What would you do with 26 million euros

Definitely have a beer to think it over.

3 Likes

Give it away, I don’t need €26 million to be any happier with my life :relieved:, I have everything I need with the people I love, for the time I have left.

6 Likes

I knew someone who won 1 million pounds on the football pools… a lifetime ago…
when 1 million was really, really big money.

The win changed his life, although he didn’t want it to and tried to keep things calm.
He later regretted not insisting on anonymity…

When the UK started the Lottery in the '90s …
OH and I agreed we would opt for total anonymity if we ever won… and somehow fund a charity to provide worldwide health care (whatever) for sick/injured children.

No, we’ve never won more than a few euros… but we still have that dream…

2 Likes

I’ve often wondered what I’d do with a big win – in my case it would be from a premium bond. But if I was lucky enough to win 26 million I’d think bigger.

Living in my litttle damp old Charentais farmhouse type home for nearly 30 years with so many house spiders, I’ve given up, and share my home with them, and with all the adult cats that I couldn’t get adopted while kittens 12 years ago!

Once my brand new dry, clean, tidy, and min-maintenance low carbon footprinted house is built, designed by myself, and the construction and finer points taken care of by a French architect, and with a new car (electric), I’d set out to create trust funds for the vulnerable.

Can’t help it but my heart goes out to vulnerability of any kind, human and animal, which is a bloody heavy burden! Twenty five million wouldn’t go far, but think it could make some difference.

1 Like

Donate most of it to donkey sanctuaries and to the local dogs homes. Also a nice donation to the local Pompiers for an all bells and whistles Fire engine (s).

1 Like

I would divide it amongst the humanitarian charities that are barely supported by government…so refugees solidaires that helps refugees crossing the alps, the organisation that plucks people out of oceans and channels to save them, L214 that tries to combat inhumane farming practices…Generally annoy people in power!

1 Like

I would make sure everyone I loved (and myself of course) was financially secure for the rest of their lives and then donate the rest to worthy charities, mostly animal ones I imagine.
Izzy x

1 Like

I think one of the great challenges with charities these days is the % of the donation that gets drawn off into overheads. They are big businesses.
I’m fortunate to have experienced how much can be done at a grassroots level with relatively small amounts of money when the charity is small and the altruism of those running it very high. Schools built and teachers trained / midwifery training have all been possible in a rural delta where other forms of support just would not reach - it’s also about trust and appropriate help rather than a 1st world view of what’s needed.
Also, I’ve had the privilege of helping someone attend a Rudolf Steiner school and my money would go on a bursary for those who would not otherwise be able to experience a very special educational environment.

1 Like

26 million eh?

Well, new cars all round, a nice apartment in the centre of Florence and a permanent move to the EU - apart from that I don’t have firm plans.

Now there’s just the little matter of winning  said 26 million.

Indeed… finding a way around this… has given us much food for thought… we would want 100% of the money to do good, not to line someone’s pocket…

ah well… perhaps one day we will be faced with making decisions which could change lives for the better…

meanwhile, it feels as if we have, indeed, won the lottery… we are so lucky to be here in France. (we’re penniless millionaires… :hugs:)

1 Like

Make all the changes we want to our house, make the entire family mortgage free and get some chrome wheels for my Duster.

Even though they are possibly more efficient, apart from Médecin Sans Frontiers I will no longer give money to big charities after the appalling behaviour with my mother’s will. She gave a percentage of her estate to two large charities who hounded us endlessly to be sure they had got every last penny due to them. They argued about the valuation of her personal possessions that had been given to us, and we had to prove that we hadn’t defrauded them. It was awful. And they expressed absolutely no gratitude to have been given a legacy.

If you leave money to a charity please leave an amount, or a specific asset, not a percentage!

7 Likes

How absolutely awful! I’m so sorry for you and your family!!!

If I won that I’d finish my house how I can see it in my minds eye (which may not leave much it’s pretty shit right now! :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: ). I would also buy homes / set up my kids and ourselves so we didn’t have to worry and help all the family that may need it. Then I would set something up with the rest to go here:

I remember doing my MW training and sobbing - I just couldn’t, and still can’t believe, what childbearing women in Africa have to go through. I’d also like to go and work out there and having that sort of money would enable me to do it. The ynot only treat the women, help them reintegrate into their communities but train local midwives as a preventative measure. Without good midwives things won’t improve for these mums and babies.

ETA - I had a little tear, I didn’t realise the amazing Dr Hamlin died last year. What a sad loss.

1 Like

For those of you that have never heard about this, this page explains this awful condition - obstetric fistulas:
https://hamlinfistula.org/our-patients/

1 Like

Choose a small, local charity and almost all of your money will do some good.

We used to take anything we didn’t need to Haven House for the above reasons.

2 Likes

For me there will be no giving money away. W hat I would like to do is travel travel travel.

I hope it’s partly said tongue in cheek, but that is why it is the rich, who do just that, who contribute so much to climate change. :frowning_face:

Not all tongue in cheek but I love travelling

So many smaller jets, obviously private, doing short and medium haul over my house across Europe and to Africa since Covid. And that’s just the ones I see.