What would you do…..
if you won the lottery? With the multi-state MegaMillions jackpot up to $325 million for this Friday it is hard not to daydream about what you could do with that kind of money. Many people say how they would give away most of it and do great things and such, I won’t claim that. I would, and I am sure reality is that most people would do the same, make sure to take care of all my current financial needs and set aside what I would need to make sure my family was taken care of. Whatever was left would go towards helping others and "doing good." So with that in mind, let’s take a look at what you could do with $325,000,000.
For starters, you don’t get $325,000,000. If you take the lump sum, and live in New York, it works out like this (according to website usamega.com):
- Lump Sum: $205,000,00
- After Federal Taxes: $153,750,000
- After NYS Taxes: $135,361,500
Still not shabby if you ask me.
The first thing I would do is take care of all outstanding debt we have. That means mortgage, student loans, credit cards, doctors bills, etc. Next up would be a vacation house. Not sure where, but someplace nice. After that a bit of a shopping spree for all the things we have wanted but couldn’t afford, you know, the stupid stuff like big screen tvs, sub-zero fridge, etc. Oh, and we would expand our house. Full double dormer with the works. Then I would share with my extended family, help out everyone with things like college funds for my nieces and nephews and giving everyone a lump sum to pay down debt.
Once all that was taken care of I would set up college funds for my kids and set aside some money for Deb and I to both go back to school. She wants to get her Special Ed certification and I have always wanted to get an MBA, though at this point it would probably be in Finance or Accounting instead of something computer related. I would also setup retirement accounts for our parents so they wouldn’t have to worry about their finances. And lastly, setup investments that would generate enough annual income that we would never have to actually work again and could live very comfortably, I figure maybe something like $500,000 a year would cover everything and allow us to have fun and not have to think about what things cost.
Anything left after that would get put to good use, though I am not 100% sure where. So if we use some very rough and generous estimates of about $1 million for all the debt and bills, 3 for the house, another 1.5 for the dormer and shopping spree, and say 15 for the family. Then 20 million of for the annuity (at 2%/yr that would generate about $600,000 a year for 50 years). That’s only a little over $40 million. Toss in another $10 million just to be safe and allow for me to do stupid stuff and that leaves about $85 million to "do good" with.
Yeah, that sounds good. All my debt paid off, college funded, and an income of $600,000 a year for doing nothing. Then I can work if I want doing whatever I want and still have $85 million to spend and give away. Sounds real good to me. 
