Tag: lottery

Fantasizing About the Lottery

Bloganuary writing prompt
What would you do if you won the lottery?
View all responses

We have all played this game, right? I mean all of us who live somewhere that holds money in high esteem, of course. 

You hit a big lottery, what do you do with the winnings? Before my wife found her calling as a software engineering genius she was an accountant. My father was an accountant too. My brother is a CPA. Why are these things important? Because all of us would work together to come up with a plan for dealing with the money that would not involve blowing it all in the first few years the way a lot of big lottery winners do. 

Here are a few things we would do……

  • Pay off any outstanding loans including student loans, cars, and the mortgage
  • Upgrades to the house and the cars and the general living situation
  • Figure out a way to use the money to generate an income, either through an endowment or a trust or something that will let us live as well as we can off of just interest. 
  • Make sure my step kids are set financially including a home and some sort of endowment or trust fund so that they are in a position where they won’t have to worry about money ever again
  • Make contributions to our extended family. Our parents and my brother and sister would get a chunk of the winnings to do with as they pleased, but the reasoning on our end would be for mortgages and college funds and healthcare and such. It’s doubtful we could set any of them up for life, but we can help as much as we can
  • Make similar contributions to a few close friends. Again, mortgage and college funds being the hope, but it will be their money to do with as they please. The trick would be figuring out how many friends we can help. It probably won’t be many, but we will do what we can
  • Research the hell out of charitable foundations and establish relationships with organizations working toward some of the things that are important to us. Diabetes research, cancer research, dementia research. Things like that. Find organizations that are doing good work and not screwing over their donors or their targets and donate as much as we can to them
  • Buy a 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard

That’s the gist of it. I’m sure if we did hit a honkin’ big lottery we would make significant changes to the plan based on the amounts in question and the general situation as it stands in the moment, but this feels like a good plan to start with at least.

We Did Not Win

You can tell by the fact that I signed in to work this morning that we did not win a billion gajillion dollars in the Powerball lottery last night. We didn’t even win a free ticket. Oh well.

On the upside though, I think I got a little raise today. Just a little one. There isn’t a lot to go around for raises right now so anything is welcome. The usual process is that someone tells me a raise is coming and then I get a document spelling it out. Today I got the document without anyone telling me it was coming. It works for me though. It’s not much but it’s enough to keep me in sea salt and vinegar peanuts for a couple of months at least.

The 1.5 billion gajillion dollar lottery would have been preferred, but I’ll take what I can get, with a smile.

Powerball

We’re not lottery playing people in this house. Jen and I will splurge for a ticket or two when a jackpot gets insanely huge.

Powerball is insanely huge.

We bought a couple of tickets.

We had to drive to a store tonight (a drive through, social distance like a boss) and on the ride over we planned out what we will do with our winnings. Our boat load of winnings.

I plan on calling Kirk Hammett and asking him how much he wants for Peter Green’s Les Paul.

Powerball Fantasy

At lunch today I went to the store and bought a few Powerball tickets. The drawing is at 11:00pm Eastern time tonight and the jackpot is currently 1.2 billion dollars.

I could handle that.

The one time payout would drop the winning to about 600 million, and taxes would drop it to around 300 million or so. Petty cash, right? Jen and I have been sitting in the living room fantasizing about what we’d do if we win. New house and paying mortgages for everyone in the family. College funds for all the school age kids in the family. Huge new house for us. Houses for the kids. Destination properties in our favorite places to travel to. San Diego (probably La Jolla) and Manhattan.

You know, the usual instantly rich people plans.

I’m sorry to all of the people who bought tickets who will not be winning because Jen and I will be winning. Better luck next time, everyone.

Rough Visit

My father got to see my mother today for the first time in a long time. Mom recognized him but wasn’t in a good way. I suppose it could have been worse. When I got there she was in a rough place. It’s difficult, but I’d feel worse if I couldn’t get there.

Back at the house, Jen has introduced Harry to Arrested Development. We are burning through it at breakneck pace.

We are also planning to go for a walk in Boston tomorrow. Both film cameras are coming. When the Nikon runs out of film the Pentax will take over.

Until then, we are about 90 minutes away from winning Mega Millions. 1.1 Billion US dollars? I’ll take it.

No!!

Going to work yesterday after the four day weekend was brutally difficult. For some reason though, going to work this morning seems 100 times worse.

I need a vacation.
I need a long vacation.
I need a 60 year long vacation (at least).

Where is that Powerball winner I’ve been promising myself?

We Didn’t Win

There was a Powerball drawing last night with an estimated jackpot of 400 gagillian zillion dollars.  I once heard state (in this case, multi-state) lotteries described as a tax on the stupid.  Well, I paid that tax after work yesterday.  I bought 10 tickets.

I completely forgot about it until a few minutes ago, so I checked my numbers.  Of the 10 tickets, five had exactly one of the winning numbers.  I could be wrong, but I think that’s the best result I’ve ever had!  WOOHOO!  I lost, but by less than I usually lose by!  Nice!  Each loss brings us that much closer to the inevitable lottery jackpot.  I can feel it!

I mentioned yesterday that I had to get up super early to cover something at work.  The end result was that I went to bed super early last night.  I wanted to listen to the Red Sox game while I read myself to sleep (still reading Tony Iommi’s Iron Man.  I am nearing the end of the Dio years) but as the game was about to start I put the book away and laid down with my headphones still on.  I’ll just lay here and relax while I listen, thinks me.  Nope.  I was out like a light before the first pitch.  I woke up a couple of times with an ear pod (magically) still in place.  I would hear the score and then fall back to sleep.

That changed when I woke up in the top of the ninth with the Sox down 5-4 and a runner on first.  I stayed conscious for that.  Then Drew comes up with two on and BOOM the Sox are up 7-5.  Even on the other short wake ups, when I would hear that they were losing, I knew that there was no way Houston was beating us again.  I didn’t fall asleep again until after the game was over.

There is something about this year’s team.  They shouldn’t be as good as they are, given the horros of last season, but they just keep winning.  If nothing else, it’s fun to watch.  Hell, they’ve already won more games than last year!  Go Red Sox

 Changing the subject again, I just cooked my telecommuting lunch on the grill in the back yard. The hamburger was frozen so I walked around the edge of the woods and took two pics with Oggl.
photo

photo

You are utterly blown away, I can tell.

In closing, my wife is stressing out about something today. I have full confidence that she is stressing out about nothing. She is just so incredible that she’s going to kick the holy hell out of that which bugs her. I know it. You all know it. She knows it too, deep down. She’s just awesome. Simple as that. Still, if you can spare some positive energy of the calm and relaxing sort, I am sure she’d love a little extra.

I love you like crazy, Jennifer. You are simply amazing.