Women wins $10 million after "rude" stranger bumped her into hitting wrong button
I think we all dream about winning some money. I personally don't play the lottery because I am far too logical and not dreamy enough to believe that I am actually going to win. We have all heard those stories about how exceptionally unlikely it is that you are going to win but tons of people do it anyway in the hopes that lightning will strike and they will suddenly find themselves super-rich.
"He didn't even apologize! "
Well for one woman her victory was something that initially annoyed her because like a lot of folks out there, she has a certain process that they follow during their throw money out the window repertoire. LaQuedra Edwards (what a name!) got bumped by someone at a lottery ticket vending machine and it made her hit the wrong button that ended up buying a $30 lottery ticket instead of her usual $2 ones. At first she was furious because this move had forced her to get a lot less scratch off tickets than she would normally get - according to her. Well that rude person was her guardian angel or something because the mistake resulted in her winning a cool $10 million.
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It wasn't until she got in her car, still angry at the stranger for forcing her out of her routine that she reluctantly scratched off her $30 ticket and saw that she had won the top prize of $10 million. She was in disbelief, like we all would be if it happened to us and said that she nearly crashed her car because of it. I don't know why she was driving and scratching at the same time but she did say that she pulled over in order to get her shit together. Oh how ironic would it have been if in her elation she had crashed the car and died? Ok, that's not nice to speculate about.
The above image is not her, if you couldn't tell by the name. LaQuedra Edwards has intelligently concealed her identity as much as possible and this is a smart thing since most people who win the lottery have loads of snakes come out of the woodwork to try to steal it from them. Unfortunately for her, that name is probably a dead giveaway and they will likely find her anyway. It's not like LaQuedra is really common or something.
She says she intends to buy a house and start a non-profit. I hope for her sake that she manages to buy a REASONABLE house and be careful with her money. Statistically speaking, nearly everyone who wins the lottery, regardless of how much money they win, ends up broke within 5 years and I suppose this makes sense because playing the lottery in the first place is a pretty fantastic indicator that one is not the best at financial management.
It's a pseudonym? Nowadays in the US such names a revealing of one's ethnicity
well there is one particular ethic group that has names like this so yeah, it's kind of a dead giveaway. Many people who win the lottery choose to remain totally anonymous and I think that is probably a smarter way to go.
I agree, when it's possible
"playing the lottery...is a pretty fantastic indicator that one is not the best at financial management.
Nothing sedates rationality like large doses of effortless money (Buffet quote).
Statistically, like you said, she will mismanage most of that money, and by the time she realizes how bad she has screwed up, she will not have enough left to make a significant difference in her life. Unless she takes the annuity option which pays out over the next 20 years. That's probably the best bet for someone that can't manage money…the annuity saves her from herself.
I wish her the best and I hope she manages it well. Put it somewhere where it grows, and she only lives off the ROI, and doesn’t blow it on some BS like nonprofits, relatives and friends… that's the quickest way to lose the money.
I have never understood why people don't take this option. Are they afraid that the lottery commission is going to have them killed or something? If she took that option she would have a guaranteed 20 years of $300,000 or so after taxes. How can she not live off of that? She could still get the house but this would ensure that her money management is at least somewhat enforced by the payouts.
I suppose I can see a scenario where she or others would be able to screw this up as well because she could go to some sort of loan shark that would give her terrible rates on future earnings. For me, I would always go for the annuity but it seems like no one ever does.
I would be willing to bet that a ton of her friends and family come out of the woodwork and try to be her "best friend EVER" soon if they haven't already.
The idea of putting it all in a simple savings account would be more than enough to live the rest of her life off the interest.
There is a story of a guy that won something like $100 million dollars and the newfound wealth resulted in his brat kids becoming drug addicts and one of them died. He later lamented winning the lottery as "the worst thing that ever happened to him."
People underestimate the seductive nature of money. It doesn't necessarily change anybody… like Tom Clancy said; money doesn't change character, it reveals it…
Money has the ability to bring out the worst and better angels of our nature. People need to keep that in mind when they receive a lot of it quickly. Because people haven't developed the self-discipline to control those emotions yet. And when money is freely available, it degrades your desire to use due diligence in using it…400 years of debt financing has proven this over and over again.
I think what gets people into trouble with large doses of effortless money is they underestimate the power of that money to pull out the most devastating aspects of our nature. Because we all have it in us.