Me too.
I realize it’s personal, and clearly anecdotal, but I’ve noticed my entire life that whenever an unexpected financial windfall comes my way, something almost immediatey comes along to wipe it out, and then some.
If I were to win a $1.5 billion lottery prize, I’d be paralyzed with fear, not popping the champagne corks.
It looks like the winner made sensible arrangements, but something can always go wrong.
A better way to look at it is “Every time I’ve had a disaster in my life, I just so happened to have a windfall and could cover the expense.” But yeah - I’m the same way. I just saved a bunch of money by doing my car repair myself and was so happy and proud and was going to use that as my excuse to look into buying a new gun. The next week my computer crashed and I had to take it in.
I was just talking to somebody that was praying about how they were going to cover a newly found medical expense in the thousands of dollars. The second day of praying about it she heard that “still small voice” say “You already have it.”
She got home that night, and saw that her tax refund was in the mailbox. It was about $100 shy, but still.
Back when the lottery was going on I was reading lots of stories about the winners. You had the folks that started acting rich. One couple was divorced after a year. The man another year or so later killed himself. The woman was found dead in her mansion, her three dead cats also dead. She was found several months after she had died alone. (And obviously nobody missed her).
The successful ones were older folks. Invested in aluminum siding and new windows to keep the drafts out. Got a new car for the wife. Set up a nursing home account for themselves, college funds for all the grand children, and an emergency trust fund for the kids. Gave the other 20 million to the hospital.