But for some people, at $25 a week, that’s part of an entertainment budget than missed investment opportunity. Some people spend more than that on Starbucks.
There are definitely issues with math or budget challenged people spending well out of their means on the lottery. But if that’s not an issue and the person is disciplined in their spending, it’s the same as moralizing about how millenials can drastically improve their financial situations by skipping the lattes and avocado toast (which, these days, would be more than $25 a week).
I agree that if you can afford $25 / week, then you can certainly spend it on a gamble.
However it is pleasant to think that saving it up would give you a jolly nice $1,300 to spend in a year’s time.
I certainly disagree with ludicrous statements like ‘if you want to buy a house, all you have to do is stop drinking coffee.’
For me, regularly saving something is such a good idea because:
I’ve mentally played the lottery for thirty years now, pretending that I’ve picked numbers and then checking the winning set. So if I’d really played for those three decades (spending $44,000+) … I’d have won $110.
It’s been quite an education on the odds, sitting there watching the numbers pop up during the evening news; thinking “There’s one of my numbers… and there’s, nope, it’s just one number matching. AGAIN.”
But I guess that’s a better feeling than having all my numbers come up. “Wow! I beat the odds and I didn’t win a million bucks!”
Analysis of lottery numbers people pick show this incredibly flawed strategy to be common. It increases the chances of a split pot. Always make random choices. That’s what Quick Pick options are good for.
