Not so sure I want to win the lottery now

[Paul F.]

The rich keep doing what made them rich...
The poor keep doing what made them poor...

Take most rich people that made it themselves, and take their money away, and within 10 years they'll be rich again.

Take most poor people, and give them money, and within 10 years they'll be poor again.


And some points already posted I wanted to comment on;
Take the lump sum and invest it. You can do better than the state would have with it and end up with more.

Don't bother adopting a public school... public school budgeting is fundamentally stacked to waste any money you give it... and then come begging for more. Just like EVERY government run operation.
Instead, start an affordable private school....

Don't try to ESCAPE the golddiggers... just budget wisely for them and take them with you. 100,000 a year should keep you with a blonde, a brunette, and a redhead pretty much 24/7.

And like Macphanatic said... before you even go out to LUNCH with the winnings, consult a couple GOOD financial planners.

I'd have my money invested so that I could only access (easily) what I could spend according to my financial plan (for example, I'd plan that my "spending money" could only equal 300,000 a year for a 100 mil prize). Beyond that and special arrangements would have to be made to divest an investment... and giving my financial planner time to say "Hey, you idiot... you don't need a damn boat! Leave the money there making money for your nieces, your two schools, your five scholarship trusts, your four townhouses for low income families, your crop of fine walnut, maple and mahogany hardwood trees (ready to harvest in 2086), and your Scholarship fund for the Strippers at your Club!".

I'm too cheap to piss away that kind of money...
Spending those kinds of sums frivolously would cause me physical pain.

[MacArtist]

Everyone wants to believe that money will cure all of their problems. I think money tends to amplify certain problems.

But I am not opposed to conducting an experiment to verify this.

Send your checks to me at....

[jimbrady]

[quote Jp!]Jimbrady, your links/images are prohibited and do not show up.
Really?

[AllGold]

[quote jimbrady][quote Jp!]Jimbrady, your links/images are prohibited and do not show up.
Really?
Yes, unless you meant to link to an image that says "Hotlinking graphics from our domains is prohibited."

[JoeH]

Yep jimbrady, most show this message instead, "Hotlinking graphics from our domain is prohibited."

As for the lump sum or annuity choice, if I ever won here in Mass. it is not a choice. The Mass. state lottery only pays out winnings over a certain amount as an annuity. Don't know if that is the case in any other state. And you do pretty much have to show up in person to collect to meet the requirements of proving who you are.

The comments about the winning just reinforcing who and what the winner already were ring true. Woman I worked with some years ago had divorced her husband because she no longer could deal with his gambling and drinking. Anout 9 months later he won $5 million on a scratch ticket. Between trips to Vegas and elsewhere and getting every gadget for himself and their son, he was well on his way to pissing away all of his winnings when last I talked with her. Getting the money as an annuity was slowing it down, but he had already run up credit lines that would need to be paid of with future years payout.

[raz]

Well, the first thing you need to do after winning is to move, change your phone numbers and email addresses, and hire somebody to screen your communications.

Everybody you've ever met, every relative you barely know, everybody with a sick child wil be telling you their heart rendering tales of woe.

Then, you get a financial planner and lay out your budget for the rest of your life (and your heirs).

Then, you go and cash the ticket.

Note that your life has now completely changed in fundemental ways you never could have ocnceived of.

[jimbrady]

[quote AllGold][quote jimbrady][quote Jp!]Jimbrady, your links/images are prohibited and do not show up.
Really?
Yes, unless you meant to link to an image that says "Hotlinking graphics from our domains is prohibited."
Yes--that's what I meant. Check the URLs.

I just thought it was funny that I could hotlink so many times to a graphic from a site that prohibits hotlinking. Granted, they're not showing the graphic I'd intended, but they're giving up more bandwidth than they would have by just letting me have my dumb tiny little jpeg.

[Dennis S]

Why do they all buy a 3-story brick house with big columns in the front?

[Lux Interior]

"...then she puts on a mininskirt that has more black velvet than the den of a West Virginia lotter winner..."


Obscure?