Jon Bear Journal: What would you do if you won the lottery?

 

 

Recently the United States had a Power Ball Jackpot of 600 million dollars where one winning ticket was sold in Florida.  While some lucky person or family now has both the means to indulge their material desires and the stresses that can be part of winning such a lottery prize, most of us are left with a ticket that’s a dud and our thoughts about what we would have liked to do with that kind of money.  I can be a bit of a “dreamer” sometimes so I can get a little lost in my thoughts while fantasizing about a financial windfall like that.    Keeping in perspective that money does not buy happiness it is still kind of fun to talk about it with a friend when you’re holding that ticket in your hand the night before a record drawing.

 

So what would you do?  Or better yet, what do you think you’d do?  As I imagine the fantasy never translates perfectly to the reality.   First of all I would get (hopefully a good) financial advisor before I cashed in my ticket and accepted the lump sum payout.  With a $600 million dollar jackpot that would leave me with approx. 258 million dollars after taxes.  Being a New York State resident, my tax burden would be greater than any other state in the country. >.<  I still love New York anyway.

http://www.usamega.com/mega-millions-jackpot.asp *lotto prize payout and tax info*

In first deciding how I would share the wealth if I had the sole winning ticket I would have to consider that I have kind of made a pact with God where I said, “God If I ever win such a prize that I promise to give about half of it away”.  After all, if I couldn’t live the rest of my life comfortably on ohhh 130 million dollars (not to mention the interest it would make) then perhaps I never deserved it in the first place.  Never mind the fact that the good Lord has probably got those prayers for winning millions of dollars on the back burner.   The $128 million dollars I had to give out to others would be dispersed something as follows.

15 million:  To Mom (thanks Mom hopefully that pays off part of the debts I owe you) =)

45 million: 15 million to each of my siblings and their families.  Hopefully with the astronomical cost of a college education that money will be enough to get my nephew through college in 16 years.  I think my niece who is entering college this year will be taken care of at least.

10 million:  To my best friend and his wife and son.  I don’t see myself throwing around a bunch of money to my friends over the years, but my best friend is like a brother to me, so he and his family would have to get a goodly sum.

6 million:  2 million each to be given to my 2 Aunt’s and 1 Uncle’s families.  They could all use an extra 2 million I would guess and then they could decide how they might like to spread it out between my cousins and their families.

10 million: To my co-workers who get in with me on the group tickets that we buy for that Jackpot. That is assuming I won on a ticket I purchased separate from the group of course. 

10 million: 5 million to each of my undergraduate and graduate college programs

14 million: To be dispersed among the other friends I choose.  Carlyn girl might get a little so we can get an even fancier website.  Not that this one isn’t the best ever already!

18 million: To be dispersed between the charities I choose.  I think that I would like to find an Education related charity, a Health related charity, a Science related charity, and a History related Charity and a Poverty/Humanitarian related charity of my choosing.

I’m not the best at Maths  but I think that makes up the 128 I promised I’d share right off the top.  Now for the fun part!  A few things I might like to buy for myself.  =P

I would like a Tuscan Inspired Mansion.  For some reason I love the look.  The only potential problem I have is that a lot of Tuscan designs are for warm weather areas.  I think I would still wish to live in a Northeastern U.S. state.  I’m also not keen on owning multiple homes.  I figure if I ever get lucky enough to own a multi-million dollar mansion that I better spend a lot of time there.   I’m sure with the right money though, someone could custom design one for me that would stand up to the Northeastern Winters.

 

http://www.thehousedesigners.com/plan/valencia-3131/

 

I wouldn’t have a fleet of cars, but one Jaguar and one Audi would be nice. >.<

 

 

Season tickets to see the New York Mets at Citi Field would also be great, but I would likely donate my luxury box seats to a charity for ill children for half of those games.

 

I do enjoy travelling to exotic places.  Well, at least I imagine I do, as I don’t know that I have really been to any “exotic” location unless parts of Florida count as exotic?  I would probably take a big vacation once every few years and one place I would definitely love to go is to this underwater resort (The Poseidon Resort) in the Fiji Islands.   I do love the cold weather, but every once in a while the soul yearns for an escape on some Island adventure right?

 

 

So that’s a little portion of what I might do with my millions.  Now if I ever do win I might have to get Carlyn to edit out some of this blog post.  Just to get rid of any evidence of the things I promised to do.  I would do it myself, but I might be employing professional blog writers to make my posts at that point. >.<