If I had won a house, and as a result had furniture I had no need/place for, I’d give it to family members, not sell it. If I won a large amount of cash, I’d take my family on a cruise, all expenses paid. My sisters love to cruise, and we’d have a blast! As for cash gifts to family members, that would have to be decided on a case-by-case basis. There are family members I’d never give money to, because they’d totally blow it on stuff like drugs. OTOH, if anyone in my family needed/wanted something that it was within my power to give them, I’d certainly be open to considering it.
I couldn’t go around handing out wads of money to the whole family, because I have four siblings with multiple children/grandchildren each, and hubby has four siblings (he had five until one of his brothers died, but said brother still contributed to the offspring load), each with multiple children/grandchildren. So, if we went around handing them all bunches of cash, it would quickly dwindle to nothing. Not to mention that there are a couple of people, mainly on his side of the family, who wouldn’t cross the street to speak to us. Those people would likely get nothing. I’d rather donate it to charity.
Oh, speaking of which, I’d definitely give some money to charity, and probably order a pizza, just so I could tip the delivery guy with a $50.00 or something.
I think that would be just wonderful - giving huge tips to service people and absolutely making their day (their week/their month) with so little effort. In some ways that would be better than giving money to family - completely uncomplicated generosity with no expectations and nothing but joy at your unexpected gift.
I’ve always loved the idea of having so much money that I could go up to some random person on the street, and hand them a million dollars. Also, I’ve always wanted to leave a tip ten times bigger than the meal, just for the hell of it.
(hijack)anyone who has worked in that area, does the waiter/waitress know which table left which tip? My friend is a busser(sp?) and I thought he mentioned that they picked up tips and took them to the cashbox.
My (ex)girlfriend and I used to leave pretty big tips because we got such good service, and I’ve been wondering if we just got really lucky with how many good servers we had, or if they know that we’re good tippers and go that little extra? (we’re in there a lot, so it is possible they know we’re the kids that tip well).
Unless I could get positive cash flow off the house via rent, no way am I keeping a 600k house to just sit around and pay taxes on. I suppose I could live in it, but then again, if you have two already? I’m selling that sucker, and investing in the stock market. Only then would it make it easier to be generous in areas I would choose to do so. Maybe dividends to charities or such overtime.
Could it be that they sold the furniture in anticipation of a future tax hit?
Here in the US a gain like that would involve a tax hit likely exceeding $150,000. Even if their net worth is $1.5 million, that’s a lot of cash that they’re going to have to raise.
For me it would depend greatly on how much the winnings were.
Regardless, my extended family would receive very nice Christmas gifts (how nice would be dictacted by the amount won).
I would also send my brother to Mongolia.
I can see someone being reluctant to spread cash around; seems like it could cause as many problems as it solves (look at all the family problems started over inheritances). But trying to sell unwanted furniture, for top dollar? Geez.
I just popped back in to say that if anyone started bitching about what they got if I won, they wouldn’t be getting anything else, that’s for sure.
I could see my friends and family mostly being a little bit jealous and a lot bit happy, mostly because I’m the kind of person that will help you but not on stupid shit. There’s only a few people in my life that I know would expect something and they’re the ones who wouldn’t be getting anything. Family is what you make of it - Just because I’m related to someone by blood doesn’t mean I consider them family. I’m a bitch like that.
If I won a house, well, I’d take the house and I probably wouldn’t have the money, after property taxes and furnishing it, to help my family out. If it were a $500,000 house, I’d probably sell it and buy another house for $200,000, or a foreclosure, and put the rest in a high-yield savings account of some sort for emergencies. I’d definitely take my family out somewhere, probably a steak house.
Yep, we do pay those. In most places, so far as I know, they are levied on an annual basis by the municipality that the property is located in. Depending on circumstances, payments against the annual property tax may be made monthly.
And yes, annual property taxes would be payable by the OP’s lucky family members, likely on a pro rata basis for the year from the time they acquired title.
I’m not sure exactly where the OP’s family lives, but I expect we’re talking in the range of under $10,000 annually.
My cousin won the Irish Sweepstakes in the mid 60’s. He sent his parents and little sister on a week’s vacation to Hawaii (they lived in a Detroit suburb). He may have done other stuff, but that’s what I’m sure of.
It would actually be a big pain if we came into a lot of money. I’d want to help the starving students and the young folks just starting families. But it would gall me to have to give to the kids that have ginormous savings accounts, yet won’t buy a decent car, or the “needy” child that would “need” the rent paid, “need” grocery money, and then “need” to quit working.
If I hit the lottery for the big prize; each of my siblings gets 10,000, my folks get 50,000, the person that sold it to me gets 1,000, some will go to riotous living and wild women, and the rest I’ll just waste.
I would definitely take out some for investments for myself, probably something like the high-yield interest savings accounts or CDs, just so I would be making some money off my money. I’d then give some to my parents, as well as Mrs. Small’s parents. That would be pretty much a given. Siblings would get something also, but not as much. Between us, that is 8-10 siblings to give gifts, so they wouldn’t get 50k or something, but 1-2k each or so is more than enough for our successful families. The rest would go into opening a business.
I would spread it around quite a bit. I wouldn’t keep a $500,000 house to live in because I wouldn’t want to pay property taxes on it, so I’d sell it and buy something smaller. After taxes, say I have $250,000 left. I invest about $200,000 of it and blow the other $50,000 on friends and family. I don’t buy lottery tickets but were I ever to win a multi-million dollar prize I’d pay off the mortgages of my friends and family as among my first acts. As to the OP, no one owes anyone else a chunk of their winnings so if the relatives don’t want to share they don’t have to. But if they’re going to take everyone out to celebrate and they’re well-off anyway, don’t skimp on the restaurant. And give your relatives a break on the furniture too.
Heh. I remember a short-lived sitcom years back about a ne’er-do-well major league baseball team. In one episode, the egomaniac, highest-paid player on the team won something like $10 million in the lottery and couldn’t understand why none of his teammates were happy for him. One teammate finally told him, “Look, nobody cares if somebody wins the lottery, but nobody likes to see the same guy win it twice.” The team eventually shamed the guy into donating his winnings to charity.
I got into a conversation in a bar once about what we’d do if we won the lottery. The best answer I heard was, “First thing I’d do is put myself in rehab. Otherwise, I’d be dead inside of two months!”
For me, yeah, I’d spread it around. Help out the family and such, and buy myself a house. Outside of the family (and assuming a huge prize), I’d offer my best friend the option of either a new, custom-built house or a total renovation of his current house. He’s one of those hard-working guys who nevertheless doesn’t make a lot of money. He owns his own home, but it’s in a bad neighborhood, it’s old, and it’s really run-down. At the same time, he’s one of those guys who will give you the shirt off his back to help you out when you need it (he takes care of his elderly dad - who lives with him - because his mother is unable; a while back his brother and sister-in-law moved back to town and needed a place to stay while they looked for work, and so he gave them his bedroom and he slept on a cot in the living room until they were working and got their own place).
Just jumping in real quick to say that I really hope your friend gets his in the end. He seems like a great guy and that right there proved it to me, for some reason. If there’s any justice in the world, HE’LL win the Lotto.
Uncle Sam is going to love those of you planning on giving away half of your winnings. He gets a huge chunk when you win and another huge chunk when you give it away. That is payable by you, not the giftee.
If anyone in my family wins big I would expect nothing. I would hope that if I was in enough financial trouble to where I would have to force myself to ask for help I would get it. I would help out any family member that needed it but I wouldn’t automatically give them a big chunk of my money. They would get really nice gifts at Christmas.
