Lotto girl: Why I’ve stopped splashing the cash
£1m winner Jane reveals her rules for careful living
WHEN she won £1million on the lottery aged 17, it sparked a flurry of high-profile spending.
Jane Park handed over £50,000 to a plastic surgeon for procedures including a ‘Brazilian bum lift’, and was never without an expensive car, handbag or designer shoes.
But while fellow teenage winner Callie Rogers claims she is happier having spent her £1.87million Lotto windfall, it seems Miss Park has been infinitely more sensible with her winnings.
The 22-year-old from Edinburgh has regularly complained winning the EuroMillions prize ruined her life, after getting lucky with her first-ever ticket in 2013.
She had even threatened to sue lottery operator Camelot for negligence, claiming someone her age should not have been allowed to win.
But she has now confessed that thanks to the advice of family members, she has managed to make the most of her money.
While the jackpot winner may have paid for breast enhancement surgery and a string of luxury holidays, she insisted yesterday that she is still in a ‘comfortable’ financial position – but refused to reveal how much money she had left.
She said: ‘It is easy to spend the money and once you become aware it’s yours and how much you have, it becomes even easier.
‘You think, “Oh well I’ve got the money so I can spend it”. It just becomes easier to buy more stuff that you don’t necessarily need.
‘I have had a couple of cosmetic surgeries. I went shopping and bought handbags and shoes and stuff like that.
‘My family said to me, “You have spent a bit of it now, you need to think about investing it”. So then I got some property and put some away in the bank. At some point I had to take their advice or it could have gone a completely different way.
‘It was very overwhelming. I thought I was this massive celebrity. I thought I was Simon Cowell famous with my £1million.
‘I just didn’t realise how much it actually was and what it could buy and what the difficulties could be with it. I have always had the same friends and my family were really good. There was a few people who came out of the woodwork but I have always been wary of them.
‘It’s good that I was quite a mature 17-year-old. I couldn’t think of what it would be like if I was very immature.’
Asked in an interview on BBC Radio Scotland how much money she had left, she said: ‘I would never get into figures or such on TV or radio. I’m comfortable and if that ever changed, people who read articles about me would be the first to know.
‘I have bought a few houses, I have done a bit with it and I’m still living comfortably, so it’s as good as it can get at 22.’
Miss Park also repeated her call for the age limit for buying lottery tickets to be raised to 18.
She added: ‘I have been trying to get that out there for 18 months and it’s good people are listening.
‘It’s not just the people that have blootered it. There are people out there who have still got money that are saying the same things.’
When she won in 2013, Miss Park toasted her win with Irn-Bru as she was too young to drink. She was working in a temporary administration job and living with her mother Linda in a twobedroom flat in a council estate in Niddrie, Edinburgh.
Camelot, which runs EuroMillions in the UK, appointed an adviser to help her manage her wealth but Miss Park said it was only family advice that stopped her wasting all her cash.
Earlier this week, Britain’s youngest lottery winner Callie Rogers, who scooped £1.87million in 2003 when she was 16, revealed she had spent her fortune.
She blew the money on drugs – including a £250,000 cocaine bill – as well as breast enlargements and £300,000 of designer clothes.
Miss Rogers, now 31, said she is ‘so much happier’ since she spent the cash – and also called for the age limit for buying lottery tickets to be increased.
‘I thought I was a massive celebrity’