Lottery Winners

I've been sitting here watching an E True Hollywood Story about lottery winners. And for a majority of the last two hours I've been sitting in awe of the disaster that has ensued for some of the winners, mostly because they went nuts and bought everything under the sun. Buying dozens of cars, multiple homes, giving money to strangers who claimed to be family members, you name it.

"What if I won the lottery" has always been a favorite topic of discussion for me. Whether it be with my Dad or with any of my friends. I think the conversations have also been helpful in keeping me grounded in what I would do with the money once I had it because none of the plans that I have for those millions include buying more than one car or one house. I'd take care of my family, whatever that means depending on how much money I'd won. Whether it be something as simple as paying off mortgages and cars or as big as making sure they never work another day in their lives.

What are some of the things you guys would do if you won that kind of money?

It'd all be good until you spent 10 million dollars for 20 minutes of meeting with Gene Simmons.

I would use my money to meet Gene Simmons, but it wouldn't cost me $10 million.

I'd pay whatever KISS charges to do private parties, then I'd go backstage to meet the whole band.

I've read the going rate for such a thing is in the $250,000-$500,000 range. A far cry from $10 million and they play when I want them to as opposed to waiting for them to come to me.

Small price to pay (for a millionaire that is) for a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

not a bad price at all. It'd be a once a year thing

I don't know if you guys know but I work for a lottery company - one of the er "perks" of the job is that I am not allowed to play lottery so those millions will never be mine

I work with computers not people so I don't get to meet many millionaires on a daily basis but the ones I have run into are all just normal people. There are studies that most people upgrade houses, cars and look after their families and close friends, there are of course the exceptions to these and they make much better stories

As for what I would spend my millions on, I would travel get to see more of the world.

me too rockhoppers

I'd pay Gene Simmons $20 million to stay away from Larry.
Also I'd go to every grocery store in town every day and buy all the toilet paper.

Ha ha.

Actually, I'd quit my current full time job, find some part time volunteer work, and never worry about anything ever again.

You evil son of a bitch!

This granted all depends on how much I actually won. But i would pay off all debt/house. Buy me a new car Nissan 350z(always have wanted it), the rest put away/invest so When I hit 50-60 I can stop working and don't have to work till I am 70. I might take trips to some of my favorite spots.

meathorse wrote:

I'd pay Gene Simmons $20 million to stay away from Larry.

That's priceless. The scary thing is, for the right price, he'd do just that. He's all about the money.

rockhoppers wrote:

As for what I would spend my millions on, I would travel get to see more of the world.

I have little to no interest about traveling to see other parts of the world. The only place that would ever want to go to outside of the states is Australia and I've never really been sure why. Just something about it makes me want to go there.

The only thing I'd go nuts on would be something like the entertainment room in my house. That thing would be state of the art: big screen, HD, Blue Ray, surround sound, every game console, couple of rows of recliner seats. Hell maybe even have some old school velvet curtains that open up when the movie starts. Outside of that, everything else would be top of the line, but nothing I didn't need. I wouldn't have marble bathtubs or gold covered fixtures or whatever. Every time I see that on Cribs, I just see a waste of money.

Especially since marble bathtubs are opulent, but are crap for holding in heat. I'll take a Japanese-style sealed teak bathtub any day. Expensive, but soooo worth it.

I would take my lottery winnings and pay off my mortgage and fix up the house. Then I would buy a place in the historic district of Covington, with lots of architectural character and a bathroom big enough for the aforementioned teak bathtub - big enough for two, of course . I'd keep the old house as a rental property. Job-wise, I'd probably leave the library and spend my time traveling, photographing, and writing essays on my travels to publish. Unlike my favorite local boy Whit, I can think of quite a few places I would love to visit, both here in the states and abroad.

(I just realized that the only way I'll consider taking the leap to doing what I really want to do for work is to become independently wealthy. Depressing!)

Oh, and I'd buy more cameras, starting with a Canon 5D, a fabulous old Hasselblad, a Sinar 4x5, and a Mamiya 6. (Welcome to my world of delicious photogeekery.)

whodeygal wrote:

Oh, and I'd buy more cameras, starting with a Canon 5D, a fabulous old Hasselblad, a Sinar 4x5, and a Mamiya 6. (Welcome to my world of delicious photogeekery.)

And I absolutely love it

As this is a sports forum, I was wondering, if this lottery was one of those huge stage lotteries worth 350 million, would any of you consider purchasing a sports franchise? You couldn't afford an NFL team, but maybe a lowly NBA team or an NHL franchise?

I thought about it Brian but questioned the headaches and profitability of investing that way.

Underground Dyer wrote:

The only place that would ever want to go to outside of the states is Australia and I've never really been sure why. Just something about it makes me want to go there.

It's very nice.

Also, lots of hot girls.

Win the lottery? I'd buy six nice, but not ostentatious, houses in some places I'd like to live. Maybe Maine or Cape Cod, Kiawah Island, Northern California, Taos or Jackson Hole, maybe the Riviera Maya and Saint Barths. At maybe $5 mil each, that would use up about $30 mil. This would not just provide us nice places to hang out, but also would provide solid real estate investments for our kids. I'd love to see how our six kids would figure out among themselves which one gets which property. I would take another $20 mil to set aside to live on the rest of my life. Whatever is left I would invest and put into trust for the college educations and future wealth of my grandchildren.

And then my wife and I would take our golf clubs and tennis rackets and say "see ya".

That sounds pretty good Coast. How much is used for betting?

BrianIm wrote:

As this is a sports forum, I was wondering, if this lottery was one of those huge stage lotteries worth 350 million, would any of you consider purchasing a sports franchise? You couldn't afford an NFL team, but maybe a lowly NBA team or an NHL franchise?

I wouldn't be interested in owning a football team or even a basketball team. But one thing I would do, and I mentioned this in one of my Larry From The Underground shows, I would buy season tickets or get private suites in as many NFL stadiums as I could so I could go to whatever NFL game I wanted to regardless of location. It would be like going on my own personal "Game of the Week" tour or something.

That would be more my way of doing things. Do whatever I could for the best possible seats for the Colts and Cubs and life would be pretty darn good.

I would like to win the lottery to find out how I would spend the money.

Did I forget to mention the Bengals season tickets? Eh, they're a given.

I don't think I'd be particularly interested in buying a sports team. I don't care for hockey, and I'm not invested enough in baseball to make that worth my while. Though my best friend is a stat jockey. I could always acquire a minor-league team and hire him to run it. That might be fun.

I think the only other sport I might be interested in buying into might be horse-related. I remember years ago, I used to dream of buying a horse farm when I retired. Never mind that I know next to nothing about horses, and I've only actually ridden once in my life. (Girl cliche #27,395: Every American girl dreams about either being a princess, or horses. Guess which part of that cliche applies to me?)

Back in the day, I knew a few women who thought they were princesses. They had a certain thing in common with horses.

Coast2Coast wrote:

Back in the day, I knew a few women who thought they were princesses. They had a certain thing in common with horses.

Coast wins.

... twice.
"And then my wife and I would take our golf clubs and tennis rackets and say "see ya"."
And they rode off into the sunset...