You can feel the excitement in the air. The Mega millions lottery is up to $330 million and
I have only purchased lottery tickets a couple times in my life. I’m not much of a gambler and I just don’t like the odds. I do invest in the stock market and we save aggressively for our retirement though. Some would say I’m simply playing a different lottery. That may be the case, but I like the odds a lot better.
As I was sitting around wondering what it would be like to win a lottery, I started to think about how much I anticipate having in my investment accounts by the time I retire. At our current rate of saving, we should be able to amass a couple million dollars by the time we retire. Of course there are lots of variables at play and it’s very possible we’ll have setbacks along the way but if we can continue on the path that we have been on for the last decade, things should turn out pretty decent. Through some sacrifice and hard work, we are basically winning the slow motion lottery. I say lottery because there is an element of chance to amassing that much money. We have to try to control a number of variables like, interest rates, actually saving the money, maintaining our employment, not having major health setbacks, etc.. I’m sure you can think of additional variables that might impact our ability to reach our goal. There is clearly an element of risk and chance involved, even when you are doing all the right things. The point here is that, while it’s still a bit of a lottery, the odds are much more in your favor of amassing enough money to give you a comfortable retirement.
“Of course, someone has to win and it is fun to imagine what you could do with all that money.”
That’s pretty much why I play regularly in a group of people at work. I live in Canada too so lottery winnings aren’t taxable, what you win is what you get. I figure I’ll waste 5 bucks every two weeks on worse stuff anyway, maybe as well be in a lottery pool.
I purchase one ticket when it goes over $200m or so. I figure the odds are going to be astronomical anyways (what’s really the difference between 1 in 76 million for $1 spent or 1 in 3.8 million for $20 spent?), but I look at it that the $1 gets me at least a chance, no matter how small.
I never play the lotto either … except in December when I got all kinds of lotto tickets as stocking stuffers and company gift exchange presents. Out of all those tickets, I won just one free lotto ticket … which was a loser. It’d be nice, but I don’t think the odds of winning are in my favor. :)