Powerball up to 1 billion - what tools would you buy?

[HudsonHawk]

I'm with you, tonyb, in that I'd keep it secret as long as possible. I once edited a manuscript of a woman who won a couple million dollars when she played the lottery with co-workers. Her experiences were quite eye-opening.

This is true...lots of stories about money making people miserable. However, getting back to just how much $1.3 billion is...you hear stories about someone who won say $10 million, and blew through it in five years. At that rate, it would take you 650 years to spend $1.3 billion. You'd have to spend nearly $3,000 per hour, every hour, 365 days/year, for 50 years to spend it. Even on drugs and hookers, it's nearly impossible to blow $1.3 billion.

For me? I'd like a nice house on a bit of land. Not a huge mansion - good grief. I wouldn't know what to do with myself with all that space!

I wouldn't buy too big of a house, simply because I wouldn't want to clean it. I suppose I could hire people to clean it, but then I'd have a house full of people all the time, which kind of defeats the purpose.

I'd have a nice cigar room, though. With big red chairs. They must be red.

My hubby would be the one I'd have to watch - he'd go nuts and buy all the classic cars he could.

The one car I'm certain I would buy would be a first generation Camaro. That was my "dream car" when I was young and first started noticing cars and girls. It would probably be from '67, my birth year.

I'd also buy my dad a 1960 Pontiac Bonneville, because that's the car that got him his first date with Mom. She's said many times she wasn't really interested in him, she just wanted to ride in that Bonneville. The rest, as they say, is the stuff of legends.

 

[HudsonHawk]

I told you math isn't my strong suit.

On another aspect of this, though, I think most states require lottery winners above a certain level to publicly disclose themselves as a condition of accepting the money. There's a few states that allow anonymity, so before cashing in it might be prudent to establish residency in one of those states.

Texas, where I live, is one of the states that require disclosure. However, the winner doesn't have to be an individual, and one could set up a trust and anonymously donate the winnings to the trust. Only the trust's name is made public. I'm pretty sure that's what I'd do.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I have my foundation named already picked out. If you ever read about the "Keesa Foundation," you can think to yourself, "damn, so that's who won it."

I actually won a small-to-them-but-not-to-me amount in one of our state games years ago, and even had my picture taken with a giant novelty check, which I still have. The year after I hit, they changed the rules of that game -- if I would have won a year later, the prize would have been that amount annually for life. Not enough to set up a foundation on, but I could have given up one of my three jobs.

 

[HudsonHawk]

I have my foundation named already picked out. If you ever read about the "Keesa Foundation," you can think to yourself, "damn, so that's who won it."

I actually won a small-to-them-but-not-to-me amount in one of our state games years ago, and even had my picture taken with a giant novelty check, which I still have. The year after I hit, they changed the rules of that game -- if I would have won a year later, the prize would have been that amount annually for life. Not enough to set up a foundation on, but I could have given up one of my three jobs.

A number of years ago, my dad got five of the six numbers in the Florida lottery. Had he gotten all six, he'd have won about $20 million, I think, but alas, it was only like $12,000. After taxes and the like, he took home about $8,000, and gave us three young'uns $1,000 each. I bought new tires with my windfall.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I got the engine rebuilt in the Plodge, and took the kids to Applebees for lunch and told them they could have all the mozzarella sticks they wanted.

 

[ChiTownScion]

I think that if I won the whole $1.3 billion enchilada, I might end up living in Europe as an ex pat. Uncle Sam would get the taxes off the top, but I might be inclined to allow a lot of the windfall benefit Tante Angela... or whatever they call the government over there. To be honest, there's a lot about what's going on in the US now that frightens me: an ever growing xenophobia and intolerance of those who are not "like us."

 

[Fading Fast]

I won a wool sweater in a in store promotion once - that is the biggest "lottery" winning for me ever. I've won back the price of a few lottery tickets, etc., but that's about it.

HH, I would really, really, really want it to be anonymous if I won - if lightening strikes, I will look into the trust thing you mentioned above.

I chuckled about the house thing, because my girlfriend and I bought a much smaller apartment "then we could afford" based on the usual formulas etc. as we (1) pro-actively choose to live below our modest means, (2) clean our own home and don't want more than we need to clean and (3) don't want others to clean it even if we could afford to.

I really think the nicest two things about winning would be not having to worry about financial security for my family and being able to make some impactful charity and think tank contributions. The "stuff" would be nice - but only modestly different in our case - but the not worrying would be really nice.

 

[HudsonHawk]

HH, I would really, really, really want it to be anonymous if I won - if lightening strikes, I will look into the trust thing you mentioned above.

I gotta warn you...if I win, I'm gonna look you up and you're going to take me to wherever it is that slice of pizza in your avatar is from. To hell with unlimited mozzarella sticks, I'm gonna make myself sick on NYC pizza.

 

[Fading Fast]

I gotta warn you...if I win, I'm gonna look you up and you're going to take me to wherever it is that slice of pizza in your avatar is from. To hell with unlimited mozzarella sticks, I'm gonna make myself sick on NYC pizza.

Lottery or not, next time you are in NYC, pizza and beer is on me.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Lottery or not, next time you are in NYC, pizza and beer is on me.

Done deal.

 

[LizzieMaine]

You could run a pretty good game right on here by selling chances on one of those pizzas. I'd certainly take a couple.

That lottery hit was the only time I've ever won serious cash at anything, but I've won a lot of oddball prizes over the years. About thirty years ago I won a contest in Broadcasting magazine where they ran a cartoon from the '30s depicting caricatures of radio personalities of the day, and challenged readers to identify them. The prize was a Majestic table radio from 1934, which I won by identifying all of the stars in the picture.

I still have that radio but I've never gotten around to restoring it -- it uses a unique type of "spray shield" tube which was proprietary to Majestic, and which is very difficult to replace with a generic equivalent. Maybe when I win the Powerball I'll have the time to take on that project.

I wouldn't quit working if I won. I'd stick around just for the satisfaction of knowing that I could leave if I ever wanted to.

 

[AmateisGal]

I really think the nicest two things about winning would be not having to worry about financial security for my family and being able to make some impactful charity and think tank contributions. The "stuff" would be nice - but only modestly different in our case - but the not worrying would be really nice.

As a farm kid during the 1980s whose parents nearly lost the family farm and went bankrupt, money (or the lack thereof) has always been a really big issue with me. Having financial security would be an immensely wonderful thing.

I could never wrap my head around those who are able to go to a department store and drop $1,000 on a pair of jeans. (My mom used to work at a high-end department store in our city and would tell me stories). That kind of thinking is just so foreign to me that even if I *did* win the lottery, I couldn't justify spending that kind of money on clothes or other luxury items. I don't even think I could bring myself to pay $1000 for a book! Too many years of my parents' financial struggles, (Mom would have an anxiety attack every time we went to go get groceries because she was worried about money), of buying second-hand clothes, of continually fixing up old cars to get us by, etc., etc., has undoubtedly made it impossible for me to have that kind of mindset.

 

[vitanola]

You could run a pretty good game right on here by selling chances on one of those pizzas. I'd certainly take a couple.

That lottery hit was the only time I've ever won serious cash at anything, but I've won a lot of oddball prizes over the years. About thirty years ago I won a contest in Broadcasting magazine where they ran a cartoon from the '30s depicting caricatures of radio personalities of the day, and challenged readers to identify them. The prize was a Majestic table radio from 1934, which I won by identifying all of the stars in the picture.

I still have that radio but I've never gotten around to restoring it -- it uses a unique type of "spray shield" tube which was proprietary to Majestic, and which is very difficult to replace with a generic equivalent. Maybe when I win the Powerball I'll have the time to take on that project.

I wouldn't quit working if I won. I'd stick around just for the satisfaction of knowing that I could leave if I ever wanted to.

The best thing to do if you cannot find the Spray Shield tubes is fit a regular tube with the close-fitting "Goat" tube shields and solder a wire from the shield to the appropriate pin. In fact National Union and Sylvania did this in the late 1930's when offering replacements for those odd Majestic G series tubes.

 

[ChiTownScion]

I could never wrap my head around those who are able to go to a department store and drop $1,000 on a pair of jeans. (My mom used to work at a high-end department store in our city and would tell me stories). That kind of thinking is just so foreign to me that even if I *did* win the lottery, I couldn't justify spending that kind of money on clothes or other luxury items. I don't even think I could bring myself to pay $1000 for a book!

A grand for a pair of jeans? No way- even with a $1.3 billion winning ticket. Maybe on a Brooks Brothers suit, or a nice Chesterfield overcoat (okay, perhaps even a few hundred more in addition to the $1,000 for those), but wasting money is still wasting money. Quality jeans made by an employer who pays his adult workers a living American wage can be had for far less than a grand a pop, and that's all I'd really want in a pair of jeans.

Still and all, it'd be fun to purchase high end but practical items for friends who've struggled for years for bare necessities, and with whom such items would be appreciated and cared for. I just purchased a reproduction World War II ANJ-4 shearling jacket for a considerable (arguably, obscene) chunk of change, but it's well made, will last the rest of my life, and keeps me quite warm even in sub- zero (F) winter weather. The originals are still around 70 years later, and those were made en mass under government contracts. Buying a quality coat like that for someone, knowing that he or she'd never have to buy a warm coat again- ever... that'd be a prudent investment, to my way of thinking.

 

[Fading Fast]

As a farm kid during the 1980s whose parents nearly lost the family farm and went bankrupt, money (or the lack thereof) has always been a really big issue with me. Having financial security would be an immensely wonderful thing.

I could never wrap my head around those who are able to go to a department store and drop $1,000 on a pair of jeans. (My mom used to work at a high-end department store in our city and would tell me stories). That kind of thinking is just so foreign to me that even if I *did* win the lottery, I couldn't justify spending that kind of money on clothes or other luxury items. I don't even think I could bring myself to pay $1000 for a book! Too many years of my parents' financial struggles, (Mom would have an anxiety attack every time we went to go get groceries because she was worried about money), of buying second-hand clothes, of continually fixing up old cars to get us by, etc., etc., has undoubtedly made it impossible for me to have that kind of mindset.

Having grown up in modest circumstances with two parents who barely survived the Depression, every thing you said above resonates with me. I am fortunate to be, while far from rich, able to afford "affordable" luxury items, but rarely buy any as I don't find I really care much about them and the echo of my past always rings in my head. But not having to worry about money would be the best luxury ever: I'd give my entire lottery winnings to my now deceased father and still-living, but not well, mother if it would redo history and make them able to have not lived their entire life in fear of the Great Depression returning.

That's why my first entry in this thread (I think) was that I'd provide financial security for my family and most of the rest would go to charity and think tanks. Yes, we'd buy a few nicer things - but less than 1% of what we could with that money, as neither my girlfriend nor I care about having a ton of stuff - but not worrying about money and helping others would be an incredible luxury to have.

 

[Fading Fast]

You could run a pretty good game right on here by selling chances on one of those pizzas. I'd certainly take a couple....

My offer for pizza on me and, since you don't drink alcohol, whatever you'd like, extends most heartfelt to the heart and soul of Fedora Lounge - you Lizzie.

 

[sheeplady]

We got 4 vouchers for free lottery tickets from the local zoo on a promotional day. I never had played the lottery before. We won enough to pay for a year family zoo membership.

 

[Foxer55]

If I won the take at its current level of $1+ Billion, I would take the payout which would be around $600+ Billion. Of that, I would take about $50 Million for myself , friends, and family and would take the balance of about $600 million and establish a trust similar to the Howard Hughes or Rolex trust with the purpose to be used for the development of physical and daily well being of people in dire need.

 

[Foxer55]

I'd try to keep it secret. I fear that if I came into such a sum I would have more "friends" than I ever wanted.

I believe this is a serious concern as you would be a target for every freeloader, crook, and scam artist in the country and beyond. There is the concern of your personal safety as well. First thing to do would be to hire a team of attorneys, accountants, tax specialists and maybe strongmen to help you.

 

[Foxer55]

It's interesting to think about just how much money 1.3 billion dollars really is. If you actually had 1.3 billion dollars sitting in a vault -- not tied up in stocks or real estate or rare comic books, but actual cash money -- you could give every one of the 300 million residents of the United States, adults and children alike, a check for approximately $4,330,000. All fantasy aside, it's an incomprehensible Scrooge McDuck amount of money.

Something like this...
http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/n_drug_money1.htm