WHEN I win the lotto I'm going too....

[sweetgirl]

Buy a house. Go on holiday. Donate to charity.

What would you buy if you won?

[Spoder]

House. Somewhere near the beach. Old-fashioned, with wooden floorboards and a swimming pool. No other features (size, mod-cons) are important. 

Maybe a holiday shack for my whole family to share.

Errr...how much money are we talking here, sweetgirl? 


(Now the next posters are going to come along and say they'd build orphanages or pay off their parents' mortgage or something, and make me look bad, I just know it.  )

[MrsJWine]

House. Somewhere near the beach. Old-fashioned, with wooden floorboards and a swimming pool. No other features (size, mod-cons) are important. 

Maybe a holiday shack for my whole family to share.

Errr...how much money are we talking here, sweetgirl? 


(Now the next posters are going to come along and say they'd build orphanages or pay off their parents' mortgage or something, and make me look bad, I just know it.  )

Nah.  I'd give a tenth (maybe a little more) of it to my church, but the rest...

1.  Pay off loans.
2.  Buy a house.
3.  Pay off my parents' and siblings' debts (they are responsible with money, so no worries that they'd just dig themselves deeper again).
4.  Buy a couple of very good cars.
5.  One year emergency fund.
6.  Half of the rest in savings, half of the rest in a college fund for our kids.

Not sure that we'd get to do ALL of that, depending on how big the lotto is, but 1-3 would be a good start.  And it would free us up to be able to do 4-6 much more easily than now, with a mortgage, rent, and student loans.

[Xallanthia]

1. Pay off CC debt.
2. Pay off student loans.
3. Buy a house.
4. Fix my car (it runs just fine but has a ton of little irritating things wrong, like the driver side window doesn't open and the gas gauge is just a suggestion).
5. Set aside an amount equal to my yearly salary for emergencies.

Anything else would depend on the actual value of the grant, but other things I would like to do include sending DH to Greece for a few weeks this summer, getting handwritten icons of both of our patrons, and giving to my church and/or seminaries.  If it was a really huge amount, I'd quit my job, move to where his school is (2.5h away), and live off that money for the next 2 years while he's in school.

[bobsyouruncle]

I'm just gonna assume I was the only winner in a really BIG lotto ;-)

1 - spend a couple of nights @ The Plaza Hotel in NYC
2 - buy a house in the country
3 - pay off all of my, my brother and sisters student loans
4 - parents mortgage - gone!
5 - lots of donations - probably first to the cat rescue I volunteer with plus various other local charities
6 - travel! 
7 - bank the rest and live off the interest!

[Layla Miller]

I'm awfully boring.  The only thing I can think of is to put it in the bank/investments/retirement fund.  We recently got all our student loans paid off, so we don't have any debt right now (yay!), but it would be nice to have a really big safety net.    I'm thinking emergencies, college for any potential future children, etc.

...

Okay, maybe we'd splurge on a nice vacation first. 

[Larrabee]

I've always said I'd pay for someone to come to my house three times a day with a beautifully prepared, nutritionally balanced low fat meal.  So that I never have to worry about cooking, food shopping again and I'd have a much better shot at maintaining a healthy weight!

A gym in the house too, so that I could have a TV in there showing my favourite films and shows while I exercise rather than the awful music channels that are always on at the gym.  I could easily stay on a treadmill for 2 hours if LOTR was on at the same time!

I would give a big chunk to a charity that researches the disease my best friend died of, but that's still kind of selfish really.

[Elfqueen13]

Prepare for the zombipocaplyse.

[Lynnv]

Small lotto:
Pay off bills. 
Put most in savings. 
Buy two new motorcycles (one for DH and one for me) and a new car (for me). 
Pay for a custom paint job from a friend of mine who does amazing work for my new bike.
Maybe a new car for DH, but his is newer than mine. 
Maybe move into a new house (depending on how large/small the payout is).
New photographic equipment for DH.  He likes what he has, but is always looking at something fun and new.
New computer(s).
Much new glass and new glass toys to play with. 

Big lotto:
All of the above. 
New place now has as big a garage as I can find (there are some high end patio homes around here that have 4 car garages). 
Have glass studio/workshop built to my specs.  By someone else who is actually good at doing that sort of thing instead of cobbled together by yours truly.
Buy some more bikes.  One for touring, one for day-to-day around town riding.  One for parades and showing off.  And a couple others just for fun. 
Big donations to some charities. 
Travel, travel, travel.  The Edelweiss folks (motorcycle tour company) would make a flipping fortune. 
College funds for all the nieces and nephews.
Pay off debts for my mom, my sister, his sister.

[hobish]

My plan is to start off with a helicopter and a goat ... after that, we'll see. I guess it depends on how big a Lotto.

[Jolie_kitten]

-Pay for my master's degree
-Buy a little apartment in central London (since that's where I'll be going to school)
-Buy as many of these as the prize would allow: a bike, a semi-pro photo camera, a smartphone, a kindle,a looooooot of books,  these Jimmy Choo shoes http://sellairjordan23.com/Cheap-Jimmy-Choo-Shoes-Wholesale/, these Jimmy Choo shoes http://www.millionlooks.com/images/jimmy-choo-sandals.jpg  and a pair of nice black Manolo Blahniks such as these http://www.brandshoesmall.co.uk/manolo-blahnik-mary-jane-shoes-p-5679-p-415.html , a necklace like Audrey Hepburn's in Breakfast at Tiffany's- with matching earrings, a Moschino Hippy Fizz perfume, a Coco Mademoiselle perfume, cosmetics form Il-Makiage and Estee Lauder
-Do I still have anything left for backpacking trough Europe?

[EngineerChick]

Assuming a LARGE win, I would:

Tell no one, except: lawyer, financial adviser, and accountant (possibly my parents)
Put most of the money into a balanced financial plan, wherein I will be able to live off the interest for the rest of my life
Buy a house (but would have to travel first to figure out the best location  )
Buy a new car (and possibly a motorcycle)
Take classes in advanced driving techniques (evasive maneuvers, drifting, racing)
Continue helicopter flight lessons, up to the Airline Transport Pilot (ATP) level
SCUBA lessons, to get advanced certifications
Take classes in whatever else seems interesting, like: surfing, pottery, Swahili, sailing, weaving, dancing, snowboarding, martial arts...
And, since I wouldn't HAVE to work to support myself, I would probably spend the rest of my time volunteering. 

My plan is to start off with a helicopter and a goat ... after that, we'll see. I guess it depends on how big a Lotto.

Need a pilot?   

[eclecticgrrl]

Man, Lynnv - even your SMALL lotto has to be pretty big!

I'm just going to assume that we were the only winners in a huge jackpot.  That's the most fun.  We would:

Pay off our debts first.
Pay off the debts of parents, sibs & their kids of both me and BF
Everyone who doesn't have one gets a house (family, I mean.  Strangers will probably stay houseless.)
Set up trust funds for the "kid generation" - my daughter, his nieces and grandnephews, my grandson.
We upgrade our house to MAD stunning giant house with enough room for guests, my books AND my quilting stuff.  In separate rooms.  So there.
Buy a vacation house that's big enough for our family somewhere semi-convenient (maybe the Outer Banks or something) and send them all a key.
Upgrade our wedding plans something fierce.  
Arrange a sabbatical and take a 6 month "bucket list" vacation to Australia, Bali, New Zealand, Micronesia, Madagascar, scuba diving every day possible.
BF is going to insist on donations to cancer research, including (at a minimum) breast cancer and ALS.
Buy a really nice car and a REALLY nice motorcycle for me.
Bank the rest, go back to work and take a great vacation every year and not worry about Christmas presents or Easter baskets or vet bills or sending my daughter to grad school or my grandson to college any more.


If it was a smaller jackpot, we're agreed that right now we pay off bills first and anything over that gets tossed in the wedding fund.  If we hit after the wedding, we take a vacation.

Just an aside?  One of the times that there was a really big Powerball jackpot, we went out to dinner with my dad and his GF and the subject of what to do with the winnings came up.  I said that we were planning on paying off their house and all their debts so they wouldn't have to worry about money any more and we would buy a vacation house that anyone could use at will.  My dad's GF was FURIOUS with me.  She said that they had been planning on giving us a million dollars but they wouldn't do that now because we're such cheapskates.  She was absolutely apoplectic on the topic and ended up leaving the restaurant in a huff.  Over money we knew we didn't have a snowball's chance in eHell of winning.  Peoples are so weird.

[CG]

1 - Change name and phone number
2 - Pay off my student loans
3 - Finish up DF's divorce
4 - Pay for wedding
5 - Help a friend out
6 - Buy a house
7 - Go on a cruise with DF
8 - Go back to school

[Outdoor Girl]

All the usual things - buy a new house or renovate the existing one, buy a new vehicle, take some trips.  I've always dreamed of driving across Canada, staying at little Bed and Breakfasts along the way, stopping wherever I darn well please.  If I want to see the biggest ball of string in the world, I can stop and do just that.

But there are a couple of other things to take care of, too.  My Dad just had his hip replaced.  He's staying with me until he can manage on his own at home.  In the meantime, his neighbours have been looking after his house, calling us when there is something that needs taking care of, and they intend to run our hobby sugarbush (making maple syrup) this year.  We'd be cutting them in for at least 1/2 a share.  I've already been calling Anne (the Mom of the family) his third kid!

Secondly, Dad's last night in the hospital before he was discharged, he ended up with a roommate.  He was Asian, recently (as in less than a week) married to a Canadian girl.  Consequently, he wouldn't have OHIP benefits and so they would have to pay for his costs from a burst appendix.  I'd like to go to the hospital and quietly pay at least part of their bill.  The wife bought her husband a little plant to brighten his room; she got my Dad one, too.  It was a little thing but it meant a lot to my Dad.