Can you beat the odds?

What a day this has been!  Our country has been thrown into an absolute frenzy over the lottery.  I had to head to our local Fred Meyer for some diapers and never before have I seen the line so long of people anxiously waiting their turn to pick their lucky numbers in hopes of becoming a millionaire overnight.

Although I personally don’t play the lottery, I do think it’s fun to let your mind have a little fun with the question, “what would you do if you won 1 million dollars?”  But let’s just have a little more fun with this and put ourselves in the minds of these folks who are waiting hours at local convenience stores to purchase their golden ticket of wealth.

What would you do if you won 640 million dollars?

First let’s take away 25% for federal taxes which leaves us at 480 million.  Our state currently does not have a state income tax but some states would take even more from lottery winnings.  Still, that’s a lot of dough!!   

Now, since I have absolutely no need for this much money, I would be giving a good portion to two of my favorite organizations – 150 mil to our church and 100 mil to Saint Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital. 

That would still leave me with 230 million dollars!!  Next we would pay off all our student loans which would leave us completely debt free.  Since I’m still in school, I’m just going to give a rough estimate of $75,000. 

Then comes the new house.  We definitely don’t need anything extravagant but if I were to choose my dream house, it would have enough bedrooms for each child to have their own, an extra bedroom if anyone needs a place to stay, and a bathroom off the master bedroom.  I would also like to live on about 5 acres.  This would run about $400,000-500,000. 

In the end, after taxes, charitable giving, debt payments and a new house we would still be left with $229,425,000.  I can’t even fathom that!!  The rest would be invested and probably just sit in an account for decades until the kids have all left the house.  At that point Andrew could retire and could take the road trip across Route 66 that I’ve been dreaming of. 

Sometimes it’s nice to let the mind wander but for me, it would be difficult to win 480 million since I’d actually have to buy a lottery ticket to win.