What Would You Do If You Won the Lottery?

This weekend's weather has me feeling a bit like we've won the lottery. The weather lottery. The sun is shining, it's warm outside and is all around pretty fantastic. But we know we aren't always this lucky in Minnesota, in fact, four years ago, we had snow on this date. So yeah, loving this weather and feeling pretty lucky. Which got me wondering, what would I do if I actually won the lottery?

Back in elementary school, I remember being given an assignment to write a detailed report about how we would spend $1 million, with the caveat that only 20 percent could be donated to charity, no more than 10 percent could go into savings, and that everything else had to be accounted for using realistic prices. At the time, this seemed to be quite a challenge, but now I don’t think I would have any trouble determining where to spend the money, and probably remain working.

On the other hand, some of the lottery amounts that you hear about these days, like $700 million, are so big I can’t even fathom it. Online I saw someone say that if they won, they would buy a new truck. There is nothing wrong with purchasing a new truck, but the value of that purchase in relation to $700 million is like taking a cup of water out of the ocean. Someone else stated that they would put it all toward charities that they support, one person said they would put it all into savings, never touch it, and let someone else handle it when they were gone. And one very honest soul said they would head to Vegas, have a good time, gamble and probably leave empty-handed. There are a lot of ways to approach it, and for every dollar in that lump sum, there is a different way to prioritize spending, saving and donating the money.

How would you spend that kind of money? And what if the parameters that were in place on that elementary school project were also in place? Share your winning plans with us!