What would you do?

I had contemplated playing Powerball the other day but I just wasn't feeling inspired to play.  I woke up this morning and checked the numbers and someone in Maryland won, and those numbers were not even on my radar to think about playing.  I am very happy for that person (or group) and I hope they use their newfound money wisely and have someone to ground them to reality so they do not become a statistic.

The amount of money that is out there to be won is amazing and life changing to be sure, but it isn't always life changing in a good way.  I can only imagine how easy it would be to just go crazy and really lose your head.  Sure winning that amount of money can certainly solve a lot of your problems, but it also introduces a lot more that I don't think any of us could fully comprehend until it happened to us and the odds of that are slim.

They are even more slim for me because I rarely play the lotto but boy do I love to dream about what I would do with the money.  I also know that before I announced anything I would:

  • Call my financial planner and get a meeting with him, a good tax person, and an attorney.
  • Get new cell phone numbers and only give them out to those people that I trust so not many people.
  • Delete all social media
  • Get a new email address
  • Follow the advice of my financial and legal team
 
I don't believe that winning that amount of money or even making that kind of money obligates you to do anything with it.  I would hope that there would be donations made to charitable organizations but no one is obligated to do anything.

Some of the things I would do include but are not limited to:
  • Fund college or trade school for my kids as well as nieces and nephews
  • Pay off my family member's mortgages, and ours as well
  • Fund research into tree nut allergies
  • I would pay for family reunion vacations, I very much enjoyed when we did a family cruise we all had some meals together but we also did our own separate things and I would love to be able to do that again.
  • I would take family vacations
  • Donate to other charitable endeavors as well but I don't want to list them all out.
  • I would remodel my house a bit because I really do like my house I just need to modernize it a bit.

One thing I don't think I would do would be to set up my own foundation.  I sometimes laugh at the idea of all the 'celebrity' foundations and wonder would their money be better spent on an established charity that has infrastructure etc rather than  creating another one that would have a certain amount of overhead etc.  That is just my pet peeve but if you want to start your own foundation more power too you, best of luck it seems like a lot of work and that is not for me.

My tastes are relatively simple and if possible I would like to keep my house, just outsource some maintenance.  I would also stop working and focus on my hobbies and volunteering.  I know my other half would be too bored he would want to continue to work, and I am ok with that.  It would keep us both out of trouble!

Who knows maybe I will feel wild and crazy and buy a Mega Millions ticket tomorrow when I make my weekly trip to the grocery store.  But in reality I probably won't.

 

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