Would you like to drive a trick, new Escalade like this one? Wouldn't we all! If you win one of the biggest Powerball jackpots, you could drive one of these, and just about any other ride your heart desires.
The Powerball Lottery is famous for huge jackpots. Just how huge?? Well, the biggest Powerball Lottery winner in 2009 was Solomon Jackson Jr, of South Carolina, who pocketed an unbelievable $129,777,212.43 jackpot on August 19 of 2009. He actually won $259,900,000, but decided to take the cash all up front, instead of getting the annuity payments over time. That is a smart financial move, as you will see in a minute.
Just how much money is that jackpot, really. It is so large that most people can not even fathom how much money it really is. What could you buy with a stack of cash that large?
Well, you’d like to but a nice, new car with your winnings, wouldn’t you? Sure, just about everybody would. Maybe you’d like something nice, like a brand, new Mercedes Benz. You could not only buy a new Mercedes. You wouldn’t even have to choose which one to get. You could buy one of each of Benz’s 43 different models, including their 13 super fast, AMG models, every year, and never run out of money!
No, really, it’s true. One of each Mercedes model would set you back a hair over $3,742,000. After you paid taxes on your jackpot, you’d have about $85 million left over. Let’s just say that you bought a $5 million house and were left with a paltry $80 million! If you put your money into 5 year treasury bonds, which are returning 2.01% as this is written, you’d make about $1.6 million a year.
If, however, you dropped your winnings into one of several high yield municipal bond funds that pay over 3% annual returns (there are at least 10 different municipal bond funds that have averaged over 3% for the last 5 years), you’d pull down $2.4 million a year in interest alone for the rest of your life.
Imagine that! You could make $2.4 million a year from your winnings, forever. Since earnings on municipal bonds are tax free, you’d have to pay no income tax on it, either. Remember, you already own a $5 million home in which to kick back, as well. You could sell your new cars and buy new ones every year.
Now, I’m not saying that would be a sound financial decision, but it goes to show the immense amounts of money people are winning with Powerball. Put another way, you would be making over $65,000 a day on the interest alone! You’d have that money rolling in forever, even after paying your taxes and buying a $5 million mansion! Imagine what you could do with that kind of money!
That was last August, but Solomon Jackson Jr is only one of the big Powerball winners last year. Not to sound like “But wait, there’s more!”, but there are.
As one fantastic Christmas present, Rob Anderson of Georgetown Kentucky got a Powerball jackpot worth $128.6 million, all from a $3 ticket he bought on a whim last Christmas Eve while on his way to Wal-Mart. The 39 year old pulled in to a convenience store to snap up a couple of lottery tickets as stocking stuffers for his family. He grabbed the $3 ticket for himself as a second thought. Smart move! It turned out to be the winning ticket for the $128 million jackpot.
That wasn’t the only smart move Rob made. One of the first things he did after winning was to consult with an attorney. That is a heck of a lot of money, and it has a way of getting you into trouble or vanishing before your very eyes. Speaking with a good attorney is a very wise move. Rob is even looking at going back to school to get his finance degree. After all, he won’t have to work, and it would be a good idea to learn how money really works, since he has so much of it!
This year the big winnings keep coming. Just 2 months ago, Chris Shaw, a 29 year old convenience store clerk form Marshall Missouri walked away with an astounding $258 million jackpot. Chris also took the cash up front option, to the tune of a whopping $124,875,122.48 check.
Earlier this year, retired firefighter Frank Griffin of Asheville North Carolina nabbed a Big Powerball jackpot worth $141 million. He took the cash, now option and received a check for $69,682,459.88. That’s a lot of dollars, and after the feds and state take their cuts, Frank will be left with $47 million to tide him over for retirement. It looks like his retirement plans just got a whole lot more wide open!
What was the biggest Powerball Jackpot winner back in 2008? An office pool from West Virginia won a $276,300,000 jackpot. They took the cash and pocketed over $139 million.
In 2007, it was the Contrel and Hiles families splitting a $314 million pot. They also took the cash, and had to decide what they would each do with their half of the $146 million cash up front prize money.
Those are just the largest winners. There are dozens of people that win $20 million, $70 million, or $100 million jackpots. In fact, most Powerball Lottery jackpots are over $50 million and the biggest are over $200 million. There are usually a few really huge prizes won every year. There have been 3 jackpots over $210 million won already this year, and in 2009 there were 6 jackpots over $125 million.
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