What Would You Do If You Suddenly Had $1 Million

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A couple of weeks went by. The excitement of winning the lottery had past. It was my time to tease. I asked my relative, "How much money do you have left?" They responded, "That money went so fast I don't know where it went." I then asked, "So you turned 50 cents into $5,000?" "Yes I did," they replied. I stated, "You're telling me that you played one number that day and all you spent was 50 cents. My relative paused and responded, "No, I played more than one number and I spent more than 50 cents." I then asked, "How long have you been playing the lottery?" "For a very long time," my relative responded. "Is this the most amount of money you've ever won?" "Yes", they replied. I stated, "You asked me what do I know that will give you that kind of return on your money. Did you realize that in order to calculate your true return on investment, I would have to calculate how much you spent and how much you won the entire time you played the lottery." My relative listened silently. I went on to say, "Assuming you spend $150 per month on the lottery, if you were to instead invest that money every month over a 30-year time span into growth oriented mutual funds earning an average rate of return of 10 percent, you would have $342,000. Do your winnings over the years minus your loses equal or exceed $342,000?" My relative responded, "Damon, you make me sick!" We laughed and hung up the phone.

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What Would You Do If You Suddenly Had $1 Million

What would you do if you won $ 1 million? This was the question posed to me from News Reporter Mary Robb Jackson of KDKA. Mary Robb was reporting on the Pennsylvania Millionaire Raffle which went on sale Nov. 21, 2006, giving hope to over a half million people to become millionaires...

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