If I won the LOTTERY!

[mezmo]

Despite the odds, you can never win if you do not have a ticket.
Some one or two or more in the 175,000,000 ticket buyers [said
tongue-in-cheek] will eventually win.

Don't go crazy and spend big bucks on buying tickets. Be reasonable in
doing so. All you need is one.

Take Forrest747's advice from his first paragraph - don't tell anyone at all
if you are fortunate/lucky enough to win! Lotto money envy weirds most
people out - why ask for all the major grief it'd cause you if you advertise
your win? You aren't that foolishly needy enough for attention are you?

Take a reasonable set amount out to satisfy any conspicuous consumption
cravings the win would set off, and don't go too crazy doing so. Get the
necessary advice to park the vast majority of the rest of the winnings
somewhere safe so you can spend the rest of the year educating yourself
on how to handle big sums of $ for yourself. That now is your new full-time
job - if you are smart enough to realize it. And while you're at it, fine-tune
your bullsheist filter, that'll be even more important everafter.

Don't buy into any guilt-trips, self-imposed or otherwise. Money won't buy
you happiness, but it can make misery a helluva lot easier to take. And
it can facilitate your achieving happiness.

That old saying; "Money is the root of all evil" is incorrect. The old saying
is actually: The LOVE of money is the root of all evil. [So much for the
veracity of translations.] Money is just a tool or facilitator. [Yeh, I know ,"just".]
Like all tools, you need to learn how to use it effectively. It can help you
achieve great benefits for yourself and many others.

Use your good fortune for doing good, you now have great financial ability
to do so. Use it wisely. It can multiply kindness exponentially. That's the
only way to make it really matter. Squandering it on vices just proves you
are a fool.

Cheers,
Norm/mezmo

[Ratkity]

I won!!! um.. $7.

Not bad for a lotto newbie.

Hugs,
Ratkity

[rebapuck]

I'd head straight to the beach and buy oceanfront property.

I worked at the USPS and some years ago a postal worker in FL won $11 million. She was unsure if she would quit working. Everyone at my station was incredulous as we would all have quit in a heartbeat. Except Don. He wanted to keep his health insurance. For some reason, he didn't think $11 million, even after taxes, would give him enough to pay his own premiums...????

Can't win if you don't enter.

[mikeschn]

Chell won! I did too!

Um, lets see... grabbing a calculator...

Okay it looks like Chell won $3

My win was part of a work pool. So it looks like I won $0.20 there...

What I found amazing when looking thru the 100 tickets from the work pool, is that most tickets only had 1 number match.

So the odds of winning are even more astronomical than I thought...

Mike...

[PanelDeland]

According to the local news,the odds were 178 million to 1.If you had borrowed 178,000,000 and bought tickets,you would have won.Unfortunately even if 2 other people had won(three did) you would still be in the hole after taxes and intrest.I did have a few tickets but don't ever go crazy on it.My step dad was a pro gambler and he told me that it cost him a lot to learn the odds.He was quite sucessful when he and mom got together,but claims he probably only won back 1/4 of what it cost him to learn.

[rebapuck]

If gambling is your primarly source of income, you can deduct your losses...or something like that.

[Aaron Coffee]

Hmm. thought I posted in here, but guess not.
My lottery dream would be a nice campground, with an adjoinging drive-in movie theater, and heck through in a old fashioned drive-in restaraunt complete with car hops, and window trays. On my private property adjoining the campground I would build a modest shop with different areas for diffenrent types of work and possibly a garage to house finished projects. Sounds like winning the big bucks would be a big hassle.

[LDK]

If I won the lottery I would try to keep as low a profile as I could if thats possible. Then I would buy several hundred acres of secluded land to live on plus to hunt and fish on. I would also donate alittle to the charity of my choice, some to my church, and some to family. After all that is said and done I would be happy and content to just live the hermit lifestyle.

[eamarquardt]

Can't win if you don't enter.

The corollary to that is "you can't lose if you don't enter".

My wife and brother have a few "losers" to show for their efforts to "beat the odds". No significant winners though.

Cheers,

Gus

[jstrubberg]

I think what you get out of a $1 lottery ticket is the opportunity to dream for a while.

The wife and decided that after retiring all of our debt, we would probably keep our current house, update the cars and buy some kind of RV. The idea would be to spend the first year on the road without a permanent address to avoid the bulk of the begging for money that seems to plague lottery winners. Not sure I could full time in a tear, but you can bet one would be part of the conversation!

Of course, there would be lots of gifts and spending for family members ( would love to pay off my folks farm for them). One other thing I would love to do is establish a college cholarship in the name of our kids high scholl band and choir director. Those two have had a huge influence on our family and were part of my girls paying for college via scholarships.