I may have posted in the past about my lottery fantasies, but it's just so much fun to think about and therefore I am going to write about it (again) tonight. If I'm being redundant, forgive me. I am overcome by lottery fever and am no longer responsible for my actions.
The Powerball jackpot is at $365 MILLION. That's in U.S. dollars; it comes to about 209 million Pounds Sterling or 305 million Euros or 421 million Canadian dollars or 495 million Aussie dollars or 43 BILLION Yen - yowza! It's a lot of dough no matter where you're baking it. This is the largest lottery jackpot in U.S. history. And the drawing is tonight at 11pm New York time - less than one hour from now. Tonight, someone's life may be changed forever (unless there is no jackpot winner again tonight and THEN the jackpot gets even bigger), and I am damn sure hoping it's going to be ME.
I heard about the big jackpot amount last night and this morning I decided: Why not? I drove 50 minutes in a blinding snow squall over the state line into Pennsylvania to get tickets because New Jersey is not a Powerball state, and I managed to zip over the river into PA and about 2 miles in I found an exit with a strip mall. And there I found a video store selling lottery tickets and NO LINES - a miracle!
They say you can't win if you don't enter, so at least I'm covered. I spent $25 on tickets for myself and $10 of my mother's money on tickets for her (if she wins, hopefully she will take pity on me and toss a few grand my way). I should mention that I am not a regular lottery player. New Jersey has it's own state lottery and we also participate in the Mega Millions multi-state game, but in general I only buy tickets when the jackpots are huge, like this one. Normally I feel like I have better uses for my money and my time than running to the local convenience store twice a week. But it's sure hard to resist taking a chance on $365 million (ok, so if you take cash rather than an annuity, it's only going to be $177 million. "Only". HA!)
I think the trick with playing any lottery is that you have to balance your expectations with your belief in the possibility. That is to say, you can't EXPECT to win when the odds are 1 in 146,107,962, but you have to BELIEVE that it is possible for you to win. You have to be willing to take the risk of betting that $1 for a chance at $365 million. The risk-averse need not apply. If you don't believe you have an honest chance at winning, then you really shouldn't play at all.
We all have our little lottery dreams. We imagine what it would be like to win and how life will change (hopefully for the better) when the money comes rolling in. My own current lottery-winning fantasy scenario goes something like this:
I cannot check the lottery numbers live because I don't get the Pennsylvania TV station that broadcasts the live drawing. So I log online to check the lottery website. I jot down the numbers and then start checking my tickets, not really expecting much. After all, I've played the lottery before and never yet have I won a dime. I have hopes, but no expectations. It's a fun game, that's all. It's fun to have hopes and dreams.
But wait a minute... what's this? That can't be right. I blink. I rub my eyes. This one ticket looks like I have several of the numbers. Yes, I definitely have 3 of them... no, it's 4... no, 5. FIVE? Is that possible? What about that all-important Powerball number... yes. That matches, too. I check again. Then again. I am stunned. I am not sure what to do. My brain doesn't seem to be working right now. What is HAPPENING here? I check yet again. Yes, they all match. ALL SIX NUMBERS.
(Oh. My. God.)
I take a deep breath. And then I scream. I scream like Sally Field in some movie I saw years ago where she puts $20 into a jumbo slot machine in Vegas and hits the Big One, and the machine starts spitting dollar bills at her and then later she is lying in bed with all the cash, literally rolling in it. I scream like Roseanne and Jackie and Dan on TV's "Roseanne" when the financially-struggling family hits the largest state lottery in history. I scream like Rosie Perez and Bridget Fonda in "It Could Happen to You" (good movie). It COULD happen to me. And it did. So I scream and cry and jump up and down like some freak show. This is no time to be dignified and mature. I just won the flippin' lottery.
After I finish screaming (and start breathing again) I check the numbers on my ticket about another 20 times to make sure. And then I need to call someone and tell them. Someone else needs to be in on this with me, I can't handle this alone. I know they won't believe me at first, but hopefully the hysteria in my voice will clue them in that this is no joke. I still can't believe it myself. My hysteria is contagious... once they "get it", they are freaking out as badly as I am. Their excitement starts to make it feel "real" to me, for the first time. I'm not imagining it... it's really happening, to ME!
I am careful who I tell of course. You have to be careful with this kind of news. Only immediate family and my best friend will know for now. In case something goes wrong. I have heard stories of how lottery winner's lives were destroyed because they weren't discrete or sensible. I want to be cautious until I know what I am going to do.
The first thing I do (after the scream-fest and celebratory champagne and a "happy feet" dance with my loved ones) is make a photo copy of the ticket and then get a safe deposit box at the bank for the original. Then I call my attorney to ask for an urgent appointment. I won't even tell him what I want over the phone. I want to make sure I get good legal advice and a referal to a good financial consultant before I even contact the lottery office to claim my "prize". I have heard that some winners set up trusts for the winnings both for tax reasons and to preserve anonymity. Because if your identity gets out to the media you will be hounded for life by people asking for money - both the legitimate charities and the losers and criminals. This is no time to crave the spotlight.
I get all of that set up with my attorney and THEN I contact the lottery office to tell them I have a winning ticket and to find out about next steps. I neither know, nor care, if I am the sole winner or splitting the winnings with another ticket holder or two. $365/$177 million is so much money that even splitting it 2 or 3 ways would give me more than I ever dreamed of. Whatever the amount ends up being, I am more than grateful for it.
Time passes and the claim is settled. The money is put into my trust. I keep looking at the bank statement. I have MONEY. Lots and lots of it. It's still hard to believe this has happened to me. And now the fun REALLY begins. Now I get to DO something with it. To start with, I:
- Pay off my one little credit card balance (it's not much) and my little Honda Civic car loan. I have no plans to buy a new car right now but it's nice to know I could buy any car I want (I hear great things about the hybrid Prius... hmmm, maybe.) How cool to know I can just pay cash for a car for the first time in my life!
- Set my mother up with anything and everything she needs to feel completely secure financially for the rest of her life. Whatever she wants, she gets.
- Set up trust funds for my sister's two kids. They can use it to pay for college, a wedding some day, or whatever they need. It wont be excessive because I still want them to work for what they want and need, but there's no harm in giving them a little bit of debt-free start in life as they head out into the real world.
- Pay off my sister and brother-in-law's mortgage on their brand new house (how cool would THAT be!) I love the idea of helping my entire family be debt-free, even from a mortgage. That's a first for this family.
- Pay for a dream kitchen and bathroom renovation for my best friend and her husband. They really deserve it.
- Set myself up with retirement planning and some real estate investments to keep the money I have working FOR me. I know what happens to many people as they age and can no longer work, and I now have the security of knowing that whatever happens to me, I can afford the best medical care and quality of care for the rest of my life and will never be a financial burden on anyone else. Amen to that.
- Buy myself a really great apartment in Paris - my dream home! - and renovate/furnish it to my tastes, then have my stuff shipped over, and MOVE IN! I am now living my dream of being a writer and living in Paris! It doesn't get any better than THAT, in my book.
- Buy a vacation home somewhere on the east coast: Cape Cod or Maryland's Eastern Shore or even the Outer Banks in North Carolina are the most appealing. I love the shore and relish the idea of being able to spend long stretches of time (when I'm not in Paris or traveling elsewhere) taking long walks along the dunes and writing while sitting on the deck watching the sunrise or sunset (think Diane Keaton in "Something's Gotta Give"). And my loved ones will have a free vacation spot any time they want it.
- Donate at least 10% to my favorite worthy causes, of course. With wealth comes with the moral obligation to funnel some of it back out into the world in places where it is most needed.
- Create a foundation of my own that will support and advocate for neglected and abused children. I'm right with Oprah on this one... I can't sit by and watch these horrors happen to innocent children any more, and now I have the means to really DO something about it. I am sick and tired of hearing about these government agencies allowing children to remain in homes where they are clearly being badly treated and in some cases starved and tortured. Oprah is doing a phenomenal job of using her wealth and influence to nail some of our country's worst pedophiles and to get our laws changed so they support the victims rather than the perpetrators. I want to be the voice for those little ones who have no one else to speak for them because they are falling through the cracks in the legal system.
- Travel. Travel. And travel. England. Italy. Greece. Japan. New Zealand. Australia. Brazil. Peru. Panama. China. There is so much to see and experience and now I can finally do it.
- And I will write. I will write about all of it. I can now write because I want to, and only write what I want, rather than feeling like I need to take writing "jobs" to make a living.
Can you tell I've given this a lot of thought? You might think I'm an idiot or that I'm completely living in fantasy-land, but the truth is, you can't manifest something until you can visualize it. The Universe is a very specific place and it will give you what you ask for - no more, and no less. So if you're going to dream, do it in Technicolor, in vivid detail, and be as specific as you want. And you have to have faith that you deserve your dream becoming a reality - even if it doesn't. You don't have to justify it to anyone. It's your dream, and you're entitled.
The real gift of winning the lottery is not the money itself. It's a metaphor for the adage: "It's not what happens to you in life, it's what you DO with it that counts." Lottery-scale sudden wealth can be be a blessing or a curse, depending on how you see it and how you see yourself after you have it. You can either become some flashy, trashy, nouveau-riche greedy twat that wants to keep it all to yourself, or you can be kind, loving, compassionate and generous AND still allow yourself to enjoy the gift. Life should not be about suffering or guilt. It should be about living fully. It's ok to enjoy the rewards when they come, whether it comes in the form of millions of dollars in a lottery or your boss gives you an unexpected $1,000 bonus check for doing a great job.
For me, winning the lottery would be my "ticket" to being able to live the most full, amazing life I could ever imagine. Not that the life I'm already leading isn't valuable, just as it is. But money just gives me more options and more choices.
And isn't that the point of life? To do your best to create more choices for yourself -- and to make the healthiest, most productive choices you can, for yourself and others.
In the meantime, it's life as usual for me. Win, lose or draw. (But I'll always have a lottery fantasy. Hey, that's why God gave me a vivid imagination!)
THE "DAY AFTER" UPDATE: in case you were wondering, there was ONE winning ticket, in Nebraska. Since I don't live anywhere near Nebraska, it wasn't me. I did, however have two "winning" tickets (one number + Powerball) each worth $4. So that's $8 back out of the $25 I spent.
And my mother had 3 numbers on one ticket so she won $7. That was a pretty good return on her $10 investment.
The downside is having to drive 50 minutes back to Pennsylvania to collect the $15. Oh well, it's all part of the game. And in the meantime I hear the MegaMillions multi-state lottery (which we DO have in New Jersey) is up to $170 million now. The lottery dream continues...
