So, What is Enough??

For as long as there as been a lottery/Lotto/Powerball/Big Game/call it what you will, people, myself included have fantasized about what they would do with all the cash.

Travel everywhere
Fancy house
Slick car
Daily shopping sprees

I can remember talking with co-workers about grabbing my passport and credit cards and heading to the airport, walking up to the departures board in the International terminal, closing my eyes and pointing...that would be my destination.  Can you even get to a departure board anymore without passing through TSA security??

Anyway...after the material things...I thought about the future...setting up my family to live comfortably...homes paid for, college money saved and invested because let's be honest, when the fantasizing started, I was barely out of college myself!

Then as a marriage failed, there were people exiled from the group I would take care of.  And then new people added as my family grew.

Keep in mind, I rarely play so the chances of me winning are even more slim than those that do. 

I have often wondered if I "needed" to win the huge jackpots $400-500 million, $1.6 billion and so on.  I am not a kid anymore, I have a home, a fairly slick car, I travel fairly often...I don't really need a daily shopping spree.  I have read enough stories about people who won a HUGE lottery jackpot and then squandered the money away and were worse off than before the jackpot win.

Money doesn't buy you happiness, or security it seems for some.

So what is "enough"?

I would like a house with a larger kitchen and a larger yard; perhaps in a better climate.
I would like to not work full time.
I would like my husband to not work full time.
I would like to travel more regularly.
I might like a sports car.
I want the kids to finish college without debt.
I'd like my family to never have to worry about bills.

I am pretty sure I don't need $1.6 billion (or half of that after taxes) to achieve those things.

Last weekend we took my stepdaughter to college for her freshman year and we had been hearing about the $600 million jackpot that had a drawing Saturday night.  We bought some tickets.  It had been so long since I had personally bought tickets that I didn't know it is now $2 per entry.

I knew we had zero chance (1 in 292 million to be accurate) of winning but I still felt nervous about the remote possibility.  My mind briefly flicked to hiding the ticket, telling no one, hiring an accountant and a financial planner; my anxiety went through the roof.

In the end,  I won $4  in the Powerball drawing last Saturday night; I didn't quite get back what I had invested.

Guess for now, that will be enough.