The Things I’ll Say When I Win Powerball

Let me start off by letting you know five things I would NOT say if I won or shared in tonight’s Powerball jackpot which will be worth in excess of $750 million:

1. The money will not change me.
2. I would like to buy a new car.
3. I would like to buy a new house.
4. I think I’ll take a vacation.
5. I won’t quit my job but will take a couple of weeks off.

Now that doesn’t mean some of those things won’t be on my list but I will handle them in a different fashion. For example:

1. Of course the money will change me. I’ll be happier than I’ve ever been and probably double the number of Twitter followers I have overnight.
2. I’m not much of a car guy but would purchase a couple, including a 2019 Lincoln Navigator.
3. So I will buy or build a house somewhere near the water and of course buy something in say Key West that I could visit often between November-April when I needed warmth and sunshine
4. First if many vacations would be to one of the beach towns in Italy (Positano) followed by Australia. That’s a start.
5. For close to 40 years I have really liked most of what I do but winning the Powerball would at the very least result in semi-retirement. I would stick around to run the WOBM Christmas Classic for a few more years. The Hometown View would likely come to an end.

What I could and could not do really would rest with how much money I won. For example if the jackpot was $750 million and you took the cash option it would be about $465 million. Federal taxes would reduce that to about $292 million and you would automatically have another 8% taken out in state taxes so that would leave $269 million.

That’s okay if you win by yourself but if you’re in a lottery pool like we are at work then my total payout would only be slightly over $5 million.

I’ll still go to Positano, drop down to a Lincoln MKT, get a smaller house and keep doing the Hometown View on a monthly basis.