Former Lottery Winners Advise Caution as 500M Powerball Nears
Read Time:2 Minute, 41 Second
So you are the lucky winner of the $500 million Powerball jackpot, the second highest in lottery history. Now what? Personally I just want the chance to figure it out. Then again, I don’t play so I guess winning is out of the question.
Anyway, you won and perhaps it’s time for a tropical vacation or a new car. There are bills to pay, loans to settle, debts to square.
Past winners of mega-lottery drawings and financial planners have some more sound advice: Stick to a budget, invest wisely, learn to say no and be prepared to lose friends while riding an emotional roller-coaster of joy, anxiety, guilt and distrust.
“I had to adapt to this new life, “said Sandra Hayes, 52, a former child services social worker who split a $224 million Powerball jackpot with a dozen co-workers in 2006, collecting a lump sum she said was in excess of $6 million after taxes. “I had to endure the greed and the need that people have, trying to get you to release your money to them. That caused a lot of emotional pain. These are people who you’ve loved deep down, and they’re turning into vampires trying to suck the life out of me.”
The single mother kept her job with the state of Missouri for another month and immediately used her winnings to pay off an estimated $100,000 in student loans and a $70,000 mortgage.
She spent a week in Hawaii and bought a new Lexus, but six years later still shops at discount stores and lives on a fixed income — albeit, at a higher monthly allowance than when she brought home paychecks of less than $500 a week.
“I know a lot of people who won the lottery and are broke today,” she said. “If you’re not disciplined, you will go broke. I don’t care how much money you have.”
Lottery agencies are keen to show off beaming prize-winners hugging oversize checks at celebratory news conferences, but the tales of big lottery winners who wind up in financial ruin, despair or both are increasingly common.
There’s the two-time New Jersey lottery winner who squandered her $5.4 million fortune. A West Virginia man who won $315 million a decade ago on Christmas later said the windfall was to blame for his granddaughter’s fatal drug overdose, his divorce, hundreds of lawsuits and an absence of true friends.
The National Endowment for Financial Education cautions those who receive a financial windfall — whether from lottery winnings, divorce settlements, cashed-out stock options or family inheritances — to plan for their psychological needs as well as their financial strategies. The Denver-based nonprofit estimates that as many as 70 percent of people who land sudden windfalls lose that money within several years.
Read more HERE….
Follow MadMike’sAmerica on Facebook and Twitter, and don’t forget to visit our HOME PAGE.
If you liked our story please share it at REDDIT.COM and PINTEREST as well as TUMBLR.
Happy
0 %
Sad
0 %
Excited
0 %
Sleepy
0 %
Angry
0 %
Surprise
0 %
0
0
Holy zookeepers! I won. No. I really won. Ah shit. It was the inspector lable in my new jeans. Gotta quits smokin so much dope man.
I have convinced myself that I have won, and when I wake up tomorrow I will be one rich fucker so that’s that and don’t fuck up my dream.
Last night I had a dream that I won the lottery because I prayed to Jesus right before I bought the ticket. I decided that since I’m an Atheist there’s no way I would pray to Jesus so I guess I’m not going to win.