Yesterday there was a lottery jackpot here for about $37 million. As usual, I got to see people who immediately began to buy tickets in hopes to win. Some people were then debating with each other on what they would do with the money if they won. For example, some say that they would splurge it within reason and save the rest while another group said that they will spend some and give the rest to a charity.

Then an interesting comment was made on how while everyone says that now, chances are you will become a completely different person if you actually won and will probably do something different. An example was that one person has a friend that said if she won the lottery she would give some away to her friends. She actually did win, but did not end up giving her friends anything. Of course, some people said no way as they will always be the same person.

I was then asked what I would do if I won that much money. I always like to help people and so I personally have the mindset of if there is some kind of good cause to help and I have ample resources to do so, I would want to try and build/establish something that will then provide a continuous stream of resources/income for it as oppose to say a one time happening.

Would I personally think that amount of money would change me to the point where I wouldn’t do that? I can confidently say no as regardless if I fortunately won or earned my way to that type of situation that is a goal in life that I have anyways. In my opinion, life must be pretty boring if one just sat there by themselves with their wealth.

I was told today about a radio talk show that apparently had callers phoning in about their financial situations. One person apparently phoned in about how they had trouble spending so much money. When it came down to it, it was discovered that he/she kept buying things mostly to impress others.

In general, isn’t it more impressive when people don’t feel the need to gloat or impress others about a materialistic item that they own? I usually find it more impressive to see someone being say extremely resourceful with what they have or being able to spend less money than most.

When it does come to expensive things though, for myself it’s not so much about what the person has per say that would be impressive but rather how they were able to get it. Example, someone that simply comes from a rich family or a person that worked hard for it.

Today a person was telling me about a situation where there is a person they know who seems to get by as a result of sweet talking their way into borrowing money from one person to another by using sob stories. Literally, the person apparently owes people money well over the $10,000+ mark.

The money was for irresponsible reasons too such as gambling or over spending. To make it worse, the person’s attitude and habits never changed. A lot of the lenders, who were friends and family to the person, just simply gave up it seems from even trying to ask for their money back.

Boy, do I have a story to tell about this when the time is right. I think the definite advice for this type of situation is that if you ever decide to lend the people you know a lot of money, always have some kind of documented assurance in place so that if they don’t pay you back as promised you can easily get something back from them without any fuss. You can be generous while at the same time protecting yourself as well.

I was having a conversation with a person about his views when it comes to doing the right things in life which sometimes require that you take a hit financially. For example, if someone has just scammed you out of thousands of dollars and it looks like it could possibly cost you more at the end to pursue it even if you did win, would you do it still?

As an example, there was actually a story that happened recently where a women had a very good case against a doctor of some sort who had a reputation of not exactly being entirely professional and was actually convicted for past events. Although she really wanted to do something about it, she was told that it would be a very expensive process to do so. As a result, she didn’t go through with it as the financial risk was pretty high.

I guess it really depends on your current position in life.

One of my friends was telling me today on how he has met so many people that have tried to take advantage of him as a result of his financial success that he has kind of developed ways to quickly sort people who are genuine.

His example was that there was a person he met who seemed to be extremely friendly and willing to help him out all the time. Of course, he suspected the reason for this was that the person wanted to get on his good side because of his wealth. So, what he did was that one day he just kind of implied that he was having financial difficulties and needed some possible advice on what to do. As expected, the person had a “I’ll get back to you” kind of attitude which made it really simple to unmask the person.

It’s always hard to really find people who are genuine in these types of scenarios. This is really general based on my experience, but the way someone says “Thank You” when you say offer to pay for say a restaurant bill is usually a great indicator in terms of how genuine one is. Example, the person tries to fight for the bill, just says “oh thanks” and so fourth. I’m sure there are a lot of other ways people use too.