UNC-Wilmington freshman wins $100K...

[bjcheung77]

Lotto, not a scholarship for her 19th birthday!  Haha, what luck!  Congrats to her, it'll help with her biology major and hopefully she may get into medical school...  Time to buy some lotto for myself!

Link: Happy birthday: Teen wins $100,000 lottery prize with her first ticket ever (msn.com)

[LevelUP]

The ROI on buying a lotto ticket is horrible, and you have to pay taxes on your winnings to boot.

Put those $ 72,000 lotto winnings into an investment that returns an average of 10% yearly and in 20 years you got 1/2 million dollars.

[jsd]

I'd happily win the lotto and pay taxes on it, as long as it's winning something.

But yeah I'm not wasting money on trying to win.

[bluebooger]

> The ROI on buying a lotto ticket is horrible, and you have to pay taxes on your winnings to boot.

not really

if you don't win you've lost two dollars -- the price of a medium coffee
if you do win you've got $100k

I play lotto one ticket every week - haven't won yet
if I didn't play i'd be $104 richer every year -- of course if i quit buying coffee and bagel for breakfast every day I'd be $840 richer every year

[Johann]

The ROI on buying a lotto ticket is horrible, and you have to pay taxes on your winnings to boot.

Or you could move here to Canada - and NOT pay taxes. Lottery winnings aren't taxable here. Seriously! They're not. At all. If you invest them - and make money, THAT profit is taxable. (Says the guy who's never won more than $100.)

Good for her! One ticket - $100,000. That sounds like spectacular ROI to me - of course YMMV. I just CAN'T "buzzkill," when I hear stuff like this! Years ago, I wanted to save money. I decided lottery tickets would stay. What went? My (expensive) two imported German beers a day. That has so far saved me $27,000. Yep, I put the money away religiously (the only religious thing I do) and now after 18 years that beer money alone (excluding interest) is just over $27,000! I managed to find some other savings, of course, and I still buy lottery tickets. It's fun when I get the odd "teaser" prize. I don't miss the beer, but I gotta have my occasional "teaser" prize!

I was very strict with myself about putting the beer money away, because 44 years ago, I quit smoking and I DIDN'T put that money away. I figure I lost out on $100,000 by not doing that. As a consolation, I HAVE lived long enough to see my adult grandchildren grow up -- and I'm pretty sure that wouldn't have happened if I kept smoking.

[ss20ts]

Good for them. I hope they have some fun with it. Sure saving some is nice, but having fun at 19 is also nice. They'll never be 19 again so they might as well enjoy themselves.

[dfrecore]

Best investment for a college student is to pay for school and put the rest in the bank until they're ready to buy a house. A debt-free degree and a down payment are two of the best things you can have when starting out in life.

[bluebooger]

if I was 19 years old and had $70k and was a freshman there in no way I'd be able to concentrate on school

I'd move to Thailand and learn muai thai kickboxing and hike all the time

it would take incredible discipline and self control to sit through a chemistry class and memorize ion numbers when i could be hiking the swiss alps or scuba diving in hawaii

[bjcheung77]

Yeah I agree, even if they didn't "win" a lotto, I would recommend to keep saving for a few things that matter most to them. 1) Savings or Investment into property. 2) Furthering their education. 3) Funding their vacation.

[LevelUP]

> The ROI on buying a lotto ticket is horrible, and you have to pay taxes on your winnings to boot.

not really              

Yes really. You lose almost 40c for each dollar spent. 


https://blogs.sas.com/content/sastrainin...n-lottery/

if you don't win you've lost two dollars -- the price of a medium coffee                
if you do win you've got $100k

Each ticket is $20, not $2.