We've all dreamt of it. We've all promised to donate most of it. We've vowed to help out family members and those less fortunate. We've even gone as far as to pray to God that if 'He' gives us this one thing, we'll never ask for anything else. C'mon, we've all done it before. Admit it...
Especially when the jackpot for one of the largest lottery drawings reaches epic proportions. Like this coming Wednesday's estimated Power Ball Jackpot of $650,000,000 (YES, that IS six zeroes after the 650). Can you imagine?
Well, if you were ever so lucky to solely win the jackpot, the $650-million would not be what you actually receive if you took the one-time cash payout. According to USA Mega and depending which state you reside in (the Power Ball lottery game is offered in 44 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands) You may only actually get $272-$308-million dollars after taxes, and taxes, and taxes are paid.
So over half of what you win, goes away immediately. But still, who couldn't live on what was left?
Ticket from Saturday August 19's drawing- Not ours, borrowed someone's for the picture
I mean think about it... What would we do if we won (keeping in mind we'd have to play to actually win)?
- Yes, I would donate most of it. Some to our church, some to research for medical conditions, some to my old high school in the form of college scholarships, some to the Veteran's of America, some to animal rescues, some to... well, the list goes on and on.
- Buy my husband his perfect piece of property so we can get the homestead off and running. Plus he can hunt to his heart's content. Imagine the perfect homestead everyone? What would yours have?
- Set up college funds for all five of our grandchildren.
- Of course, give some to our children.
- Move my parents to our homestead. They are getting up there in age and I would want them to live their last years debt free and happy.
- Invest, invest, invest.
- Pay it forward at every turn.
It's only six numbers. Five numbers plus the actual Power Ball. Sounds easy, huh? The odds of winning are astronomical, but we can all dream, can't we?
So what would you do? What would you buy? Donate?
My son, @abookworm started writing this, but I helped him...then he said..you finish it. :-/
"I (am not old enough, but if I was) would buy up a defunct town and pay the locals to remove all the broken houses and buildings. Then I would set up lots of walled gardens and have gates on all sides. And some community gardens too. But the whole town would be full of gardeners and all their surplus go to neighboring towns(not where far)." (here I started helping)And all of their fiber trash and old wood furniture or stuff that normally goes into a landfill would go into a big gassifier that would power the towns electricity.
And we would all make enough money to pay taxes, but not a huge lot more. There would be lots of bed and breakfastes but no hotels or motels. All the guests rooms would be fairly tiny, but comfy(so more room for gardens, and less cost to cool or heat).
It would be a great town!!!!
The walled garden so would be for vineyards and higher dollar crops, or for animals like chickens, and still could have shared community care. Just more or better taken care of.
They don't want it to become a tourist trap, but special enough that people that go their will talk about it and want to come back.
And everybody would be able to have vegetable gardens in their front yard.
/o/
!homeschoolers rock!
\°\
I love the idea of a community garden, Perhaps we could set up classes and seminars to show people how to become self-sufficient. GREAT IDEA @abookworm!
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STOPI'd buy about 200,000 shares of General Mills (GIS) and 200,000 shares of Proctor & Gamble (PG) and collect quarterly dividends of $98,000 and $138,000 and pay 20% tax on that. That's over $750,000 per year and you're set for multiple lifetimes.