I have won the lottery: Now what?

Woah woah woah... real people actually win the lottery? Like you're SURE they're going to give you money?

If you're serious, then send me an email.

Just don't be a moron. A lot of people who win the lottery and don't have much money end up spending all of it on stupid shit and eventually wind up as broke as they were before. I wouldn't invest shit in this economy. Things are only going to get worse after all the stuff going on in the Middle East brings oil prices up to 10 bucks a gallon. In light of that, however, buying some Lockheed Martin stock might be a good idea...

6.4 million is a lot of money but if you take out the .4 to cover mortgage + credit card bills + other expenses you're down to 6 million. Then I would assume you may have to pay some additional taxes down the road on this lump sum payment. That won't be until 2012 when this year's 1040 has to be filed.

What part of country do you live in? Some parts, 96K provides comfortable living. I'm posting in Boston and 96K is not a whole lot for this area.

I say this because quitting your jobs altogether may or may not be in the cards.

If I were you, I'd still work for another 6-7 years or something and retire when you're in your 50s and your wife is in her early 60s. That way you'll have a nice nest egg of hopefully 6.5-7 million to live off of for the rest of your life. You can go on trips and live comfortably for about 30 years or so.

Congratulations!

Just get your mileage over 100 a week and the rest will take care of itself.

WHOA.

Seriously, get a good financial consultant. They should take care of you, and do a better job of investing than you ever will, for a 1% annual fee or so. Make sure you find a CONSERVATIVE company, one that has a history of outperforming the market in the down cycles. If you can lose just 60 cents to the dollar when the market is declining, and gain 80 cents on the dollar when it is increasing, you will be set.

Do NOT go buy cars, houses and other luxury items right away. Do NOT go into buisness with your brother-in-law who has a can't miss internet scheme. DO find a way to make you and your kids financially secure for the rest your and their lives.

If you hate your jobs, I would immediently quit and go on a 6 month vacation to places I had never been before. Then I would get a job doing something I loved. Probably something simple like teaching and coaching track, where I could be around my family as much as possible and do what I want to do.

I hope you're not a troll.

I really respect the opinion of those on this board and would really appreciate your feedback.[/quote]

Houston we have a problem

Drop dead

Dude, the first thing I would do is give half that money to your future ex-wife and find a 25 year old hottie to help spend a little of the rest.

What to do??? wrote:

I am in my 40's and my wife in her early 50's.

nice!

buy a Ferrari

What to do??? wrote:

We plan to hire an accountant, attorny, and financila planner.

Why are you asking LetsRun for financial advice if you are going to hire a financial planner? Oh! A better question: Why are you hiring a financial planner when you can get all your financial advice from LetsRun?

Do what your financial planner tells you to do. Then come to LetsRun for advice on what to do with your remaining thirty years--whether to buy a 200m indoor track to put around your bowling alley, or a 400m Mondo track with a swimming pool on the infield.

Let's see - if half of that goes to taxes in the first year, then you pay off your debt, you're left with 2.9 million. You'd need to get a return of 3.3% yearly in order to make the same $96k in interest that you currently live on.

You'll have to pay capital gains taxes on that $96k, but I'm assuming you are also currently paying income tax on your $96k combined income. Call it a wash, though actually the long term capital gains taxes will probably be lower than income taxes.

So you need to find a 3.3% yearly return. Not so hard.

Hookers and crack cocaine

Well just hire an accountant and see how things go. LetsRun isn't exactly the smartest thread on this matter, but I'm sure if you have finacial planning you'll be fine.

By the way 9/10

but of course wrote:

Let's see - if half of that goes to taxes in the first year, then you pay off your debt, you're left with 2.9 million. You'd need to get a return of 3.3% yearly in order to make the same $96k in interest that you currently live on.

You'll have to pay capital gains taxes on that $96k, but I'm assuming you are also currently paying income tax on your $96k combined income. Call it a wash, though actually the long term capital gains taxes will probably be lower than income taxes.

So you need to find a 3.3% yearly return. Not so hard.

This is super important.

Make sure you set aside enough money to pay your tax bill and eliminate all your debt before you begin to try evaluating how you are going to produce income from the remainder. When you are attempting to predict your income, make sure that you account for inflation.

Have fun!

Boy gold or have it all wiped out by inflation.

I think the obvious answer is get a referral to a reputable professional who can help you figure out how to handle this amount of money. It would seem obvious to pay off your debts since they are very small in comparison to you winnings.

Is the $6.4 million before or after taxes? In either case be realistic, especially if this is before taxes (in which case you have more like $4 million). This is not the kind of money that you can buy a Ferrari a huge mansion and a Yacht with. Yes you can live very comfortably in a nice ($500,000) house if you want, maybe even have a modest second home (condo?) somewhere else and probably get a beamer. Invest the rest prudently and you could have similar income to what you have now (~100K). However, if you go nuts, this amount of money can be gone fast and if you quite your job, your income will basically be the same as it is now, not way higher.

FWIW, if you are in your 40s/50s and have $85K in CC and student loan debt, knowing nothing else I would think you are not as careful with money as you should be. All the more reason to get a professional to help you make the best choices this time.

1) I would NOT hire an attorney unless you really don't know anything about anything. That's just a good way to make some of your money go away.

2) Let's assume you end up with $3.2 million after taxes. If you put that in a mutual fund made up of 50% bonds and 50% stocks (you should be conservative) and take just 4% of that total, that is $128,000 annually. I'd do that and then over the next year use that extra income to get rid of the credit card bills.

3) Now you're left with student loans and the mortgage. I'm ok with it if you want to pay them both off quickly, but the rate on the house isn't bad, so if you want to keep that for a while (perhaps until the student loans are gone), then fine.

IF you both loved your jobs, I'd tell you to pay the house off and all of your debts and bank what was left, work for a few more years and then retire. BUT, you hate your jobs.

One thing you could do now though is quit those jobs you hate and find fun jobs to do for a while.

Now, me, I'd retire for good, but that's me.

What you shouldn't do is go buy some big honkin' house with huge taxes and nice cars and other crap...$3 million can go quickly.

Congrats, and have fun.

Good for you for having such laudable dream goals: because after all, what the American education system needs is more people who want to go into teaching as a second career because it's "simple." Way to plan to serve others, skippy.

Way Way Way off wrote:

If you hate your jobs, I would immediently quit and go on a 6 month vacation to places I had never been before. Then I would get a job doing something I loved. Probably something simple like teaching and coaching track, where I could be around my family as much as possible and do what I want to do.