Here at Trusttwo we know a thing or two about managing your finances and along with supplying our customers with fantastic options on our guarantor loans, we also want to help you out by providing informative posts about all-things finance. As such, we are going to be creating a series of useful blogs to do with different aspects of the financial world and what follows is no exception.

In some of our previous articles, we have been covering useful tips for budgeting for a holiday or what to take into account when buying a used car. Here we will be looking at something most of us dream of – winning the lottery. More specifically, we're going to let you know what you need to do should you ever find yourself in this rather spectacular situation. This post covers the basics about winning the lottery and what to do next...

There's Winning the Lottery and Winning the Lottery

Many of us may claim to have ‘won' the lottery in some way, but more often than not this is just meant in a jovial way when you've won a couple of pounds or at most a few hundred. The kind of winners we're referring to here are the ones who have won millions of pounds like this example on the BBC in April 2016. This lucky person – or persons – matched six numbers to win a whopping £35,133,888 Lotto jackpot. So this is what we mean by ‘winning the lottery'!

Winning the lottery – what do you do?

So picture the scene, you've sat through the Lotto draw and your numbers have come up, or you've had an email from the online account you have with the The National Lottery, to inform you you're a jackpot winner – what do you do?

Well the obvious first thing to do is jump for joy, cheer or do whatever you feel like doing in your initial celebrations, but when you've calmed down there are steps to take:

•On the back of your ticket, or on the email, you'll see a phone number you need to ring; it will put you through to a team who deal with winning claims.
•They'll then ask you to go through your numbers including the reference numbers on the ticket to validate it.
•They will then double check the amount you have actually won as this can change depending on how many others are sharing the jackpot and say they will call you back.
•After a short while, one of the team should contact you again to confirm how much you have won.

Winning the lottery - Where do you put your Money?

One of the trust's ‘Winners' Advisors' will then pay you a visit to talk you through your options before you receive your payment. Winners of larger prizes will be recommended private bank accounts to hold your funds, while other questions such as how you can gift money to others and if you've made a will, how inheritance tax will work. You can also seek your own professional advice on this matter.

Winning the lottery – go public or remain private?

After your money is officially yours, you have the option to declare if you want to go public and/or remain a private winner. Each of these options has pros and cons and should be thought about carefully – in other words don't rush into things and quit your job in what you might feel is a blaze of glory! What's more, if you choose to go public, expect a large amount of press and a publicity stunt that sees you receiving a giant novelty cheque.

Believe it or not, some people prefer to not claim their prizes

Alternatively, you can of course choose to not take any money at all. There have been instances like this story in Peterborough where prizes are left unclaimed. Some of the reasons for this include people feeling that larger amounts of money may be too big a change for them.

Lastly then, it's time for you to start enjoying the most-likely life changing amount of money you have won. With that in mind, we hope you really make the most of this, you lucky devils!
In our next post, we will cover the top 10 value winnings in lottery history and a few stories around the winners.

Images courtesy of iStock

This article was posted on: 18/10/2016