For something lighter.. With the mega-millions now being up to 1.6 BILLION. For those who play.

Would you take the Lump sum option, which equates to roughly 580 million after taxes, OR

would you opt for the payments every year?

Why did you select that option?

I have mostly preferred the yearly payments option as I feel I'd be less likely to completely screw that up. If I manage to screw up this year at least there's the next payment coming next year!

My wife and I were actually just talking about this, she has bought some lottery tickets recently but we don't do that regularly (really just because of the size of that jackpot). She likes the lump sum option, even though you "lose" some of the jackpot. She felt like it would be pretty difficult for us to screw that up. I then brought up the number of people that have gone bankrupt after getting a jackpot but she was confident that we could handle it. She likes the thought of squirelling most of it away into investments immediately and then making reasonable purchases to improve our quality of life (buying a house- but not a "mansion," decent and reliable but not overpriced cars, setting up trusts for our future children).

I don't know how well we would actually manage but I think it's doable even with the lump sum. A lot of my cynicism and skepticism around doing well with something like this comes from my upbringing in a lower-middle-class home. We were usually living just inside our memes but sometimes just beyond them. I had a better situation than a lot do but seeing my parents struggle with it, and then making a lot of my own mistakes in regard to credit accounts, has led me to being somewhat unbelieving of the possibility of being in good financial standard, regardless of how large my income ever is.

I believe the majority of financial experts say you should take the yearly payments. They also say you should keep your job, and not talk to the press. At the very least, I'd like to follow those second two suggestions. While I'd want to move on eventually, I want to be sure we can handle it first.

I think I'd take the lump sum. If you can invest it and make even 1% interest on it, that's $5.8 million annually. Sure, it may be a bit less than splitting it up, but then I can start using interest from it almost immediately, and not have to worry about splitting bits off and letting the rest build up.

Granted, I don't actually play the lottery, so it's highly unlikely that I would actually win, but maybe I'll buy a ticket, just because. I'm not even sure what I'd do with all that money, beyond the obvious (pay off school loans, buy a decent house, help family who need it, etc.) Support missionaries and charities providing care in third-world countries? Invest in small businesses? Buy Greece? The possibilities are endless.

Take the payments and invest 60% annually. I don't play the lottery either, but that only makes it slightly less likely that I would win.

8 hours ago, CaptainIxidor said:

I then brought up the number of people that have gone bankrupt after getting a jackpot but she was confident that we could handle it. She likes the thought of squirelling most of it away into investments immediately and then making reasonable purchases to improve our quality of life (buying a house- but not a "mansion," decent and reliable but not overpriced cars, setting up trusts for our future children).

I believe the majority of financial experts say you should take the yearly payments. They also say you should keep your job, and not talk to the press. At the very least, I'd like to follow those second two suggestions. While I'd want to move on eventually, I want to be sure we can handle it first.

I've often heard story after story of those who hit it big, quit their job, and regretted it. I also agree keeping silent's the best option. One of my mother's long time friends in the UK< hit the football pools back in the mid 80s, and within weeks of her 'gloating' to some of her kin, about her win, she was getting "long lost brothers, Cousins from another mother" and the like all crawling out of the woodwork, asking for a piece.

However, several states, do NOT let one maintain your anonymity..

8 hours ago, LTuser said:

However, several states, do NOT let one maintain your anonymity..

Even if your name has to be published, hopefully you can at least not engage the media about it. And taking a look at the anonymity part, I think it's only six states that let you actually stay anonymous. Ouch. Just dealing with that makes me never want to win.

I'd take the lump sum and invest it. That's more than enough money to keep me happy for a lifetime if I spend wisely. I'd probably try to keep quiet about winning for as long as possible and get all my immediate debts paid (student loans, car payment, ect.) before I even consider doing anything fun.

Plus, I've been told that if you choose the yearly payment option, if you were to pass away, those payments don't go to your family or next of kin. They just stop and any remaining unpaid money goes back to the lottery to be won by the next winner. At least with the lump sum, if anything were to happen that money can go to someone else.

I think if you are over 40, take the lump. Under I would go with annuity, unless you are unhealthy. If you die, you can't will the annuity to a family member.

Honestly, both options are more money than I could even START to know what to do with. But I'd probably take the lump, pay off debts and take care of a few necessities, and invest most of the rest.

Payments is a better deal overall, but I'd have to go lump sum because of the nontransferable thing.

Pay off house and other loans. Fix up the house. Take a (second) real honeymoon as the first was just 2 days a few hours away. Get better all-weather tires for my car. Then travel. I can dream.

As a linked q.. Besides the obvious - debts, holidays and the like. Are there any big-ticket items you'd consider investing in?

For me. MY BIG one, would be negotiating with the TV show bigwigs to resurrect Star gate Universe!

I'd finally get my HEMI Challenger. And a '64 Mustang for good measure.

55 minutes ago, LTuser said:

As a linked q.. Besides the obvious - debts, holidays and the like. Are there any big-ticket items you'd consider investing in?

For me. MY BIG one, would be negotiating with the TV show bigwigs to resurrect Star gate Universe!

I'm not thinking quite as big-ticket as you are, but I'd really like to seek out a full Gen 1 Transformers collection, and then start working my way up through the other generations and associated series (like Micronauts and Brave) excepting the god-awful movie stuff.

My wife and I also discussed picking out one or two charities and giving them as much as we can. We don't need all this money, it might as well go to someone who's doing good in the world since we mostly just sit on our butts.

6 hours ago, CaptainIxidor said:

I'm not thinking quite as big-ticket as you are, but I'd really like to seek out a full Gen 1 Transformers collection, and then start working my way up through the other generations and associated series (like Micronauts and Brave) excepting the god-awful movie stuff.

My wife and I also discussed picking out one or two charities and giving them as much as we can. We don't need all this money, it might as well go to someone who's doing good in the world since we mostly just sit on our butts.

Unfortunately, so do many charities.

2 hours ago, TopHatGorilla said:

Unfortunately, so do many charities.

True dat. When i was active military, each year we did what was called a "Combined Federal Campaign" charity drive, where there was a booklet printed out of all the charities involved in it. BUT to make it in said book, a charity had to meet a certain level of 'how much raised goes to what their stated goal was'. Several charities i knew of, DIDN'T qualify, because they were TOO much overhead, and not enough going to those you were giving to help out.

10 hours ago, LTuser said:

As a linked q.. Besides the obvious - debts, holidays and the like. Are there any big-ticket items you'd consider investing in?

For me. MY BIG one, would be negotiating with the TV show bigwigs to resurrect Star gate Universe!

I've thought it would be neat to look into getting a tall building in the middle of some city, and look into making a farm inside it with hydroponics and aeroponics. The first floor or two would be a produce market. If it could be made feasible, you could have fresh produce in the middle of a developed area without having to truck it in.

42 minutes ago, LTuser said:

True dat. When i was active military, each year we did what was called a "Combined Federal Campaign" charity drive, where there was a booklet printed out of all the charities involved in it. BUT to make it in said book, a charity had to meet a certain level of 'how much raised goes to what their stated goal was'. Several charities i knew of, DIDN'T qualify, because they were TOO much overhead, and not enough going to those you were giving to help out.

In the current CFC books, it even shows you percentage of money going towards the actual charity work, as opposed to overhead (e.g. "68%" means that 68 cents of every dollar is being used for real work, while 32 cents is covering overhead). There are even sections that only show charities higher than 90%.

I've also noticed that sometimes, which level of charity you give to matters, too. There was some large group (I think either Red Cross or Habitat for Humanity) that had the national office listed, and it was rated at low 60%. However, there were also a couple local offices listed, and those were rated at over 80%.

Single ticket winner in SC. Someone woke up today a near billionaire. Wow.

YEa, i got 2 numbers on one line. NOT even good enough for a Tenner..

I do find it messed up you have 4 options, that can net you 10$ or less, then it jumps to 100 bucks, then up higher..

I'd find myself a nice small tropical country and buy out el presidente. Start my own banana republic.

Oh and just for fun I'd pay people to actualy play trough a game of Campaign for North Africa . It takes about 10+ people to play and somebody once calculated that if you played for 8 hours a day, five days a week (basically full time job) it would take almost a year to finnish.