(Newswire.net — April 5, 2019) — If you’re like most people, you’ve probably dreamed of winning the lottery. I know it’s something that I’ve given a lot of thought to. And with my musings, I know exactly how much I need – around $2-3 million would suit me nicely. I’ve got a list of people that I’ll share the winnings with, and have told my family that they better start sucking up for when I do win.
But enough about me. What would you do with your winnings? If you need a little inspiration, why not check out what the top 20 lottery winners of all time did? The information has been carefully summarized in the infographic below.
There seem to be a few different categories of lottery winners when you divide them by how they spent the money. Let’s have a look at these right now.
Spending it All
It’s hard to imagine that you could fritter away millions of dollars, but that’s exactly what happened with some of the winners. Some people shared winnings with their family, bought cars, and went on luxury holidays.
It was probably fun at the time, but they were regretting later when the money was gone. One woman won $10 million Canadian dollars back in 2013. Fast-forward to today, and the money is gone.
Despite having bought several cars, she now has to catch the bus to work. (That’s right, she had to go back to work again.) She literally has nothing to show for her win.
In the grand scheme of things, though, she got off lucky. Another winner ended up with a drug problem thanks to all the money. She even tried to kill herself four times. While she’s now clean and working to rebuild her life, we’re sure she wishes that she had never taken the ticket.
Saving it All
The Acostas family took a completely different tack. They didn’t even claim money until six months later. They wanted to build a support team to help them manage the money first.
Not many people would have the willpower to do that, but it was a savvy move all round. Not only did they give themselves time to adjust to the fact that they’d have all this money, but the delay helped keep it a secret.
A $327 million win would have created quite a stir. That the win went unclaimed would have caused even more of a stir. But after six months, most of the hubbub would have died down. Who would associate the Acostas with a lottery winning ticket six months later?
Making Clever Investments
There are, of course, winners who opted to invest the money intelligently. Some even opted to be paid out over the next few years rather than receiving one lump sum.
Final Notes
Which camp would you fall into? Would you splurge and have a fantastic time until the money ran out? Or would you take a more measured approach? Let us know in the comments below.