Money is supposed to be the root of all evil or whatever, but it seems like it would solve a lot of problems, right? Unfortunately, when these people found their way into money, the people around them changed. It’s great to suddenly make some extra cash until your family wants money and your inheritance story starts to sound like a nightmare.
We all think we want more money, but it can totally destroy relationships. I hope these people figured out who their real friends were after this.
1. This would suck.
So I wouldn’t consider it “a lot” of money but I won $5000 on a scratch-off. It was given to me on my birthday by my aunt. It was just a $2 scratcher and obviously, nobody thought I would win that much. I scratched it in front of everyone and they were all super excited for me except my aunt who demanded the ticket back because she paid for it. I even offered to split half with her.
Long story short, she took me to small claims where the judge pretty much laughed and she didn’t get shit. Haven’t talked to her since –marinekid09264
2. That’s a good friend.
I once took second in a poker tournament and won $150k. There was an audience of about 200 people when it finished. A common practice was ppl ask winners for a “lucky chip”. I was almost mobbed by people begging for lucky chips as I left the casino. Had to be escorted by security and paid a friend $300 to follow me in their car and we drove all over town for two hours to make sure nobody was following me home.-TLKim
3. Glad they were cut off.
I unexpectedly inherited about four years’ worth of take-home pay. Before I knew how much it would be, I told my best friend I’d be getting a few thousand dollars. She immediately asked me to take her on a trip to Europe. That was the biggest thing she asked for but she made other small requests as well.
When the money came through and it was a lot more than I’d anticipated, I did not tell my friend. Instead, I started distancing myself from her. I also did not tell any of my other friends.
I did tell my boyfriend. He did not ask for anything. I took him on a trip to Europe. –PopcornSurgeon
4. Glad that’s an ex now.
So a few years out of college my girlfriend and I were living in a sort of large communal apartment with 5 other people. I had just gotten a significant promotion at my job and that situation was exceptionally below my means, but my GF was convinced that these were her people and they were all going to become great philosophy writers and poets by living together and sharing experiences. They were all unemployed or underemployed and experienced moochers, so I was very careful not to let them know I was saving large sums of money with the intent of moving out soon and taking my GF with me (or not…)
One day the other couple had an argument about rent and to try and keep them from coming to blows my GF promised them that I’d cover it for them and showed them one of my paystubs which I guess they showed everyone else. I got home from work and walked right into an “apartment meeting” ambush, where everyone else informed me that they wanted me to contribute “more meaningfully” and they’d put it to a vote before I got back.
I told them that I was already paying for the food that they kept guilting my GF into buying for them, topping up the apartment emergency fund instead of stealing from it like the rest of them, and many other things and that I wasn’t going to cover other people’s rent as well.
The next day when I was at work, someone went into my room and destroyed my laptop, which was the only thing of value I owned at the time. I collected the few things I wanted to take, told my GF I was breaking up with her and walked out. –ThadisJones
5. Meh, I’m team parents here.
Got a 7k settlement from a car accident and I accidentally left the check on the corner table in the living room. My dad walks into my bedroom and asks if I can lend my mom any money. I work minimum wage retail and ask him how much does she need. He says how about half of that 7k check.
It has been almost 8 years. I haven’t seen any of that money back. –ftnmech
6. Grandma was the only real one.
I inherited my beloved Grandma’s house alongside some other properties. As the house and the properties are near a very rapidly developing city, prices have skyrocketed and lead to me inheriting about $1.5m in value. That may sound awesome at first, but it truly isn’t. The house is a very old brick house, built in the late 1700s, and the properties are so small and widely distributed I can’t really sell them for a good price.
Now, somehow, word has spread that I inherited a lot of money. I did my best to stop these rumors, but it didn’t work out. I’ve never had many friends, but the ones I have are true quality friends. They will do everything for me and I will do everything for them.
After I got the house and the rumors spread, I got invitations to dinner in some really fancy restaurants, I was invited to sports events (i don’t even like sports) and some other very costly activities. All these came from people who claimed to be my “friends”. Needless to say, they expected me to pay for everything. “You’ve got so much money, what does $500 matter to you?” – “I’ll pay you back sometime.” etc… were the common phrases I heard.
I have now learned who to trust and to spot telltale signs of “vultures”.-gustavotherecliner
7. Those don’t sound like friends to me.
Old friends would only want to meet on the condition that we go out to eat and that I pay for it. –prysmyr
8. This is so frustrating.
I received fourteen properties when my last parent died, and the amount of people who crawled out of the woodwork to ask for a ”loan” were unreal. It’s really unfortunate that many of them were in a state that publicly publishes details of an estate when probate is granted.
Cut contact with every single one of them. I never asked them for money, why would they think it acceptable to ask me? –Aggressive-Regret
9. I hope he didn’t buy it.
In college, I won 10k on Wheel of Fortune and my older brother, who I literally hadn’t spoken to in 5 years and who bullied me my whole life to that point, called and asked if I would buy him a motorcycle. –greeperfi
10. This is a sad story.
My uncle would have been classified as working poor he had a job, a wife, a kid, an apartment, but was living paycheck to paycheck. They won the little lotto, and with another winner, my uncle got about 200K. They walked away from the apartment, bought the largest house in the poorest neighborhood and their friends always seemed to need something. I remember as a kid, they often had friends living in the guest room. They bought 2 new cheap cars, and then come property tax time, they were broke, and once again working poor. –somedude456
11. Cut him off.
My mother died and I ended up being the fifty-fifty beneficiary with my step-father. My step-father mentioned that my mother had a lot of debts, and asked if I’d be willing to help with some of them. Being more than a little naive and thinking it would be, at most, 5k, I said sure, how much do you need?
The first quote he gave me was 25k, and it wasn’t that substantial of an inheritance I received. I was pretty flabbergasted and basically backed off a bit to say I needed to think about it. However, every time I inquired again, wondering if he’d rethink his actions, the number he asked for kept climbing. Then the requests turned into demands.
Now I don’t talk to my step-father at all. The final number he demanded was more than what I received in the first place. And I was not a rich, well-established person with a career at the time. I was 21, and still very much struggling to find my way after having been essentially driven out of the home.
He hadn’t been my abuser, and I had kind of held out hope at the time that, even though he stood back for most of the abuse, he himself wasn’t that bad of a person. Took me several years to realize just how f*cked up it is to demand the inheritance money of the poor, struggling, abused child of your dead spouse. –TimeyWimeys
12. It helps you see the truth.
I know someone who has an uncle who once won $7,370,000 or so in the national lottery. His wife turned f*cking evil after that. They didn’t have problems in their marriage before, but she flipped on a dime the second that money came into their lives.
She was extremely greedy and wanted to control everything, spend thousands of dollars on designer bags, clothes, etc. without asking him first. She never cared about his or the kids’ well-being, and only cared about the money.
His life was pure hell right after he won, but luckily it made him realize what a crappy person his wife really was so that he could get rid of her and move on with his life. As far as I heard it all turned out well after they divorced. –NervousPlant
13. This is pretty crazy.
So when I started dating my boyfriend I didn’t know just how rich he was (we were both 25). After about 8 months of dating he finally opens up to me about his finances, he is an extremely modest person and uses his money almost exclusively for charity and investing in environmental technology.
We had been planning on going to Malaysia and I was a bit stressed about how to budget my money. Anyway, he said it took time for him to tell me because he wanted to make sure I loved him for who he is which was and still is true. Showed me his investments and private account statements.
I’ve grown up lower middle class my whole life so suddenly living a 5* life in Malaysia for about a month was incredible.
Anyways, as people do, we put pictures up on Instagram. Suddenly, I get bombarded by people saying since when did I get rich and if I had spare money lying around. My own aunt knocked on my door in the middle of the night, slapped me in the face, and said I lied about my money. She tried to get her son to barge into my flat.
Thankfully my boyfriend was there, he absolutely ruined them both. After this, she went around telling all of my relatives I had been hiding my wealth and refused to pay for my little sister’s treatment before she died. This hurt me a lot and my family took her side. I cut them off and about 2 weeks later someone set fire to my flat. My neighbor’s kids ended up in the hospital, thanks to security cameras and an eyewitness my own father and brother got jail time.
I went from thinking about all the possibilities of the great stuff I could do for my family with the money to almost being killed by them. I cut them out within a few weeks. It f*cking sucks how money changes people. –Sinorra
14. I hope they got the picture.
My abusive family all pretended like they never did anything to me the second it got around I was rich. Saying no to those people could not have been more satisfying.
After some early hiccups (and what 20-something wouldn’t mess up when suddenly coming into hundreds of thousands of dollars) I started investing intelligently. Now I’m in my 30s and the portfolio is just over 16 million. My family will never see one penny. F*ck em. –UltimaterializerX