Daily Lessons from Life 09 June 2014 - Anger and Disbelief at 'Squandered' Million

"Anger and Disbelief at squandered Million - The Straits Times Sunday 08 June 2014"

Read about this sad situation of the widow of the cleaner who was killed in a most unusual 'hijacked taxi' incident in the Changi Budget Terminal a year back with insurance claim and public donation of S$1m was left with NOTHING!

She has 3 kids to raise supposedly. Now she is broke!

There was public angers and disbelief that she could have 'squandered' the S$1m in one year!

Lessons for me are:

1. hopefully this is NOT a case to PROVE that 'lower income folks' CANNOT handle big money though it WILL BE the model example for those with such a view! Sad but true unless some researchers can come up with many more examples of 'lower income folks CAN handle big money';

2. the public donation supposedly made up almost S$800k and the widow's company supposedly HAD arranged financial advisor/counsellor to assist her on how to divide the money for her 3 kids, etc. That did not stop her from making bad decisions like 'investing' in a brother's transportation business, etc. Of course, HOW she managed to spend or use S$400k in the last 5 months of this 'journey' was not revealed in the newspapers BUT critical for the 'donors' to know! Is this REALLY a case of: 'Advising is not as good as enforcing financial discipline through some forms of supervised discipline'?;

3. whatever the case the MONEY are GONE. This bring me to think about the point I had made in the past about: 'blind generosity of donating to someone who had a very tragic fate that befall them' e.g. someone died pre-maturely and the family members fall on hard time. This case if one of the many in the last few years. I DO NOT donate in such cases. Somehow, when each person just give S$10 or S$100, the number can add up pretty quickly into S$100k or more. HOW would the family members of the 'victim(s)' handle the donated money become a concern. As in this sad case. Are the donated money REALLY going to the young needy kids for the immediate and longer term future? How can the donated money REALLY turn the GOOD INTENTION into the desired good results intended? This is the question that NEED to be considered VERY SERIOUSLY before one donate.

If it is for the future of the kids, a trust MUST be set up if the donated money is significant. Maybe there are many other ways to handle this. I will leave others think about what they may be.