£550 a week or £550,000 lump sum

13

Comments

  • gardner1
    gardner1 Posts: 3,154 Forumite
    If i was 20/30/40 or 50 yrs old would make no difference.....take the lump sum
  • george4064
    george4064 Posts: 2,810 Forumite
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    edited 8 April 2018 at 5:16PM
    I'm 26 years old, and whilst I appreciate taking the £550,000 lump sum would be fun I would opt for the £550 weekly payment.

    If I were older I would be more inclined to take the lump sum for various reasons..
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  • Alistair31
    Alistair31 Posts: 945 Forumite
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    28 and would take the lump sum.
  • Zorillo
    Zorillo Posts: 774 Forumite
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    At 18 I'd take the income, at 35 I'm not sure. The way I feel about my current job I'd almost certainly take the lump sum and pay off the mortgage, invest the rest and take a job doing something more fun for bills and holidays. If I had a job I actually enjoyed, I'd probably take the income and invest it.
  • worried_jim
    worried_jim Posts: 11,631 Forumite
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    Easy choice. Lump sum and invest. By the time she is 40 compounding will have done its job and she can retire. Can't do that taking the weekly amount.
  • djhworld
    djhworld Posts: 221 Forumite
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    Lump Sum

    The company/lotto provider/whoever it is giving the prize could just go bust in 2 years time and you'd have lost a huge amount of potential earnings, addtionally as other commenters have said, if you die next week then your next of kin won't see any of it!

    Really doesn't matter if you're 20/30/40/50/60, take the lump sum, it's the only sensible decision.
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  • singhini
    singhini Posts: 553 Forumite
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    edited 10 April 2018 at 12:13AM
    I think she did the right thing taking $1,000 a week. if shes anything like me, she would be dead from excessive behaviour with $1m in the back pocket.



    I don't like this converting the Canadian $ to GBP (she's not in the UK so don't convert it, its pointless). Why don't you convert it from $ to Rupees and now say "well she's got Ru51,000 a week for life yippy as 6 samosas only cost Ru20).

    All she has to do now is find a reasonable house and get a mortgage (when they ask her how do you intend to pay back $500,000 she can answer with GAURANTEED $52,000 a year guvnor). House will be paid off in 9-10 years (Beautiful). All the banks will be queuing up to sell her a mortgage no problem.


    lets say she only lives to 60, she would get $2m (no need to worry about inflation, you have just been gifted $1,000 a week for life, who give a flying fruit bat about inflation)............come on people, start to enjoy yourself and be happy (that's the problem, you'll looking at this as people who have mortgages and don't have an extra $52,000 a year miraculously appear for the rest of your life).


    if she takes the money as a lump sum and then dies, the estate not the beneficiary has to pay the tax as there's no inheritance tax but the government treats the dead persons estate as a sale which is taxable in Canada.


    Anyway, I'm off to buy loads of tickets (i.e. 2), for this Fridays Euro lottery (13 chances to be made a millionaire this Friday the 13th).


    most important thing is she's rich enough to become a vegan and improve the life of innocent animals just the way her life has been improved financially.
  • eskbanker
    eskbanker Posts: 30,938 Forumite
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    singhini wrote: »
    I don't like this converting the Canadian $ to GBP (she's not in the UK so don't convert it, its pointless). Why don't you convert it from $ to Rupees and now say "well she's got Ru51,000 a week for life yippy as 6 samosas only cost Ru20).
    That's a rather odd way of looking at things - the original subject of the story may not be in the UK but the newspaper publishing the story is and the title question is being posed on a UK website, it hardly seems unreasonable to express the values in sterling so as to make them meaningful to the forum readers without everyone having to look up CAD/GBP exchange rates....
  • TheShape
    TheShape Posts: 1,779 Forumite
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    djhworld wrote: »
    Lump Sum

    The company/lotto provider/whoever it is giving the prize could just go bust in 2 years time and you'd have lost a huge amount of potential earnings, addtionally as other commenters have said, if you die next week then your next of kin won't see any of it!

    Really doesn't matter if you're 20/30/40/50/60, take the lump sum, it's the only sensible decision.

    Surely these prizes are protected by some sort of insurance to guard against that?
  • trevman
    trevman Posts: 34 Forumite
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    for anyone interested, this story (and the maths) are briefly touched by http://theirrelevantinvestor.com/2018/04/04/the-limits-to-data/
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