What would you do if you won the lottery?
What would you do if you won the lottery?
The Powerball lottery is up to $1 billion tonight. If you won it, what would you do?
What would you do if you won the lottery?
The Powerball lottery is up to $1 billion tonight. If you won it, what would you do?
Keep it a secret.
Exactly. Do as little as required by the laws of where you live and immediately get the fuck away from wherever you are and start the process to emigrate to a different country. Christmas and Thanksgiving will now be done over video chat.
You won't fly your family in on your private jet?
My wife and I were thinking about this last week. We were wondering about personal security. At least where we live, they like to make a spectacle of the big winner with photo op, publish name and how town, etc. We wondered if that would invite trouble for the winner. For instance, would people try to break in expecting you to have valuables? Would you be a target for kidnapping and ransom? What about your family or close friends, would someone kidnap them to get you to pay ransom on? Even if you immediately spent it all, would people still try, not knowing it's all gone? I'm with you, I'd keep it as secret as I could.
The guy who won "over a billion" (that's not what he got to keep) has headlines with his full name, what real estate he's bought, lawsuits brought against him and he's had to get body guards.
Because california forces a person to claim it and anonymity isn't allowed.
Like a lot of trouble, the worst doesn't come from strangers, it comes from people you know. By all accounts, what happens is that anyone who knows you comes out of the woodwork and suddenly wants a favor, or a small loan, or an investment in their brilliant business idea, and of course you're the asshole if you deny any of them. If you can't keep it a secret entirely, it's best to at least lock up the money somewhere so that you can blame the big mean lawyer who is "making" you be responsible and not blow it all on your second cousin's crypto app.
This user knows.
Sleep.
Not possible in some states, unfortunately :/
Yeah, in my state when you win they have a picture of you holding a check that airs on rotation on every lottery machine for months.
My wife's best friend won $1M and everyone recognize her at all the bars because of it. She got the last laugh because she blew all that money and now nobody can get any of it out of her.
Keep a million for fun, everything else, buy a very conservative and diversified portfolio, borrow against it and purchase real estate worldwide in places with water access and least affected by climate change. With profits start funding antifa, anarcho-syndicalist, ecosocialist, and similar movements.
How to get assassinated by the CIA in 3 easy steps!
I like the cut of your jib
Yarrr
More power to you comrade.
Sir, here is your pass for "things whose end justify the mean", have a good day.
Until they eat you.
Pretty sure they would not eat the person funding them. Militant groups tend to like funding and toys for their activities.
If you are buying real estate, you won't be funding "antifa" or any of the other things you are fantasizing. Profit-bearing RealEstate is directly counter to all of those movments, and once they start threatening you, you'll immediately pivot to funding the status-quo.
I guess you're calling me ignorant and a hypocrite without knowing anything about me or my value system.
My recommendation to you would be to read again and instead of assuming ignorance and hypocrisy, assume that I know very well what I'm talking about. And then meditate on it.
I would come back here and give 1 mil to everyone who upvote me and 2 mil for op
I upvoted you seven thousand times. Someone else must have given that many downvotes which is the only explanation for why your score is not 7000.
Unfortunately for you, lemmy (not sure about kbin) shows upvotes and downvotes as separate numbers…
D'aww, thank you 😅
How would you know who upvoted you?
I would pay 1 mil to lemmy.ml admin for that information.
Btw, did I win? Did we win?
Keep playing to get more rich.
Most professional gamblers quit just before a big victory. I won't make that mistake.
THIS is the right answer. So many idiots in this thread.
I think you’re right. I’ll put my whole welfare check on powerball tonight.
Have you considered a payday loan so you could buy for next months welfare check as well? Don’t want to miss out for sure.
I'll tell ya what I'd do, man. Two chicks at the same time, man.
That's it? If you won the lottery, you'd do two chicks at the same time?
Damn straight. I always wanted to do that, man. And I think if I were a millionaire I could hook that up, too; 'cause chicks dig dudes with money.
at the same time!?!!??
Not tell anyone and just quietly retire. Spend as much time as possible with my kids as they grow.
Talk to a major law firm about accepting the prize as anonymously as possible. Take the lump sum -payment to the lawyer team and divide it into thirds. One third goes into a trust that I can direct friends and family to with instructions to offer assistance for major life events, weddings, funerals, education and the like. That way I never have to be the bad guy who says yeah, no.
The second third will get invested into low risk bonds so I have a stable income forever
The final third will become what people normally do with lottery winnings, new home, that kind of stuff
-slides loaded briefcase across table-
I would like one (1) healthcare, please.
Sorry bud, if you want brand name paracetamol thats gonna cost you 2 billion.
Among other things, I’d keep going to work. I enjoy my job. What I’ll really enjoy is every time someone tries to pawn off something on me that’s not actually my job I’ll tell them, “not my job”
Being able to go in to work without the same fears that usually accompany those living paycheck to paycheck even if they enjoy the work must be the most freeing thing ever. Knowing you are now untouchable financially so can take a stand if something annoys you enough.
I paid off all of my debts and have a few months saved up. Same feeling I think. It is the most freeing feeling I’ve ever felt. Like a mini retirement.
Yeah I’m freelance and really love my work. It’s rewarding and impactful. Without any doubt these things are true. I’d probably cut back my hours a bit. But I’d just tell my clients that my services are now free.
I would buy Reddit and convert it into a Lemmy instance.
You know everyone would be screaming about preemptively defederating, right?
Cut my hours back at work, maybe take a sabbatical spend much more time with my kids, and go to art school. I’m pretty good at it, but it wasn’t in the trailer park cards.
Well now that I have "fuck you" money there's a few things on my mind.
First, I'm going to eat at a lot of restaurants. I'm going to enjoy my meals too. Through the whole meal I'm going to be buying iced milks for another random patron. I'm going to make sure the waiter is aware that this good gesture needs to be anonymous and I will make sure that as long as the waiter keeps delivering the iced milks I will keep adding $1000 onto their tip. These iced milks will not stop coming until there is nowhere left for the patron to reasonably sit. This waiter will not have to work for a long time afterwards.
Second, I'm going to buy a shit ton of gold bricks. Like the big one's you envision are in Fort Knox, also known as "Good Delivery" bars. I'm also going to hire an elite team of private security forces whose sole job will be to transport that gold in plain sight everywhere that I happen to go. If by chance my gold is not allowed with me into an establishment, then I will just attempt to buy the place right there on the spot. If that doesn't work, then my team will take the gold and wait with it on public property.
Pretty sure that $1b is long gone by now, but finally I'm going to be throwing parades—a lot of parades. I will have permits for parades on the streets in front of the houses of all my enemies. These will take place at the most inconvenient possible times that my team of schedulers, planners, and event organizers will be able to find. I will have the dumbest fucking floats in these parades and the shittiest marching bands. I will not stop until I'm sufficient conviced I have broken the spirit of my enemies.
This is why they won't give me money.
Iced milk. That's amazing. I'm stealing this.
sanest lemmy user
I'd keep it a secret except from the closest people to me. I'd be incredibly boring about what I'd do with it.
First I would pay off my mortgage and invest a chunk in "safe" investments - so shares in utility companies, funeral business - boring reliable investments - and property and land, across borders. All to try and guarentee I would stay financially secure long term for the rest of my life, and weather financial storms.
I'd help my immediate family financially (siblings and parents, and closest friends) but would not go over board - I'd make their lives better but not ruin them, and would aim to keep most of the money ready to keep helping for years to come rather than splurge out. And I wouldn't tell them how much I had so as not to ruin relationships.
For what I do for me I would think very hard. I'd probably not quit work immediately and I'd try not to ruin my life.
I'd probably look to travel but in bursts - either nice holidays and keep working (I like my job) or quit work and live 3 months at a time in places I've always wanted to be for a bit before settling down again.
Anything I do or buy I would do as someone "middle class". So I'd travel economy plus, I'd stay in decent hotal but not the most flashy, I'd buy a decent home but not a mansion (I don't need a 10 bed home, I'd just get a nicer version of what I have now - 3 beds but maybe detached and in a nicer area).
Basically I'd upgrade my life a little but I wouldn't go wild. I don't see the value in the conspicuously wealthy lifestyle - I'd see money as buying freedom but I wouldn't want to be wasteful, and I wouldn't want to be a target for criminals or leeches.
And the rest i'd start puting to good causes. That would probably be conservation charities, green charities, social projects I believe in. Id want to use it to create some kind of legacy even if anonymous - for me that would be something that meaningfully improved the world in some small but realistic way.
Basically I'd be very boring, stay anonymous and try and make relatively small but meaningful changes to my life and those I love.
You think you would get to live in the same place with no one knowing you won the $1B lottery? Interesting.
Me, I would go to a top law firm and see a senior partner about getting out of being publicized. Have them set up sale of property and disconnect my phone lines and internet accounts after creating new unknown ones. I would have the lawyers present the ticket for me through various layers of holding companies and trusts, but I would be a ghost for awhile. The legal team would make sure all family members got some money with a nice non disclosure agreement. Immediate family would have my contact information with a request to never disclose. All money Would be dispersed between several low fee brokerages where I would invest in a combination of treasury backed securities, short term CDs, total stock market ETFs, and cash would be dispersed between several high interest savings accounts. I would be unreachable for 6 months while News died down.
I would honestly just disappear.
If I had enough money that I can just go "fuck you", that's what I'd do. I'd obviously help my family financially, but probably not as a lump sum except to help them buy property to make houses on. But beyond that, I would basically be away and uncontactable. No one would know where I am and what I'm up to except maybe a couple times a year.
The bigger question is actually what type of charity I'd end up doing. I have some distrust for charities, so I'd want to take a more direct approach, so in all likelihood, I'd be helping a number of small creators I believed in to see if they could get a chance at establishing themselves better.
Train a private army to invade Russia.
All of this +
I'd keep it a secret as much as possible especially in the beginning. Hire a financial advisor to invest part of it. Use some for risky high yield investments and some other for easy low yield. Some would stay in bank, some will be to open a business. Some fund for kids. Some for charity. Rest is for fun
This is exactly what I would do.
If I won the lottery, I would start by ending the homeless problem in my state. All it would take would be one stroke of the pen and many people's lives would be improved.
and then you start getting sued cause someone hurt themselves in one of the homes you put them in, or it burned down, or any of a thousand other reasons, because greedy shitheads exist and are plentiful and will gladly turn your sweet treat into acid in your mouth in a heart beat if they think they can squeeze more blood out of you.
That's why you save some in the contingency account, I would recommend 20%
I would definitely have to lawyer up and get as much of my ass covered as possible. Huzzah!
Noble, but I've got some very bad news about how much it would take to end homelessness in even the smallest state in the country, as even if the 500 mil you'd be left with after taxes could do it, which it couldn't, more homeless people would move to that state immediately
Utah managed to do it and they're doing just fine.
Honestly, nothing in my life would change. I would still go to my 9-5 job, then gym, then food, then sleep. But knowing I have a billion dollars in my bank account.
Why do (presumeably) Americans always speak of 9 to 5? Is that the norm there? I work at construction and we work from 7 to 3:30
When I did construction it was 630 - 1930
9 to 5 is like office hours.
Im not American and I thought i have a 9-5 Job meant i have a normal job
Inflation goes brrr
I mean, I have won the lottery, multiple times...
But if I won the Powerball Jackpot? Honestly, I probably would hire a financial planner but not change my day-to-day. I like my life and already have plenty of money.
Obviously I'd have to tuck a bunch into my kids' 529s because they would now be completely ineligible for financial aid.
Fiduciary! Dont forget the fiduciary!
Obviously I'd have to tuck a bunch into my kids' 529s because they would now be completely ineligible for financial aid.
With the cost of university in the USA, it'd probably be cheaper to pay for them to go to university in another country.
Pay off my mortgage, invest it and live off the interest, and spend the rest of my life traveling with my wife
As one stand up comedian once said: the biggest issue is not what to do with the money, but how to keep it secret from the people around you
Disappear and never be heard from again.
I'd ditch it for a million dollars
But really, that'd easily put me in the top 0.1% of my country. I'd probably never manage to spend it all. I'd definitely set aside some millions for ReactOS and other open source projects that I like.
I would spent a lot on lobbyists to promote tax on rich people. Then, pay lobbyists to promote taxes on financial transactions. Once it is done, gov will have enough money to provide social security, house for homeless, gods education, heath system,… Better that charity, a social state.
Fuck off
I mean, with luck like that, I'd buy a lotto ticket
First start the process of getting a new wheelchair, my current one is 13 years old and leaves a trail of nuts and bolts.
That's just its way of helping you find your way home.
There is a comment on "that other site" that goes in detail about what to do. It starts with "You're fucked" and shows that you really have to be careful who to trust and what to do to not be bankrupt in a few years. I'm on mobile and short on time, but it's worth reposting here.
I'd buy as many billboards as possible and use them to troll whomever I feel like.
One thing I would do is keep working. Not because I love the job. I'd want to stay and keep working until someone pissed me off. Then, I'd rage quit!
I've always wanted to rage quit a job, but I've got too many responsibilities. It would be nice to be able to tell my boss to piss off.
Let's be a bit more realistic, I won 1 000 000 €. I would donate most of the stuff:
I am left with around 300k € that I'd use for myself.
Non-capital (leisure and hobby) (40k €):
Capital/investing (260k €):
Kaunas or Vilnius (I hope it’s not Vilnius) if I’d like to continue my career in IT, so 100k € for that.
That's cheap as fuck. Is it even realistic, and then you're going to go back to work?
I’d really have some mad and stupid ideas appearing in my head, 10k € for that
How are you going to implement any mad ideas when you essentially have to return to your full time job to survive, once giving 5+ years of salary to Ukraine? Absolutely terrible plan here.
A better plan (in my opinon only) would be to buy the properlty you want, or put the whole 1m in a pension index fund, then immediately retire, taking a 50k per year salary for life (well based on historical average stock market return). Then living in people's air bnb's across Europe and Japan contributing to FOSS projects. 50k per year will pay for education, allow you to pay into charities and make FOSS donations depending on how you live.
once giving 5+ years of salary to Ukraine?
We have much smaller purchasing power here. Programmers' salaries for Junior Developer are at around 20k to 30k a year in Lithuania and up to 50k a year for Senior developers, and this is only if you are really lucky.
Pay off my house, pay off close friends and family houses, buy a bunch of land, buy cool cars, travel.
Run off and never be seen again. Maybe live in a bunker idk
you don't live in a bunker with 500 mil (after taxes), you live in a castle on top of a hill
Only fools take the lump sum
Not tell anyone if possible. Big winnings are the way to ruin in most cases.
Piss off the mortgage first, then sit for a bit and think about the rest.
Make a way bigger bucket list and actually start competing it.
Make sure my mom's in home health care is paid for for the rest of her life, so that she can continue to live in her house as she wishes while she is still with us, retire from my paid career early, do volunteer work instead, and travel often.
I would be incredibly surprised, as I do not play the lottery. I'd probably start by getting a lawyer to handle it.
Your odds of finding the winning ticket on the sidewalk about about the same as if you bought a ticket. I'm not sure if that changes the surprise level.
I guess you're kind of right, in that they're both essentially 0. But the odds of winning the lottery are still ...millions? of times higher to win by buying one than finding a winning ticket on the street.
/pedantry
Go find that old post from AskReddit and follow it to a tee.
Outside of that, I'd probably buy a house closer to downtown, buy a new truck, and start to figure out how I can increase the quality of education in rural South Carolina.
Quit my job. Buy a new mattress and sleep stress free. After I get some actual rest, go from there. All the while, keeping it a secret.
Give my uncles, aunts and cousins a cool mil each, give my mom and my sister 10 mil each, buy some real estate on the coasts, and most likely fund some Democrats in Florida and Texas, do some traveling
Skipping past the obvious of paying off debts and buying a decent house, I'd do this:
Found a company to sell tech products (Pinephone, but cooler). Only the best benefits, work environment, basically everything I hate about any job I've worked, fixed. I'd hire good people, and make damn sure they're treated well. After everything is going well and with some kind of charter so they can't decide to be evil, I'd turn the company over to my employees. I'd step down and become a janitor or something and work ~20 hours a week until I retire.
Whatever money's left over, if there is any, is given away.
I want to work. I like working. I just want to work somewhere good, ya know?
I'd just buy my employer but they made ~450m Euro after taxes so they might want more than a billion. Also fuck audits.
I'd finally donate to Wikipedia. And NPR. So much so that both of them won't have to ever ask me for money ever again.
Until the next year.
Haha! Truth. Hard, sad, truth.
no importa lo que hagas ni pienses, vas a morir igualmente
no matter what you do or think, you will die anyway
Pay off mine friends and my student loans, pay for moving costs to a European country for me and my friends, pay for US citizenship denouncing for me and my friends, set aside an amount of money for myself and my friends for savings to live comfortably, pay for first month's rent for me and my friends, pay for food for a month for me and my friends, and then if there happens to be anything left, donate it to charities.
Buy a bottle of McCallans 12yr and a 8ball and see where I wake up next week.
I already live where I want to live. I would probably buy up all the open land in my county. Get my friends to move out and live on one of my properties. Fix up this 120 year old farm house. Install a pond and more water features to hold onto rain water. Probably run some electric fencing get solar power go off grid. Pretend to be a cattle rancher. Try to turn this homestead into my very own paradise. But i’ll probably employ a-lot of people create some jobs do more charity work.
Buy a private island, get drunk and give a large portion away to random people
Pay debts and medical treatment for self/family/friends, pursue hobbies, volunteer, donate, travel... Find a place to live and settle down.
Sleep