I fantasize about it. I buy about 5 tickets a year.
Wow. I never realized I had such a blind spot when it comes to things like this. I guess it’s partly because I’m so apathetic about the things money can buy. Not at all in the way of self-congratulation, maybe just laziness. I don’t think I’ve ever actively coveted any material thing–in fact, I might tend to tick people off when they would like to show off their expensive house or car, and I just kind of shrug.
Of course, I do. I don’t buy lottery tickets, but it’s fun to think about what I’d do if a huge chunk of money unexpectedly came my way.
You’ve never seen something really cool and thought, “I’d love to have that”? Or fantasized about being able to take a vacation anywhere in the world? I’m not losing sleep because I can’t afford Chanel and Prada, but it would be nice if I could.
I probably blow about $5 a month on Lotto tickets. It’s fun to think about, and every now and again I’ll win a few bucks. I figure the daydream is worth the paltry sum spent on tickets.
I fantasize about winning the lottery, but I never buy tickets. Thing is, it’s never really the chance at a big house or fancy car that I fantasize about, when the jackpot gets really high. It’s all about the power, for me. I think “man, if I won the lottery, I could sink a few tens of millions into a nationwide - or international! - DC Statehood campaign and still be wealthy” or “if I won the lottery, I could set up a foundation to fund the full-time development of easy-to-use anti-censorship software tools, and let the tyrants of the world tremble. Buwahahahahaha!” Stuff like that.
I don’t have any particular desire for wealth. Power, however, I crave beyond all reason - and money is power, in large amounts. You can move the world with it, if you want.
Hmmm . . . I guess it’s partly that that I can’t imagine a lottery granting me the means to take a better vacation or acquire a cooler thing than what I could do for myself, if I work a little harder. I suppose one exception would be a yacht, but I don’t know that I would be that much more satisfied owning one vs. hiring one–the latter which option I could probably afford.
A former co-worker called lottery tickets “the Idiot Tax”.
Let’s just say that I pay more than my share. 
I’ve fantasized about winning the lottery before, but I don’t anymore. Mostly what I fantasize about (financially/lifestyle-wise, anyway) is having the money to leave corporate American and re-start working from home writing again or contracting. I also fantasize about having enough time through working at home to take care of things like organizing my house. Then again, when I worked from home earlier, I worked even longer hours than I do now.
Unfortunately, my current situation doesn’t allow for my previous lifestyle, as I have a small child who I’d like to ensure has healthcare and my husband is a consultant. Additionally, since I have a seizure disorder and take meds for it, even though it’s controlled I can never get individual insurance - it always has to be through an employer. So I carry benefits for all of us.
Not really. I think lotteries are wrong (yep, idiot tax) and have never bought a ticket, and I haven’t got any rich elderly relatives, so whenever I’m tempted it doesn’t last very long. There’s nowhere for me to get a windfall from.
Now, if my husband’s company does really well, I can think about that! But it’s pretty small potatoes, comparatively–I think we could pay off the house, and travel a bit, and help out his folks–and if things go really well I might start thinking about a slightly bigger house (ours isn’t large, but our mortgage is pre-boom sized, so if we move our taxes will be much higher and we’ll have a bigger mortgage).
I guess I’m kind of boring. :o
Fair enough. But no matter how hard a lot of folks work, they’re not going to be able to afford their dream home or that vintage sports car they fantasize about. There’s no foreseeable way, for example, that my husband and I could hire a yacht without going into debt. So for me, it’s fun to dream about.
I occasionally pick up lottery tickets on the off chance that fortune (Og, FSM, whatever) will decide that it’s time to make up the kicking around I’ve gotten. It is nice to think about what I’d do with a sudden windfall, whether it’s enough that I can live out all my fantasies, or enough that I don’t need to worry about watching my spending, or even just enough that I can treat myself to something special.
A friend of mine used to talk about what she would do when she won the Powerball. Lately I’ve noticed that she’s lowered her ambitions, and is willing to “settle” for a mere million, or even a few hundred thousand, which she figures would allow her to make a few lifestyle changes even though she’d probably still have to work.
I’m sure that if we audited 99% of the people who call the lottery an idiot tax, we’d find that they are paying an idiot tax in another form. For me, spending the $5/drawing when it’s over $100 million means a few less overpriced beers at Yankee Stadium over the course of a season. If someone is eating cat food and playing the lottery, that’s a different story (unless it’s really good cat foot, but that’s a third story).
I average $4 a week. 2 tickets per drawing, 2 drawings per week. I’ll usually skip the lower jackpot drawings, and start buying when it hits about $25M. If it gets over $100M, I may increase the number of tickets I buy to 3 or 4. It has not been a winning financial strategy, but a lot of folks spend more than that each day at Starbucks, so I’m not feeling guilty.
Interestingly, I once read an article by a financial expert that disparaged the practice of only buying into higher jackpots. In essence, the guy was saying that you never really have a shot at any jackpot anyway, so if you’re going to throw your money away, why turn down “only $20M”? I look at it that I have a very modest budget, and I’d rather spend the money for the higher returns, no matter how ludicrous the odds.
My only fantasy is to go out and buy a really, really, really nice home and garden. A house that has everything I could want. Other than that, since my lifestyle is fairly modest I’d just bank whatever was left. If the interest on that equalled what I earn now, I’d probably retire.
Sure I fantasize about it. It’s fun. But about the only time we buy lottery tickets is when we’re traveling out of town. Like when we were on vacation and stopped in SC for gas and bought Powerball tickets. Once in a blue moon, we’ll buy tickets when the jackpot is huge, just for the heck of it.
I’ve never bought a ticket and never will but I still find myself fantasizing about it every now and then. Doesn’t make much sense since it’s clearly not possible for me to ever win
For sure!
My sweetest fantasy is just being able to quit my job and stay home with my kids and write. All I’d need to win for that is enough to pay off my mortgage.
But sometimes I dream about the “big win” too. It would be fun to give big money away to friends and family, and to be able to build our exact dream house. It would be great if my husband could start his own business like he sometimes fantasizes about, and I’d love to turn the big old run-down Victorian house down the street into a children’s library. Doing a bit of travelling would be nice, too.
I’m another who doesn’t really get the “idiot tax” mentality.
I do it as a cheap form of therapy 
Whenever I’m particularly aggravated with my job and/or my boss, I pick up a lottery ticket at the newsstand in the lobby.* I find it cheers me up quite a lot, actually. Because then I can fondle my no-chance-in-Hell slip of paper and have a harmless fantasy about quitting my job and laughing evilly with big sacks of money (complete with little $ signs on the side) piled around me.
I’m a simple woman. It doesn’t take much to entertain me.
And two bucks for a lottery ticket is vastly cheaper than loosing my temper and mouthing off to my boss because he’s being a jerk for the fiftieth time today and getting fired 
*Note: I only buy lottery tickets when I’m annoyed with my work. Or for stocking stuffers around Christmas, but that’s for other people and so doesn’t count.
That’s pretty much the conclusion I’ve come to. In the past I’ve had co-workers give me crap about having a lottery ticket in my wallet, but then turn around and buy a couple of $5 beers and a $20 entree for lunch on a regular basis. Or drop big money on an expensive gas sucking hog of a vehicle (Hummer, Beemer, Mercedes? You spend more on gas than I spend on gas plus lottery tickets!)
And hey, there’s a chance, however remote, that I’ll get a return on my investment. Heck, last week I won $50.
I recently found out that I am an heir to a lottery sized fortune from my family’s oil and mineral rights. A gas company just a made a huge strike on our land. The trust company that is handling the money accidentally sent out tax bills to all us grandchildren. None of us were even supposed to know any of this existed until as late as possible. Anytime I asked my older relatives about it, they would stonewall or freak out. I didn’t care if I would get $1 or $50,000,000 dollars, I just wanted to know what I could expect because I was doing some long-term financial planning.
My aunt told me most of the story. They have money set aside to pay for my daughter’s college but I don’t get anything directly right now. I supposedly get some huge amount of money when my father dies however. He is extremely selfish person and will probably outlive me and my brothers just from that alone. I would be lucky to get $10 from him for my birthday but that would still be a huge improvement.
So, at some point in the future, I will inherit some number of millions. I am 34 now. I am dead serious when I say it is more irritating than anything else. It whipped the family in a minor tizzy which those circumstances always do although it could have been worse. I am at the point in my life where home and family expenses are at their highest. I still have to bust my ass at a professional job so the very promise of such a thing doesn’t do me any good when I could use it the most. I have to manage my own money anyway.
I am just blocking it from my mind because it has no bearing on the important stuff including my immediate priorities. My father could come up with a way to spend it all no matter how much it is anyway. He is a blow and hookers kind of guy.
I don’t buy, but I suuuure do fantasize.