Posted on 04/15/2008 6:16:16 PM PDT by arbooz
He hit the lottery jackpot in 2005, but three years on, ex-soldier is destitute, down and out in budget guesthouse.
HE does odd jobs to make ends meet, claims welfare benefits and lives in a £15 ($40) a night guesthouse.
It's hard to believe that just three years ago, ex-British soldier Peter Kyle hit the lottery jackpot of £5.1 million.
Today, the 55-year-old divorcee has squandered all his winnings and is virtually destitute, reported The Daily Mail. It is claimed he also owes money.
A source told The Daily Mail that Mr Kyle lost his money after making a string of ill-advised investments.
He now lives in a budget guesthouse where he earns his board and lodging by doing odd jobs for the owner.
The source said: 'He had a golden opportunity to turn his life around - and then blew it. He took some bad advice from bad people and handed his money over too readily to them.
'Now he's got nothing and even owes cash.'
Mr Kyle won his fortune in February 2005 and splurged on a £550,000 house, a £40,000 Mercedes, a £40,000 Range Rover and another vehicle. He also gave money to his two children, aged 23 and 14.
Mr Kyle has refused to talk to the British media.
These days, the former Royal Artillery gunner calls a £15-per-night guesthouse in his hometown of Plymouth home. It is next to a sex shop and opposite a tattoo parlour.
A source told The Sun: 'Pete has been working at the hotel for a few months just to get by. He has his own room, marked private, and he spends a lot of time there.
'He shuffles around and cooks breakfast for the punters and is a general dogsbody for the owner.'
Reports say Mr Kyle has been claiming benefits for several months, and in January, an anonymous creditor secured a county court injunction against him in Northampton for £590.
The huge house he used to own on the outskirts of Plymouth has been repossessed, say neighbours.
The current owner is believed to be a builder who did work for Mr Kyle on the property but was not paid - and later negotiated a deal to buy it.
But some ex-neighbours of Mr Kyle believe he got his just desserts.
Said Ms Moira Johnson, 50: 'Some people do get what they deserve - he really is a nasty piece of work. I had a run-in with him once when a friend of mine was stuck and I needed to take them a car battery charger.
'I knocked on his door and he started screaming blue murder at me right in my face, calling me every name under the sun. His language was appalling. No one liked him around here and everybody had had some run-in with him at some stage. We were very glad when he left.'
Mr Kyle has also been accused of refusing to give financial support to four of his siblings. They suffer from Huntington's disease, a rare genetic disorder which attacks the neurological system.
His ex-neighbours also described him as an arrogant spendthrift when he first won the lottery.
Said one neighbour: 'He was very into his flashy cars.
'This is a narrow private road and normally neighbours wait and let each other pass, but he would always barge down and force you to reverse. He was arrogant and foul-mouthed - not a very nice man at all.
'I sensed he was a bit of a loner, though. There weren't many visitors and I think he was single.
'It doesn't surprise me that he has lost his money, because he did a ridiculous amount of pointless building work and drove top-of-the-range cars. We never mixed with him at all.'
Biggest Loser.
You can’t fix stupid... and you can’t buy a brain.
A fool and his money....
These stories tear me up. What is wrong with people that they can lose millions of dollars in a few years? It isn’t a bottomless pit it can be spent if you try really hard! Dh and I have always said that if we ever won we’d probably claim it as a blind trust and never tell a soul that we won, just let them think we are in debt to our ying-yangs.
My Mom once asked me “so if me or your grandparents ever won the lottery, would you want to buy you a car?”
To which I said “I’d like a Jeep Wrangler.”
“A Jeep Wrangler? Why not something nice like a Porsche or a Mercedes?” she asks.
“I always wanted a Jeep Wrangler. You could probably find a good late model used one for a good price.”
And people think I’m the weird one in the family...
What?
I don't speak "English" either.
Stupid is what a stupid does.
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This is an article about a military rank. For the novel by Diana Wynne Jones, see Dogsbody (novel).
Look up dogsbody in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.A Dogsbody, or less commonly dog robber in the Royal Navy is a junior officer; someone who does drudge work. An American equivalent would be a “gofer” or “grunt.”
The Royal Navy used dried peas boiled in a bag as one of their staple foods circa the early 1800s. Sailors nicknamed this vile substance “dog’s body.” In the early 20th century, junior officers and midshipmen who performed jobs more senior officers did not want to do began to be called “dogsbodys,”[citation needed] and the term became more common in non-naval usage ca. 1930 to come to refer to people who were stuck with rough work.
The term Dogsbody hasn’t always been used as a derogatory one with a number for people purposefully using as their callsign or handle, the most famous of these is probably Douglas Bader an RAF fighter pilot during the Second World War.
punters = customers.
dogsbody = gofer; menial laborer.
The kid looks like Dudley Dursley.
If you win the lottery, take the annuity! A lottery winning is actually just that. Say you win a $20,000,000 lottery. Well, you don’t get $20,000,000 cash; you get an annuity paying $1,000,000 a year for 20 years (the annuity itself just costs a percentage of that). If you elect to take the winnings in a lump sum, you just get the cost of the annuity and are then taxed on that. Thus, instead of getting $20,000,000 paid out over 20 years you’ll clear maybe $6,000,000 in a lump sum. Even if you took that $6,000,000 and didn’t spend a dime of it, but put it into a moderately safe security paying 5% a year, after 20 years you’d have just under $1,600,000, and you’d have to pay capital gains taxes on that $1,000,000 “profit.” So, at the end of 20 years, if you don’t spend a dime except on taxes, you’d end up with around $11,000,000. Take the annuity, and you get $1,000,000 a year, less taxes. You have a high six-figure guaranteed income for 20 years.
dyou’d ss
One can have net assests of far less than even 1 million and live debt free with even money to wisely invest regularly. It’s soooo true that a fool and his money are soon parted. As for $$$ make it, spend some, save some and give some away.
Ping for later. I love idiots on parade!
At least not as long as the "house" (gov't) gets it's cut in any lottery winnings--or in pretty much anything for that matter.
The wise man will take that money and use it was a tool to make more money in wise investments.... and stupid people will spend it like there is no tomorrow and invest it when shady characters come around asking you to invest in this and that.
True enough. I guess the only non-wise "investment" I would consider making would be to speculate in the futures market--since I always thought it'd be fun to be a right of center George Soros. :)
Not to hijack the thread, but you invoked the name of Douglas Bader, one of the bravest men Great Britain has ever produced, and I'm giving him a hand salute. Carry on.
Good thought on the annuity, but there is a market for picking up the annuity for cash so those undisiplined are at risk. Also, I wonder how much he gave away to his sons and whether they would be willing to help “pop” out now. Chances are the sons have as little fiscal common sense as their father.
My daughters asked me what I would do if I won a $1M, and I told them that, after the tithe, I would set up trusts for them to fully pay for a 4 year degree at a public university. After that I might upscale about $50 to $100K on my house. Beyond that my life would not change much. $2M I might think about quiting my job and going to work for myself.
The problems with lump sums are dumbasses who blow the money in a short amount of time.
http://money.cnn.com/2007/02/20/magazines/fortune/lottery_winnings.fortune/index.htm
I used to ask the same question about myself. Then my son pointed out that I didn’t buy lottery tickets. I admit to having bought a few $1 and $5 scratch off tickets since, and I’ve made a good return on the ones I’ve bought. I’ve won a couple of hundred bucks and I only spent about 20.00 total. I don’t buy them anymore since I’ve read the odds and such and I’m not a gambler. I play it safe I guess.
Yeah, I don’t really play either. I figure my chances of winning are the same whether I play or not.
In the U.K. there is no tax on the winnings. If it says One million quid, it is one million quid in your pocket. Taxes are paid on money made with the winnings.
“Why do foolish idiots like him win the lottery and people that are sensible about their money (like, say, ME for instance!) don’t?”
People that are sensible about their money understand that odds of 1 in 52,000,000 or worse amount to a sucker bet.
If Sir Douglas Bader was a dogsbody then I would be proud to be called one as well.
Just a note on the pic that is not a boot kicking Herr Hitler, it is one of Bader's two "tin" legs. He learned to fly and became a fighter pilot after losing Both his legs.
Then I have seriously underestimated him.
With the love the MSM has for stories like this one, and given all the lotteries we have in this country, you would think there would be many more stories like this one.
Or...most people who win the lottery, manage the winnings wisely.
I think the latter is probably true.
I was playing this guy’s stupidity up for a little joke in my original post. :)
No, he lost his legs crashing one of the King’s aeroplanes. Bader was a crack RAF pilot during the 1930s, and a star athlete before that. The crash nearly put him out of flying for life, but when WW2 started he convinced the RAF to let him have a go, and have a go he did, wearing his tin legs. He crashed a Spitfire during this period, crushing the legs, which he simply unstrapped and left in the wrecked aeroplane.
Your mistake is assuming a 20 megabuck lump sum.
The lump sum is more or less the price of the annuity that pays out one million per year for 20 years. Which is more or less the present value of one million per year for the next 20 years.
That substantially less then 20 million. Depends on the risk free growth number you assume for the next 20 years. (assume (verb): to make an...I digress.)
Of course the lump sum might still make sense if someone is old and the annuity was not transferable to their heirs or some similar situation.
Finally anybody with the math to follow this would never play a game with house odds like state lotteries (50%).
And if you still get into to trouble, J.G. Wentworth will be right there to help. "It's my money and I need it now"! Man I hate those commercials.
Your math error is that the lump sum payout on a $20 mill jackpot is generally about 50% of that. Powerball is now at $91 mill but only a $46 mill lump sum payout. So for a $20 mill jackpot, lump sum payout would roughly be $10 mill, then take taxes off of that.
Regardless of the math, if I were to win something like that I’d likely still opt for the lump sum though simply because of the old “bird in the hand...” philosophy.
Sounds like a born loser.
Or what we call a “go-fer”.
Understand your point, my comment was a general one as well. Seems that the only Lottery stories the MSM run with are sad stories like this one. It gives the impression that this happens to all lottery winners, which I think is far from the truth.
Sorry if my original comment came off as condescending or rude, that was not my intent. Have a good one.
I had to go look up your post again and figure out was condescending and rude about it. Haha :)
I didn’t have that reaction to your post at all; I agree with you 100%!
“However, there is no reason that a person with 8 million in cash should only be getting a 5% return.”
An investment that brings a 5% return is moderately risky, but is a good bench mark. An investment claiming higher returns grows more risky with each projected point, so your hypothetical millionaire stands to lose more if his investment goes south (yes, and gain more if the market goes his way; but why risk it?). Very rich people tend not to invest much of their money in risky investments, and instead opt for safer investments with a more modest return, but an investment that is almost guaranteed not to harm the principal, which is one of the fundamental rules of smart investing.
Evidently he didn't want it. It's interesting how many actually don't want the responsibility of being totally independent.
Um, they buy tickets?
nope, he lost his legs gettin’ the h@ll out:
http://www.acesofww2.com/Canada/aces/bader_mcknight/baders_story.htm
and that IS a boot - you can see the fur lining - it was the unofficial 242 squadron crest:
http://www.acesofww2.com/UK/aces/bader.htm
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