Ticket immediately goes in safe deposit box, while I and the wife consult with attornies and a financial advisor. Also an accountant.
Ideally, we wait several weeks for the furor to die down. We both take leave of absences from work, schedule a nice long cruise, and then pull the trigger and claim our prize.
While on several week long cruise, hired guys set up trusts, eliminate debt, and hand out several gifts to a few key folks. We also purchase either a new house (wife’s wish) or a plot of land to build on from scratch (my wish).
Upon returning home, hopefully to minimal fanfare, we attempt to lead a normal a life as possible as multimillionaires.
Ticket in safe deposit box until my wife and I can get our trust rigged up, and some lawyers to accept on our behalf.
Once that’s done, I suspect that the hard part might be to keep the wealth sort of inconspicuous- all of a sudden getting a new house and new cars and all that would be hard to hide.
I’m thinking we’d obviously tell our parents, and we’d probably move to Houston or Austin, which might throw our friends and acquaintances up here off the scent- it would explain the house, and the new car(s) would hopefully be sufficiently delayed to not look too suspicious. Once there, we’d probably start our life of insane excess.
After that, flying or driving wouldn’t have to be anything special; just because I’d be super-wealthy, I’d still probably fly Southwest.
My state lets me remain anonymous, so no paranoia because I’m not telling anybody. I’d cash in the ticket, deposit it in the bank, hire a financial adviser and take my time doing anything with it.
I’d keep on working and doing what I do until the attention dies down. No need to do anything that screams, “I’M THE WINNER!”
Well that’s the plan, instead I’d probably faint and then get up and do the happy dance screaming, “I WON I WON I WON!”.
Even if I could remain anonymous, I think everyone who knows me would figure it out when I buy a couple of hundred acres in the country and a Tesla Model S Performance.
Honestly, you cannot realistically expect to remain anonymous to everyone. Your friends and family are going to know soon enough. Then, as one of the articles said, you need to work as hard protecting yourself psychologically as you do in protecting your money.
I’d sign the ticket, call the number, cash it in right away and get my money in the bank. From there, I’d quit my job, buy a house, and then figure out how to invest it so I don’t go broke in five years.
Not too paranoid. I like most of my family, I don’t know many people here in town, and I’d be immediately moving out of state anyway once the money was secured.
I’d be happy with a modest but comfortable home, so I doubt I’d give myself away through extravagance.
Safe deposit box first. Keep 70% for myself. Remaining 30% goes to family and close friends. That way there are no midnight knocks on my door from relations. I’d buy 3-4 homes and rotate living by season. Take nice vacation every quarter. Burn thru 8 million right away then take a monthly salary once we figured out what our expenses were.
I know the ones closest to me would find out, I’d tell them but not right away. I plan on sharing anyway.
I don’t want or need a big house or a fancy car. I do want a secure future for me and my son. I doubt I’d ever live in such a way that people would know I’m rich.
My reserve joke against the possibility of winning the lottery;
<To family, as somber and as ashen face as I can make myself>
“I’ve seen the documentary. That poor man who suddenly became super rich. Then his ungrateful family exiles him to California, forcing him to take his crazy mother, his stupid nephew and his silly niece with him. Please don’t do that to me. I like living here.”
(I have a crazy mother, a 15 year old honor student athlete nephew and a 12 year old developmentally challenged niece)
In Reno there is a lawyer specializing in such things and probably are elsewhere too. I think I would take any windfall, lottery, probate or whatever to a lawyer even though I don’t much care for lawyers in general. I wouldn’t want to have to fight subsequent claims by others that my whatever was part theirs.
There was a news story recently about some university student who won a few million and he waited until the week before the deadline to acknowledge the winnings and claim them just to minimize the hassle.
Here you can stay anonymous. My husband would want to be super-paranoid, never tell anyone but me. We could probably manage it: our finances have fluctuated wildly enough, over the years (a function of both our jobs), that some unusual big purchases and presents wouldn’t make anyone suspicious - they’d just think we were having a specially good year. And we don’t want, like, a yacht or anything billionairey. Neither of us has any desire to quit our jobs, ever, so that wouldn’t raise suspicions either.
Me, I’d want to tell family and friends that we’d won the Lotto+1 - do you guys have an equivalent? It’s like a lesser Lotto draw at the same time, where you win something like 300 grand, no rollover? That way I could give people money and have a good explanation for it, without getting the interest of would-be scroungers and kidnappers.
I’m not sure I’d have much reason to stay anonymous myself, so I’d have no issue claiming the winnings openly. I suppose my biggest difficulty would be finding a lawyer I trust, because I’m not sure I know anyone who knows a trusted lawyer. There’s actually a pretty decent chance I’d wind up moving to another country in the long run, because I’ve often wanted to live in Europe or Japan. So first I’d take a nice long vacation in each place that seems interesting before deciding where I’m going to buy a reasonably modest house (5 bedrooms would probably be my absolute maximum, and I doubt I’d even want that many) and live hopefully the rest of my life. I’ve got no real difficulty telling people to piss off, so I have no real concerns about beggars and such.
I’d want to get the money as soon as possible. Even if the ticket was in a safe deposit box, banks can be robbed and can burn down, and I don’t care how fireproof a safe deposit box is supposed to be, unexpected crap can happen. I’d do what I could do keep anonymous publicly, but I’d want to celebrate with my family and friends so keeping it secret from them is out of the picture, and probably impossible anyway.
Rather than the lump sum, I’d take the yearly payout over 20 years. There’s no way I couldn’t do what I wanted on whatever the yearly sum would be, and if a crooked accountant emptied my bank account, I’d always have more coming.
With as much money as the Powerball win yesterday, I’d be super paranoid about kidnapping, especially of my kids and how that would affect their ability to live a normal life. I might even go to the extent of having their names legally changed if that would do any good.
So yeah, I’d be paranoid, but I’m willing to give it a try.
Did you see the Yahoo article today that showed a video capture of a man celebrating a lottery win in Missouri? The caption was something like, “Is this the PowerBall winner?”
I mean, seriously, how invasive is that, especially if he’s not the winner?
I know someone who won a quarter million in an Ontario lottery. Not hundreds of millions, but enough to take seriously and lottery winnings are not taxed in Canada. She was asked if she wished to remain anonymous and said she did. Fifteen minutes later the phone calls from charities began. (I would have told them that I contribute to no charity that engages in bribery.)
But to answer the OP, I would cash the ticket immediately, deposit the money in the bank and then start the process of getting a lawyer, financial adviser, etc., meanwhile go on a long cruise and not return till it is all set up. Friends who importune me for money will quickly become ex-friends. Sure I would make million dollar trust funds for each grandchild. And pay off my sons’ mortgages and buy my daughter an apartment in Brooklyn (above the escarpment, although they do live about it now and had no flood). I would sell my house and spend the rest of my life living in hotels. Tropics in the winter and visiting my kids the rest of the year. Eventually, I would have to go into some kind of assisted care living facilities, if I live so long. I could never spend the money because I don’t gamble, don’t like cars especially (I would consider selling mine and taking taxis everywhere) and don’t much care for luxury goods.
Luckily here in Australia there is no tax on the winnings and you can claim your winnings anonymously. Usually there is a story like this:
*Wednesday 7 November, 2012 - An ACT family said they had a sleepless night after being contacted by a NSW Lotteries official informing them they won a share of more than $27.9 million in Oz Lotto’s $100 million draw!
The winning entry was purchased from Mollymook Beach Newsagency, 64A Ocean Street, Mollymook on the ACT family’s recent trip away to the NSW coast.
“It’s hard to know if you’re for real or if one of my family members put you up to this – they’d do that!” the winning man said in disbelief.
“I’ve come close to winning a division one prize before, but not quite close enough!” he exclaimed.
The winning man said this prize money would be truly life changing for him and his family. *
It would be a simple matter to change a few details so that no-one knew that I was the winner - add a few kids, say that I own a small business or that I recently retired etc
Lots of copies, safe deposit box, then contact a big law firm with high powered tax advisors. I’d take a lump sum payout, quit my job and we’d probably go to China for a while. Then decide where we want to live that’s good for the kids.
I’d tell everyone new the truth - that I had previously been an investment banker.
Well, no one other than SWMBO and my financial adviser would know until I showed up in the lottery office with my trust fund papers in hand. After that, yeah, I’d have to put up with the leeches. I’d give the lottery office my Taekwondo school address, not my home address, so if a leech showed up, s/he might think it was a bogus address and just go away.
