10 years ago, if you'd asked me what I'd do with a lottery win, I'd have said: dump it all in a bank term deposit and live off the interest. Looking back, that's a terrible plan — inflation quietly eats the principal over time, and you're also taking on concentrated single-bank risk for a "guaranteed safe" strategy that isn't actually that safe.

6 years ago, my answer would've been: buy 3-4 downtown apartments and rent them out. Sounds solid on paper, but it's actually one of the worst ways to deploy a lump sum — illiquid, concentrated in one asset class and often one city, plus tenants, maintenance, vacancy risk, and property management headaches eating into the "passive" part of passive income.

3-4 years ago, I'd shifted to: crypto + crypto lending + a high-yield savings account + apartments/villas. Marginally more diversified, but still way too concentrated in high-risk, high-correlation bets (crypto lending blowups taught a lot of people this the hard way) plus the same real estate illiquidity problem.

Now, with a bit more financial literacy under my belt (and investing as a non-US person, so UCITS-domiciled funds matter for tax efficiency), here's what I'd actually do:

• 50% VWRA – Vanguard FTSE All-World UCITS ETF. One ticker, global developed + emerging market exposure, auto-rebalances internally, no fund-of-funds maintenance needed.
• 15% Total Bond Market – ballast against equity volatility.
• 10% Gold & Silver – inflation hedge, low correlation to equities.
• 10% Own Residence + REITS - Primary Residence
• 5% Emergency fund (HYSA) – liquid, accessible, doesn't need to "perform."
• 5% Crypto (BTC only) – exposure to the asymmetric upside without betting the farm.
• 5% Splurge money – because what's the point of winning if you can't enjoy some of it.

Funny how the plan goes from "one big bet that feels safe" to "boring, diversified, and actually safe." Curious how everyone else's answer to this question has changed over the years — anyone else go through a similar evolution?

TL;DR: Went from "term deposit and live off interest" → "buy a few rental apartments" → "crypto + HYSA + real estate" → now a diversified 50% VWRA / 15% bonds / 10% gold-silver / 10% Real Estate / 5% HYSA / 5% BTC / 5% splurge portfolio. Each version felt smart at the time and looks worse in hindsight.

PS : Have refined the post using Claude, so don't come at me for that.