If I won the Lottery…

I would buy a new house, give lots of $$$$$ to tzedakah buy a new wardbrode, and I would NOT move!!!!! love where I live:)))))

I love doing this (it’s called dreaming)

I would give 20% to tzedakah to various different organizations

I would give a few million (2-3) to each of my parents (they’re divorced)

I would give 2-3 million to my in laws

1-2 to my sis and bro in law

and i would buy a house and a car and save 20% in a bank account

this raises a question of how much is the lottery winnings?

Hire a cleaning lady!

Then maybe a cook who will meal plan and health food shop as well.

Make my dreams a reality.

RETIRE

A friend of mine who is a psychiatrist told me that buying lottery tickets (within limits) is a good thing. Everyone dreams of what they would do if they won. His quote “for a dollar a week you can buy a dream”.

My plan for the lottery winnings:

Tons of tzedakkah

Trust funds for my grandchildren

Fresh flowers (from a florist, not the supermarket bunches) every week – on Friday.

A therapeutic massage at least once a week instead of the once a month allowed by my insurance – it is the only thing that helps my crummy back.

Travel, travel, travel – starting with Eretz as I have never been lucky enought to visit there.

Invest – with a trustworthy investment agent (I hope that there is still such a thing. I shudder when I think of what has happened to many peoples’ life savings by unscrupulous brokers)

What I would not do – buy, buy, buy. At my age I have all the chachkies (in fact, far too many) that I could ever want.

Pay the tax.

I once actually planned this out once, when there was one of the big jackpots – I think it was close to $300 million

I said that let’s say, after taxes, you have $100 million left. $10 million is maaser, so you’re left with $90 million. I’d just stick it into a high interest account. For that much, you can probably get 3% or 4%. I’d open a kollel funded with the interest. It would be an exclusive, invitation-only kollel. I’d build a large house, with lots of bedrooms. I always have guests, but don’t have enough room for them to sleep. If I had lots of rooms, I wouldn’t have that problem.

With the rest? Who knows.

i’ve been retired so long I forgot the codes to bold the letters can another mod fix it and delete this post. thanks

Taxes take a HUGE chunk of your winnings…. so keep that in mind while you dream

I would give as much as I could to (Jewish/frum) mental health organizations that are so helpful to many people.

my answer is much the same as a lot of your answers: give tzedaka, buy a house, car, money to the kids, pay off debts, get cleaning help, etc.

THEN I’D WAKE UP FROM THAT AMAZING DREAM -get out of bed and get on with life as usual. 🙂

moskid – maaser is10%

BTW: In Canada there is NO tax on lottery winnings (of course there is tax on the interest you will accrue on your investments) and you get the entire amount paid out in one lump sum – none of this paying you (or your heirs) over 20 years and cutting the prize money by more than half if you choose a lump sum payment. Here, if you win 10 million, you are paid 10 million. This is a wonderful country.

Should I say I don’t play so I can’t say? Naw, we all dream. Ok, so here it is, Tzedaka is a given so Maaser comes off the top, that doesn’t or wouldn’t belong to me anyway. Then of course I would help my kids and put aside money for my grandkids “cause you never, ever know!” Yes I would do that before I opened the doors or answered a phone call. And then I would help my nieces and nephews that need help because family comes first before strangers and of course their parents.

OK, so I covered family right? OH gee, I forgot myself. Well I am entitled to do the things I always wanted to and finish the projects we never got around to or never had money to do right or complete. If there was money left over after that, I would keep doing what I have been doing until now and help those Hashem sends my way. That does NOT mean collectors at the doors or Yeshivas who all of a sudden found out I existed but didn’t know me when my kids needed a place to go or I was trying to help a client with one of their kids. I would never, ever give $$$$ to a yeshiva that throws kids out. Sorry, that is OUR policy. And I wouldn’t support a Kollel unless the talmidim had farhers and tests and had an actual plan of getting semicha and becoming Rabbonim and Poskim. That is my shita. I think it is wonderful that so many men learn these days if they can, but just because every Rosh Yeshiva needs to make a parnasah so they open their “own” kollel does not mean I have to support their dream. MY dream is helping kids, so if I met a yungerman who loved learning and needed support to become a Rav and a posek because he had a true ahavas yisroel, then I would support that particular man and not necessarily the mosad he chose to sit in. I would concentrate on the people themselves and how THEY needed my assistance because I don’t trust our current institutions. Sorry, but truly I don’t trust the system and I don’t trust anyone involved in orchestrating, promoting or administering it. I deal too much with its failures.

But that’s me, what’s your dream?

minyan gal- I agree with you that taxing the winnings seems unjust. The tickets are purchased with after tax dollars and a portion of the ticket price is taken by taxing authorities (supposedly to fund education, but that’s probably as true as saying FICA funds social security) so that only about half is factored into the jackpot calculation. I think it is an inconsistency in the tax code to also tax the winnings.

I guess that there is no demand for “fair play” since it is considered gambling winnings. Why should we be fair to degenerates?