What would you do if you won the lottery?

Let's see, after taxes, figure $600K left (just a guess on the high side). Clark Howard, a self made millionaire and consumer radio guy based in Atlanta has advised instant millionaires before. A young girl called in who had won $5M in the lottery. He told her to immediately change her number to an unlisted number, as the lottery sells your contact information to different firms (investment, etc) who will be calling. Family and friends will start calling.


He told her that she would be left with $3M after taxes. He told her NOT to invest anything her first year, and if she wanted to blow 10% (or $300K) of it the first year - to do that, enjoy it, and don't worry about it. After that, even in an account that earns 4% each year, she could live off interest alone at about $100K a year.

What I'd do with it, Karl and I have talked about buying an RV and touring the country the first year and then from our travels, decide where we want to settle down. I'd like a nice house (nice meaning the right size for us, not too big, but big enough to have the animals we want), some nice land and he would probably work full time on his gift basket business (he makes gift baskets on the side - darn nice ones if I say so myself), and I would work with the ball pythons, and most likely would volunteer a lot. I would love to be a foster to homeless dogs, or even start a doggy day care.

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Originally Posted by Jafis

Ah ha!:rolleye2:

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I enjoy my ESP's ... I still want another USA Rhoads though.

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Originally Posted by Jafis

Ah ha!:rolleye2:

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How can you not love ESPs? :P

I wish lol

Speaking now as a parent, I would have to say I would buy a house, not a huge house just one big enough for my family to be comfortable.

I would put a lot of it into trust funds for my children to use at certain ages. LIke for college, when they start their own families.

Other than that I would just save it.

Now if you had asked this question before I had kids. I would have said something totally different. Its weird how becoming a parent always makes you think about your children before anything else in the world. Knowing that every decision I make now could affect their future I am really careful when it comes to things like that.

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Originally Posted by Sausage

How can you not love ESPs? :P

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For what they offer, you can't beat em. I bought my Alexi Laiho V for 920.00 and all I did was change the p/u. I bought my ESP Les Paul for 600.00 and I had SPerzel's, EMG's and Tone-Pro's looking abr-1 bridge. Any other brands would been like 1500.00 atleast

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Originally Posted by Sausage

How can you not love ESPs? :P

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Oh I love them indeed. I have 2 custom shop guitars, 1 standard series, and 2 LTD's.

Hm.. seeing as we are fledgling property managers and getting it going on our own becoming landlords, Mark and I would invest in some higher quality rental units (townhouses, or more expensive rental units by Lake Erie.) Since we focus mainly on lower income places now, this would be a huge step up! I guess that much money would be enough for Mark to focus on that, and for me to create my dream of creating a horse boarding stable.. but that would probably be a few years down the road.. maybe we would look into building a trailer park (those landlords literally make a killing, renting out space and also owning the trailer.. woah!) or even creating a small subdivision that would somehow also be ecologically friendly and incorporate nature and the natural landscape; I know that it could be done.
Mark and I would buy an awesome piece of property; I place more value on the land itself than any house, as we could easily build what we want.. at least 400 acres, half mature, uncut woods, half pasture/hay land.. maybe dabble in some farming.. the woods would be uphill from the farmed land and I would dedicate, and get look into making sure it'd stay, a nature preserve type setting.
I would take a few months and strictly apply myself artistically; I hardly ever have anytime to pursue my love for oil and acrylic painting.
All this would be after a super-bash wedding in August. I would also pay to get both of our horses trained better, and look into buying a few more.. and of course, a pair of Pied BPs..
Quite honestly, I would quit my collection job.. it eats up a lot of my time. But I would never sit around and eat bonbons; I would volunteer at this local riding academy that caters to disabled people.
Or we would just offer our current landlord an obscene amount of cash for this land and house.. he would cave.. :)
I am too leary and do not trust most charities, so what I would do is, find a family that is truly working hard and give them an anonymous gift of a new home, paid for. I would definately hook my immediate family and friends up, because they are my life line and I would not be sane without them. And Marky, he would get a fully rebuilt 4x4 1970's CJ-7 Jeep.. :D

Its pretty simple for me, I would move to NH and buy NERD:). Then buy up all the land I can afford and just leave it and never sell (I cant stand to see a big beautiful piece of land being bulldozed to make way for a sub-division:mad: ) Then probably super upgrade our local soccer fields, these kids down here desearve way better then a field on top of the sewage drainage from surounding sub-divisions (ive played 15 years on it). Get my close family members set up for life then just put the rest in the bank, ill probably keep a million though barried out in the backyard in an old whisky bottle (just in case:)

I really think that there could be a future in building ecologically-minded communities.. the way I see it, a lot of land will get devoured up by these cookie-cutter subdivisions.. it would be much better off if I could get my hands on it and create something different. Let's say there's a lake sitting on about 80 acres.. what about clearing out secluded home-sites, leaving much of it naturally landscaped in native plants, creating ponds and encouraging habitat that's a;lready there..
Honestly, I think that this would be much better for the environment, than the disgusting practice of suburbanites buying 50 acres of rural land, massacre-ing the trees, shaving everything down on that parcel to two-inch lawn, and plopping a sMcMansion down that they'll move out of in two years.. :)

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Originally Posted by Ginevive

I really think that there could be a future in building ecologically-minded communities.. the way I see it, a lot of land will get devoured up by these cookie-cutter subdivisions.. it would be much better off if I could get my hands on it and create something different. Let's say there's a lake sitting on about 80 acres.. what about clearing out secluded home-sites, leaving much of it naturally landscaped in native plants, creating ponds and encouraging habitat that's a;lready there..
Honestly, I think that this would be much better for the environment, than the disgusting practice of suburbanites buying 50 acres of rural land, massacre-ing the trees, shaving everything down on that parcel to two-inch lawn, and plopping a sMcMansion down that they'll move out of in two years.. :)

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yeah a few houses on several acres in a lil comunity would be fine with me. The thing that really irks me is the people buying the land, lets say 50 acres and trying to cram over 100 housed on it, with about 5 feet distance between houses:(. Ive seen pics from a different field herping forum of land that was crawling with wildlife being completly destroyed for developement, breaks my heart to see those pics.