The powerball jackpot for Wednesday’s drawing has reached ~1.5 billion dollars. That’s BILLION. With a B. I just got my tickets. Woooooooo!
Firstly, to play devil’s advocate: Interestingly I read a study a while back that showed that if you do spend money on the lottery regularly, you’re better off taking that same money and putting it in to a savings account. That way you’ll actually get some return. I mean, I guess, any return is better than nothing (which is what you’re most likely to get playing the lottery). They once did a study where they gave people an incentive to invest — every month, all the savings account holders that had added at least $100 to savings were entered in to a drawing in a small lottery. People saved far more money than usual. I love that idea. I wish more banks did things like that. In general, we almost never buy lottery tickets. But for $1.5 billion? How could we NOT?
Either way — I get that the chances are like 1 in a million kazillion. But it’s less about the fact that I think I’m going to win and more about the fun you get to have dreaming about what you’d do with the money. Having discussions about whether or not you should take the cash upfront or the annuity. Like any of us really even grasp the concept of investing money in those amounts. “The question is, is your return on this lump sum going to overtake the amount you could get by taking the annuity?” “What type of investment could you make that would get you a return of 300 million dollars?” “Don’t you like the idea of knowing you’re taking care of for 3o years?” (And to add, “You know you don’t get your money until like 1.5 months after you win, right?” “Did you hear that Illinois is too broke to pay out? People who won like 6 years ago are suing the state now for their winnings!”)
I love how huge of a deal this is. Everyone is talking about it. I see people in all corners of the office, looking at their red and white printed tickets, giggling. It’s on TV shows, commercials. People are talking about it in line for lunch. The cashiers at the restaurant are talking about it. It’s just a thing that seems to bring people together and get them talking. It’s something out of the ordinary. Different. Even the people that aren’t buying tickets are teasing those of us that have. It’s great.
Yesterday Damon and I were discussing it and he said “Well, we’ll take the lump sum and then first we’ll blow $100 million.” Then we both laughed because neither of us have any idea how one would even spend that much money. He sent me a link to an island with a personal Helipad. Only $32.5 million! So reasonable. So, after I win the Powerball Jackpot tonight my next post will be from the master bedroom with both sunrise and sunset views. LATER LOSERS!
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