Throwaway account for obvious reasons. I'll tell my story the best I can without giving out too many details which would give away my true identity.

Late 90's. I was finishing up my second year of college. I worked part time in a locally owned grocery store. One Saturday evening, I clocked out of work and was heading home. Stopped to fill up my car, bought a few snacks and three lottery tickets. I rarely played and the only time I ever bought any was when my mom and I would go half on a ticket. Got back to my place(lived in my grandmothers old mobile home by myself), threw the tickets on my counter and watched a movie.

Woke up the next day around 8ish. I was off of work and my mom calls. She says that some "lucky son of a bitch" won the lottery in the local area. I had totally forgot I bought three tickets so I walked over to my counter, pulled up the winning numbers on my dial up internet connection. Sure enough, I won. $20 million. I looked over the ticket about 100 times. I ran to the local Wal-Mart to get a fireproof safe and the cashier gave me a funny look. I ran back home and put my ticket in there. I was so scared, I wanted to tell my parents, my friends, but I knew I couldn't.

I didn't have to go in to work that Monday until later in the evening. I didn't have class on Mondays. I took my safe and went over to the lottery office. I knew nothing about a trust or anything like that. I signed the back of the ticket, the news came and took pictures, I gave a small interview. I ended up with over $12 million(took the lump sum), then Uncle Sam took another $4+ million in taxes, so I was left with just under $8 million. I received the money in about three weeks.

I was hounded left and right for money. My phone rang non stop. I ended up canceling my landline all together. I had to change my cell phone number four times. The last two times, I never even gave it anyone. I was good about saying NO though. I never even gave any to charity. I gave my parents $250K, each of my siblings(one brother, one sister) $200K each, and dropped $10K each on a few close friends. Of course, I quit my job, quit school, rented a very nice apartment, bought two vehicles totaling $75K. My two best friends and I took a trip to Europe for two weeks that summer.

I ended up purchasing a home in a very nice subdivision in a few cities over for $280K. It had five bedrooms/3 baths, and an underground pool. The money was flying out of my account. I had no savings, no investments. I ended up meeting with a financial advisor and put $3 million into all different sorts of funds. I bought a condo in Florida, right on the beach for $230K.

After a few years, I started to fear for my life. I always had people threatening me but it got worse. I was scared to even check my mail or go outside. I thought by then people would have moved on. They didn't.

I decided I needed to move far away. I didn't sell my home, just packed up what I could and flew to the west coast. Ended up buying a home for $475K. Didn't learn my lesson the first time and people slowly found out and started to get harassed again.

I moved once again. This time I sold my place on the west coast, took a huge loss. Moved to the Midwest. I ended up spending some money changing my whole identity. Bought a small home for $150K, went back to college, got my degree. I decided that I needed to actually have a job and live well below my means to not draw any red flags, so that's what I did. I got a job, making only $30K a year, ended up meeting a girl, we got married later. She believes both my parents passed away and that I am an only child. We have three children, we both work, live in the same house, attend soccer games, dance recitals, etc. Like a normal family. I still have $4.5 million left from the original lottery money. More, of course, with the investments. My wife, or anyone else, has NO clue that I have all this money. I call my family a few times a year to let them know I'm ok, but I won't tell them where I live. It's exhausting, but I feel it's the right thing to do.