15 Stories About People Who Suddenly Got a Huge Amount of Money

It’s not easy to earn money but sometimes people get lucky and receive an unexpected fortune. Like for example, they inherit a big amount of money or win the lottery. As a rule, afterward, a lot of new things start happening in their lives.

At Bright Side, we found out how the lives of these lucky people and the relationships with their family and friends changed as a result. Spoiler alert: These changes aren’t always good.

• I won a decent amount of money on a betting on soccer games a few years ago. Because I didn’t pay off my father’s credit card debt with it, he fought with me and pretty much tried to ruin my life. He told my then partner that I had a gambling problem and then got my mother to call my work to tell them I had a problem. It all reached a head when I came home to my partner in tears, and my mother and father sat comforting her on the sofa while she proceeded to tell me if she didn’t know if she could trust me, and “why couldn’t I just admit how long I’d been gambling for.” © Shazam_Shazaar / Reddit

• We inherited money from my husband’s great aunt, each grandchild in the family got equal amounts. His sister asked us to give her $10,000 from our portion because she had kids and we didn’t. © istheresugarinsyrup / Reddit

• I worked at a major lottery company for 7 years and have seen many ‘winners’ presented with millions in person. You can tell which ones will keep their newfound wealth and which will spend it all in just a few years. One guy flew by helicopter to collect his lottery money. He started spending it before he even had it. This guy will likely spend it all in 5 years. That’s the average amount of time it takes for most to spend it all. © Goran Yerkovich / Quora

• When I moved to New York, we became close with my aunt Kitty who was the black sheep in the family. She was legit the greatest, and we spent holidays together and she would come to things I worked on, and I knew all her friends and she knew mine. I basically spent a decade with her being like another grandmother to me. She died a few months ago, and she left everything to me. Now, I knew she had money — that was hard to miss — but I didn’t know how much money she had. I ended up with a decent-sized amount of cash and investments, a brownstone in the city, and a place on the beach in the Carolinas. Her family came out of the woodwork when she died, sniffing around for money and demanding that I give them the beach house, or cash, or whatever. Her will states explicitly that they’re not to receive anything from her estate, and that it was all to go to me, but they’re threatening to sue since “they’re sure she wanted to give them something” even though she hadn’t talked to any of them in over half a century, and in some cases, had never met them. Besides, none of them showed up to her funeral. © blink2356 / Reddit

• I won $5,000 in a radio contest. Not a huge amount, but at the time, I was a single mom of 2 and had just started college. Not even half an hour after the announcement an ex texted me “Congrats! Now maybe you can pay me back for all the dates I took you on?” © HelluvaTwist / Reddit

• I worked with a guy who won $729,000 dollars. It wasn’t a lottery, but a radio Bingo game. He put the $700,000 into one account and the $29,000 into another account. He kept living on what he was earning and learned all he could about investing. He retired a year or 2 later. One of the other winners in a nearby town started by buying snowmobiles for her friends, 10 worth about $10,000 each. © Matt Stevenson / Quora

• When my grandmother announced that she wanted to leave her house to me, my mother became a different person. She said that if granny did this that she would sue me (her son!). She insisted that she was granny’s direct heiress. Honestly speaking, I would have never have thought about suing my family. © SkyFrostBlue / Pikabu

• A few years ago we inherited some money from my husband’s grandfather. My husband’s brother and sister also inherited equal amounts. His sister, whom we had not spoken to in several years, emailed my husband and his brother asking for their portion of the inheritance because her part-time personal trainer job wasn’t enough to keep funding her lifestyle. © Unknown / Reddit

• I was finishing up my first year in middle school and my mother was blessed with a million dollars from one of those lotteries that play the numbers one day each week. The person who worked with winners gave us good advice that I’m glad my mother listened to: never lend money to anyone because they won’t pay you back. It was a very interesting time. When your name gets out on the news that you won the lottery, your Facebook friend requests will skyrocket, and suddenly family members, high school classmates, and friends you never even knew or hadn’t talked to in years suddenly come back and “want to keep in touch.” Mom’s relative constantly asked for help from her about financial things, he usually paid her back, but then my mother got fed up after this family member suddenly made a request demanding a brand new couch, and they never talked to each other again. © Ezekiel Reed / Quora

• My parents always put holiday scratch-off tickets on our Christmas tree for each of us 4 kids. They have done this for years and sometimes we win but most times we don’t. We come from a wealthy family and always get great gifts, so it’s all just for fun. One year I won $5,000! I was pregnant and expecting the first baby born to us siblings in 3 months, so I was beyond happy that my husband and I could now afford a nice crib and things for the baby. My oldest brother was livid. (He’s the black sheep.) He demanded that I split the $5,000 with all of them. I said no, this is going toward my baby. He went off saying that we didn’t need the money and that I was being selfish for not sharing. I found out later that my dad ended up giving my oldest brother $1,000 just to shut him up and keep the peace. Absolutely ridiculous. We no longer have scratch-off tickets and my relationship with my brother has never been the same. Truly sad. © Brandi Ray / Quora

• About 2 years ago, I got an inheritance from my grandmother who passed away. It wasn’t much, definitely not millions. I’d say about $50,000. What did I do with the money? I gave my brother about $8,000 so he could start his own business. After a couple of months, I found out he didn’t start a business and just used the money as a down payment for a second-hand car that got hauled away after he couldn’t make monthly payments. I gave $200 to a nephew so that he could get his driver’s license. After a couple of months, I found out that he spent the money gambling and still has no license. I paid about $1,000 for a dentist/cousin to get my dentures done and for my daughter’s braces. 2 years later, my daughter’s braces came off on their own, my daughter’s teeth are still not straight, and now my gums are swollen because the dentures are not well made. If I ever win the lottery, I’ll keep this news to myself. Not even my kids will know I’ve won anything. © Anonymous / Quora

• I inherited some money a few years ago from my granddad, it wasn’t millions but it was a good amount. All his brothers and sisters who I have never met and who he hadn’t seen in decades started harassing me for money. One of them wrote me a 10-page letter demanding half. The only thing I remember about this woman was that before my granddad died, I wrote her a letter pleading for her to come visit him as he only had a few months left, she declined. I responded to her demanding letter with a letter sent first class back to her that only said one thing. “Shove off.” © DreadPirate_Drox / Reddit

• My mom and dad won big once at a casino around 25 years back. Around $10,000. Most of the money went into paying bills and a few family fun things over the course of a summer. However during that time my aunt and a few of my mother’s relatives kept bullying her for cash. Her relatives kept demanding she owed them some of the cash because the casino trip was with them, they invited my folks along and drove them. My aunt, on the other hand, just kept begging so she could help out with her kids’ debt. My folks never gave in even though my mother’s relatives threatened to sue them. © Atlusfox / Reddit

• My grandmother never was rich. When she died, she left her land and house to my cousins, and I got an old huge teddy bear. Everyone laughed at me. But when I came home and decided to restore the toy, I found a sack with golden coins inside. All of my family’s problems ended at once. Thank you, granny! © Podslushano / ideer

• Back in the early 90s, a waitress I was friendly with because she worked at 2 different restaurants I frequented was 8 months pregnant and not sure who the father was. She was getting ready to lose her apartment and move back in with her mother. She won what was, at the time, the largest ever Powerball prize of $86 million. She immediately bought each member of her family and herself a Mercedes and a new house. I didn’t hear, but I’ll bet there were several guys who suddenly claimed to be the father of her baby. © Bob Juch / Quora

What would you do with a sudden fortune? Share your plan in the comments below.