My husband and I have put a lot of thought into what I would do if we won the lottery. (I’m assuming the big prize in the Powerball, even though we have less of a chance of winning that than getting hit by lightning.)
The first thing we would do is get a lawyer. There are things we would need to get in order before we came forth and collected the winnings, and the lawyer could help. Then we would also get an accountant, because the plan is to live wisely within our means and invest our money.
Once we got our money, we would not make any big decisions for a year. We would explore our options (Do we want to move to Canada?) and make a list. The hardest part would be not retiring for a year — ok, I would probably retire before the year was out.
(I assume the question above presumes a big jackpot win rather than $2. The type of win that changes one’s life rather than just settles a bit of money on one.)
We (my husband and I) would proceed cautiously. First, we would get a lawyer and an accountant, and let the lawyer take over on the receipt of the funds, avoiding publicity, and the like. We would mark out a bit of money to spend in the first year so that we didn’t go wild with spending. We would spend that money on a mortgage, renovating the house and yard, which would benefit us in the short run and help us sell the house in the long run.
Then we would retire. There’s no conceivable way we could continue working under all the notoriety that a lottery win would cause.
We would work with a financial planner to set up our money in a way where we could live off the interest (not richly) and set up trusts for family members. I think we would also set up a trust for charitable purposes.
We would move to a bigger, more interesting town. Nothing too fancy and nothing too big. A college town would be nice, or an artsy town. We talk about this now as a thought exercise. We haven’t agreed on where yet.
We would be more discerning with our purchases. We would think of quality, not quantity. I think this will be the hardest part for us, as we seem obsessed with gadgets.
My biggest worry is that money might change my mind about the haves and the have-nots. I would hope I would not fall into the trap of believing that I deserved the money while others do not. I would not want to begrudge my tax dollars going to support the poor. I would not want to become a right-winger, and would do anything in my power not to be one.
Words Like Me 