The perpetual income is indeed appealing on a monthly and annual basis.

At $250,000 per property, you can get 120 of them with $30 million. Monthly income will equal to $96,000 assuming $800 net rent per property. Employing this method will afford you to go into various business ventures, lose your shirt if luck turns sour and still not having to touch a dime of your winnings.

[...] Marie beat the odds that day, 1 in 28 million, and won $50 million dollars. In Canada that’s $50 million dollars tax free! [...]

1. Find a Canadian accountant and lawyer.
2. Take a taxi to the claims office (I have a car but I hate driving in parts of the city I don’t know!), pick up money, deposit it in some kind of account.
3. Pay off student loans ($7500) and car ($15000).
4. Continue teaching until the end of the school year; have a pizza party for my class but only serve meatless pizza (ha ha!). Maybe, if the kids are good, also provide chips and soda at said pizza party. ;) If they’re bad… soy milk and veggie chips.
5. Fly to Barcelona at spring break; buy and furnish three-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment in El Born (about $1.2 million dollars). I have already scoped out a nice one! I should probably bring my mom on this trip for moral support.
6. Sell car (+$10,000!)
7. Move to Barcelona over the summer.
8. Hire Spanish lawyers and accountants. Also, hire part-time housekeeper. A translator will probably be useful as well, just at first.
9. Buy a monthly transit pass. I love the Barcelona transit system. Adios, car!
10. Find a way to occupy my time, probably teaching English. Maybe doing some volunteer work with African immigrants. Oh, and learn to speak Catalan. I should probably join a gym as well, as I seem to recall clothes in Spain being cut smaller than in Canada.
11. Invite friends and family to come visit. Impress them with my newfound fearlessness when cooking on a gas stove.
11.5. Sweetly invite most-hated coworker to come visit, then say, “Ha ha! Just kidding!” Roll around on the floor laughing for ten minutes afterwards (then feel bad that I wasted money on that long-distance call).
12. Live a pretty normal life within my means and keep an eye on my investments. Running out of money abroad = not good.
13. Do some little favours: give some cash to my parents and treat them to a trip to Germany, get my brother a new truck, pay for a friend’s graduate schooling, etc.
14. Donate generously to the non-denominational homeless shelter in my Canadian hometown. Pay children to leave flaming bags of dog poop on the doorsteps of people who oppose the expansion of the shelter.
15. Travel more, but still on the cheap (I’d still stay in hostels, but maybe in private rooms rather than dorms!).

Mike D.’s plan seems the most reasonable overall.

The best way is to invest up to 60% in properties with income (plaza, rental building etc), 20% for charities, 10% for retirements and kids education (only if they choose education) and 10% for families through property investment.

1- Copy the ticket & reciept, take multiple pictures of myself them. Save in multiple locations including bank safe box!! I won’t let anybody including my kids know that I’ve won the lottery but my wife must legally know.

2- Sign NDA with hefty penalty first and apply through a lottery lawyer to become an un-identified winner

3- I won’t quit my job

4- Get the best-damn tax lawyer (again with NDA and from another city) to ensure all my lottery income is properly filed with government

5- Noticed no purchasing yet?!! Here comes the first. Pay 50% of the lottery cash for two proven Investment properties which pay only about 5% divident a year (those with more are in bad neighborhoods or scam). On corner of best streets in town. Tripple inspector/agent them so the deals are real and the price & income are right. See how much those bring annually and that’s my extra income for the rest of life. Does it worth quiting the job?

6- If yes, start spending time at your property managing it after hours and over the weekend with a plan to switch your job to managing that property for next two years.

7- Spend 20% of lottery on Charities on a 5 year plan. No lumb sum to charties so you can have a say in their direction. So now you become an activist with only 30% of money left.

8- 10% investment in RRSP and RESP for self-retirement and kids college education. Only low & medium risk in two or three different accounts.

9- 10%. Whoever in immediate family or decent friends has financial problem. Go buy a property in their neighborhood and let them live in it for short term for a low rent which pays the tax & other maintenance cost. Let them know it’s a one or two year deal. That’s the best help you can give them.

10- Last 10%. Buy a piece of land and start building a house in it with a loan!! What?? Am I crazy? No I’m not. You should maintain a loan so people know you don’t have extra cash to give out.

11- Over time move to the new house and start enjoying the financial stability in life. Spending cash on things we can’t afford later is like drinking… short term joy with subsequent pain. I won’t let lottery change my life drastically.

1. Collect money
2. Pay off my student loan/line of credit
3. Quietly set up my own charity to give to families in need (Starting with Families I know)
4. Tell my Parents and grandparents (I would NOT tell my little brother because he can NOT keep a secret) I’d pay off there debts
5. Invest in local businesses
6. Start flipping houses/condos
7. Buy several of the rundown apartment buildings in my neigbourhood and fix them up. (All the tenents living rent free for a year while I do the fix ups, but then I’d up the rent (reasonablely for what I’ve put in them – I’d also cover alternate living arrangments while I’m doing major changes)
8. Invest, invest, invest.
9. Continue working normally for a few years (I’m only 20, it’s not like I’m running out of time!) With some extra vacations! LOL. Austraila first, then a European Disney cruise!
10. Attempt to get a job at Disney world!

$30 million end sum:

1) Pay off my student loans eventually

2) Help pay for my parent’s home loan (what’s left of it) ~$450,000

3) Head back to Sri Lanka and help out my grandma and my cousin – he just got married, bit of a $ problem

4) Go on holiday, visit my family all over the world – Mexico, France, England, Switzerland, various parts of America

5) Complete my masters degree and then get some experience working here for ~ 2-3 years

6) Donate to charities 5%, and another 5% to orphanages back in SL ($3 million all up)

7) Set my brother up with some money for Uni (he’s just finishing high school) and a car/apartment – can’t live at home all the time

8) Move to Los Angeles – there’s a bunch of Vet Clinics that sound quite interesting, favorite cousin lives there

9) Put 25% into a bank ($8-9 million)

10) Work part time, pursue my interests in golf and music!

In regards to Murphy’s Law, even the best intentions can be disastrous. A neighbour can be hurt or beaten badly. Among 1001 ways that can go wrong.

In basic terms you would have put a limit on yourself.
watch and look after yourself.
If you somehow won the lottery, the advice is none that I can give. You’re basically on your own.

Well here it goes

Depending on how big the winnings are. Whether or not if the lottery winnings is more than 30 million. If it’s 4.5 million, I would take stock in what my long term goals would be. Monitor my credit score. Place a spending cap on myself. About 5000.00 a month. No more than that. Act natural much as possible, while doing about day to day routines.
If it indeed is more than 30 million, I would still take stock, in what my long term goals would be. Be frugal in how I spend. Monitor my credit score.
I can see the challenges of winning the lottery.

• Keep my mouth shut.
• After confirming the winning ticket, I would wait more than a couple of months, and pick up my winnings. Then I would open a bank account, chequing and savings account. Keep things a secret.
• Put a spending cap on myself. No more than 5,000.00 a month.
• Try to get my home renovated inconspicuously as possible. Without raising any suspicion toward myself.
Renovations here cost about 1200.00. New roof shingles, new stairs and sidings.
• Reload my cash card and CashLink MasterCard by using a debit card.
• Write down on what I had bought on a black memo book. And keep a photographic memory on how much I spent.
• Use my CashLink MasterCard, reload it three times a month.
• Use my CashLink prepaid Cash Card as back up when I purchase things
• Make my payments online, do online banking.
• Think on my feet, rather than making any plans.
• With those winnings I would buy what I need and dress as I normally wear. Use those winnings wisely. Keep my mouth shut.
• Refraining from flashing money at the general public.

Of course Murphy’s Law will rear his head and go in full swing. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
For my father

• I would give my father a cheque (bank draft) 2000.00.
• Have him get a reloadable CashLink MasterCard (prepaid MasterCard). Since it would be convenient for him, and the maximum daily allowable load is 1,500.00.
• Mail him money orders 950 every month.
• Purchase a new pickup truck for my father. And have it delivered by barge or winter road.

For my aging neighbour

• I would order 300.00 worth of groceries and give them to him as an offering. Considering that groceries sold locally is expensive on Indian Reserve Land.
• I would make sure that he’s fully stocked with necessities.
• Order some old gent clothing, the ones for retiring elderly class, not the fancy ones.

For my half brother

I wouldn’t give him any money, considering the dangers out there.
But I would give him a few things,

• A new laptop something powerful and manageable
• Internet protection suite.
• External keyboard with a notebook mouse.
• A laptop stand.
• Groceries, something suitable for his dietary needs.

I would keep $100,000.00 to pay for the ticket to watch it happen.

put 50k in my honda crx. I’m talking fully built mean machine.
Help pay off my dad’s debts.
Give my dad his dream trip to Australia with a lot of spending money.
Upgrade my Grandpa’s house ( since he really wouldn’t use the money anyways)
Establish an apartment complex and recieve rent moneys.
Buy a cheap but decent home ( around 100k range.) since I’m not really into big houses. I like regular. Don’t judge.
I’d keep my job. I love my job. The only thing that would change would be, me working parttime. (cable company)
Start a lawn mowing service
Complete my education.
Get a good financial aid to help me invest a portion of the money so I can gain extra cash.

When I buy my house, I will install a secret room underneath the house that has an atm machine that rises up inside my closet on an elevator type apperatus that is iris scan, fingerprint, and voice activated…and a key

See? Very simple. After blowing off about 100k on what nots, I’d be set. I will promise myself not to splurge it all on useless crap. I like to stay busy so it’s hard to understand why some people would actually like not having a job or at least further their learning.
I’d swear to myself not to take what I got for granted.