but not so easy to think how to receive the prize.

A German documentary about the super wealthy Germans told that, many of the super rich want to stay hidden and not show off their wealth. This is because of possible kidnappings, thefts, ID frauds, etc. The same documentary ( if you want to look it up: “DW Documentary – ”Germany: The discreet lives of the Super-Rich” ) explained that even if you work your way through to the top of a major company, you still wouldn’t be considered as super rich. Does this then mean that hard work doesn’t pay off?

Back to the original topic: there has been news about lottery winners receiving the jackpot and then wasting the money. For example, Roy Grimsby, who won £ 7.5 million, is now broke and lives with his mother. Another point of view would be that, Roy lived the highlife for a while and admittedly didn’t do very well with the money, but was what he did wrong? I would argue that no, it wasn’t.

Everyone thinks their choices would be great and they wouldn’t do stupid things with millions of dollars, euros or pounds. But I argue that, when the amount of money is big enough, it will change people. Surely, not everyone and exceptions exist everywhere, but if you can finally do the things you have always dreamed of and still have the money to spare, well: it has to show along on your personality somehow.

From the people that I have asked, many say the same few things: put major part of the money away for interest or whatever low risk investment, pay debts, buy stuff for your friends and relatives and, lastly: just piss away so much or at least a part of the money that you can cross off things from your bucket list. This sounds like a good plan to me too.