I told my secretary that if I win the 1.6 billion powerball, I will take her to lunch.

Without a blink she muttered "yeah better be in my new Lamborgii"

Thought,..if one did win 1.6 billion,..they give you the option of accepting that over time or a lump sum of something like 700+ million.

But I'm wondering if one couldn't sell the higher option to a private company. say for a billion and they would collect the 1.6 billion over the time, a .6 billion is still a pretty good guaranteed return to company.

I think I remember there are companies that do this.

Yes,yes the chance of winning is minicule.but the amount I'm going to spend on going out for breakfast today rather than making something at home.

The disasters of having too much money only happen to people who haven't planned for money or learned how to handle money or never had two nickels to rub together.

If you win a billion:

#1 Don't stand up and give a press conference. Never let anyone know it happened!

Definition.

It's funny in the sense that so many people say "oh, I would buy this and that and live here and buy all these houses and planes and boats, etc"... never hear them say "I'll invest" or whatever.

Wifey and I have discussed (not in great detail, mind you) but none the less in the sense that we'd HAVE to take an amount of that money (after paying off whatever we wanted or needed to of course... and I say that because some things you may not want to for tax purposes, etc... but I digress...) the amount of money I'm talking about is just to spend it.

Not the whole thing mind you, I mean a small portion of the winnings... Say a few hundred thousand (or whatever) and just spend it... any way you want to and with no cares in the world. Basically, get sick of the money and get it out of your system. But you only have that amount to spend that way. The rest is spent wisely (or at least with some thought behind it).

Every bit of stuff you buy need to be stored, cleaned, maintained, even if you don't ever use it.

You'll ruin your kids lives if you give them vast amounts of money. Most family wealth is gone in 2 generations.

I'd buy a long range private jet and travel the world. Imagine not waiting in TSA lines, cramped seating, lousy or no food. Car pulls up, you get out, climb the steps to the plane, sit down and go.

BillW

Well if you match less numbers you can still win ,I think the last drawing had a number of million dollar winners. But note that today that doesn't excite people.

If the pot is down to "just " a few million, people are not falling over them selves to buy a ticket.

It also seems too that there is regional excitment, I see at some places on the news that there are lines to buy a ticket,..here at my usual small markets that sell them, I don't see much action in sales.

Also the ones I see around here many seem to be on the lower scale of the economy. Amazing so many of them smoke, not a cheap thing to do these days. I guess its good to have a dream for these people, ..but I often wonder what they would do with that money.

Yes its true that many don't know how to handle money and many of past million dollar winners were broke again in a few years. Following a couple of these people in the news, if they did have a job, they often would quit it , buy a few cars,a few toys , maybe a too expensive house for themselves and/or their parent and find if it were a win of only a millon or two, that after taxes, and upkeep of some of the purchases,,.they had burned out of that money. Almost no one in that article invested any money,

On the other hand they followed a few monied guys that thru some strange circumstance they lost nearly everything,..in a relatively few years had built their assets up substantialy. They were more savy about money and how to make it.

Oh, and years ago I invested in a lot of property and still have most of them.

What I wouldn't do, is what a lot of guys here want to do is buy places in their favorite parts of the country where they can fish/hunt ect.

About 20 years ago I was on the brink of buying a place south of Cancun,..a real nice house, then it occurred to me, it makes much more sense to rent a place, a number of benefits of doing that.

I would see tourists come down and get waltzed into time shares,..and in a few years so many were looking to sell them...the time share people made out selling them over and over again.

In those days I thought the same about a number of places,..the Amalfi Coast, Nova Scotia ,and other places.

After having to take care of my more local properties I changed my attitude about having to own houses in the places I liked,

Well I was NOT a powerball winner. There went $20 in tickets.

:-(

I've thought on this now that I'm older.

Take the payout-- enjoy it while your alive-- you never know what taxes will be in 10 to 20 years. Inheritance tax-- at my age they would take most everything with that tax -- AGAIN. "Again" meaning they took half when you won.

Then I would quit claim all the property's over to the good tenants. Give (donate) the others to a VA group for any wounded warrior project.

Next payoff the kids homes. Set up trusts for the grandkids education with an age limit of 30 to collect if they don't go to college or trade school. Set up a Scholarship fund for troubled students. No not the ones getting all the help-- but those in need.

Set up a financial firm to manage the funds. Pay off my RE attorneys home and my accountants.

Buy timeshare Lear/ G IV or other jet to being me to my homes in the Virgin/British Virgin Islands/Grand Cayman. (to my banks neighborhood). Set up my own bank in GC.

Buy an owners suite on RCCL ship.

That should cover it.

IF we would win the lottery:

1) Consult an attorney, an accountant and a financial advisor.

2) Take the cash settlement

3) Sell out our real estate holdings (we are in our early 70's and thinking about it anyway). Might give one of the properties just for fun to the manager of that property.....he has worked hard for us.

4) Set up trusts for the kids and grandkids.

5) Set up scholarships at our local school.

6) Buy the house next door and get a housekeeper and handyman duo and let them live there.

People have no concept of how much a billion dollars really is. Some talk above here about taking a "few hundred thousand" to just play with... That's really not getting just how much a billion is...

With $1 billion, you could throw away as "fun money" $1,000,000 PER WEEK for almost 20 years before you'd run out -- and that is ignoring parking it anywhere to make some money during those 20 years! With some pretty much guaranteed investments, you could burn through $1 million per week forever and never run out.

You wouldn't have to worry about a few hundred thousand for anything. You could spend $100,000 every day and still not be able to burn through it all in a lifetime.

I'm in a pool that decided to buy as a group. We just bought our 332 tickets. :)

It could be a while until the winning numbers are made public.

Why is the Powerball drawing being delayed?

The record-breaking $1.9 billion Powerball drawing was delayed because a participating lottery had issues processing sales, officials said. “Powerball requires all 48 participating lotteries to submit their sales and play data prior to the winning numbers being selected.2 hours ago

I'd divide the after tax winnings into three.

1/3 to a money manager.

1/3 to another money manager.

1/3 to me to invest in real estate

And see who does better.