For those playing power ball.
This is better suited to IMHO than GQ.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
I would buy myself my own politician, posthaste.
You’ll hear about it.
What WOULDN’T I do?
Even tho we rarely play, on the occasions we did, our speculative planning always included scholarships and/or a foundation to ensure more folks can go to school without getting stuck deep in debt. We’d take care of family, of course, and then we’d have fun. Lots of travel, outrageous tips at restaurants, random gifts of cash to random causes and individuals. And maybe a new tablecloth for the dining room table. 
This seems rather ungrateful to your hypothetical benefactor. As far as the lottery business is concerned, the poorer and dumber people are the better.
Golden Corral for all the dopers, on me:cool:
Take off my shoes, sit in a tree, and learn how to play the flute.
That thread assumes a much greater level of wealth.
How can they advertise it as $800 million? If you take the lump sum payment it is closer to $500 million. After taxes, $200-300 million.
But what can I do with that money? Pay off all my family member’s debts, and then move to a part of the world I really like. Also hookers and coke.
Can we have those $2.99 take home boxes too?
I watched that interview, dood has his priorities straight;)
FHRITP
Pay taxes. Take the cash cut. Split the rest with my wife & get a divorce (we’re separated, so that probably wouldn’t come as too much of a shock).
With the remaining $100 million or so…
Find a high-end financial assistance company and do everything I can to diversify & hide my money so people can’t take it from me, while getting back something better than the 1% I could get out of a straight savings account. Figure out a budget to buy a house, furnish it, live somewhat of the high life and also provide for charity & philanthropy with what I have left.
Assuming, as per Wesley’s post, that I take the lump sum and end up with more like 500 million:
- Pay off all family’s debts.
- Pay off all friend’s debts.
- Give half of whatever’s left to charity. I’d favour British Red Cross, The Alzheimer’s Society, Help the Aged, Cancer Research UK, and then a few tens of millions for a bunch of smaller charities in my local area. I’d also set up some scholarships.
- Give friends a few million each. I think one of the main reasons a lot of lottery winners end up depressed and penniless is because their money moves them out of their old social circle and into a new one where they can never be sure if their new friends like them for who they are or like them for their money. So I’d bring my old friends up with me. 10 million each for the really close friends, maybe a couple of million for my second-tier friends, and everyone else can go piss up a rope.
- Assuming, after all this largesse, that I’ve got about $150 million left, I’d buy my mum and dad their dream house (whatever that might be) and put enough money aside to guarantee they’d have a great retirement.
- Then I’d buy myself a few properties: A swish penthouse in a fancy part of London (I’m thinking Chelsea or Knightsbridge); a traditional little cottage in the country somewhere; and a house in NYC.
- $120 million left - Definitely getting a Bentley.
- Invest the rest and live off the interest, which should be somewhere in the region of a million a year at a conservative estimate. Then just see as much of the world as I can.
You mean with your bared toes?
Wow I wonder if Lance Armstrong would show up.
Move to Nevada before you take the money. They don’t talk to the IRS.
Definitely the cash option. 15 million or so gets stashed overseas as my bailout money. Invest 200 million. Buy a couple of houses in various locales. Buy my high school a new theater building. Endow a buttload of scholarships for high school debaters. Since we don’t have kids, there is no reason to have anything left over when we shuffle off, so random acts of kindness will be called for. Lots of waitresses will be getting new cars, for example.