You know how you always hear about the latest lottery winner that has spent all of their winnings in a matter of months? They decided that they’d build a rocket ship with the money, or buy a car for each day of the week. Maybe they buy their mother a house, or buy cars for all their friends and family. I’ve read stories about some pretty extravagant vacations too. It seems like their newfound wealth is too hot to hold. It’s like they are afraid that if they don’t spend it in record time that someone will come take it from them.
Well, I’m happy to highlight an article about a 34 year old guy that has broken all the lottery squandering rules. Meet Brad Duke. He pocketed a lump sum of $85 million in 2005 and guess how much he has left: Between $128 to $130 million. He completely gets it. Check out what he did with the money:
- $45 million: Safe, low-risk investments such as municipal bonds
- $35 million: Aggressive investments like oil and gas and real estate
- $1.3 million: A family foundation
- $63,000: A trip to Tahiti with 17 friends
- $125,000: Mortgage retired on his 1,400-square-foot house
- $18,000: Student-loan repayment
- $65,000: New bicycles, including a $12,000 BMC road bike
- $14,500: A used black VW Jetta
- $12,000: Annual gift to each family member
See how he bought a used VW Jetta? Yeah, it’s a 2002. He bought that after he gave away his 2005 Jetta. No I didn’t mix up the dates. He actually bought an older car. He recognized that the best thing he could do with the money is use a little but save a lot and get that money working for him. Now that he’s amassed $130M, he can generate over $6.5M a year at 5% interest. I’m sure he can figure out how to live on that. SMART GUY.
Check it out: http://money.cnn.com/2007/02/20/magazines/fortune/…
Its good to see someone use their lotto winnings correctly. Nothing worse than winning a large sum of money then going broke. Great post.