The reason it gets cut down so much is the advertised jackpot is the 25 year pay over time annuity amount. You get only about half if you take lump sum. And THEN that’s taxed at a high bracket.
Half? So they could get 850 over 25 years? That’s 34 million/year… Or 2.8mil/month… In what world is that not enough? Unless you’re afraid they’re gonna stop paying you after like a year or two, which is fair, especially in this day and age… yeah, okay, I’ve changed my mind, I’d take the lump sum too… not risking it.
The rationale behind taking the lump sum is that if you take a lump sum now and invest it, you can live off the proceeds from the investment and the overall value will outstrip inflation and the losses from the taxes and you can take advantage of compound interest to really ramp things up. You can actuality make more money in the long term by taking less now.
Yeah, if you’re financially responsible you can totally do that. Most people, however, from what I’ve heard, aren’t and don’t really make good use of their winnings. When you win that much, however, pretty hard to go back to being poor no matter which way you go.
Other than “they’re gonna stop paying you” there’s also the risk of inflation making it so you receive way less overall, since I doubt the amount gets adjusted to match inflation.
But yes, if the jackpot is so high that you’d get 2+mil per month, assuming you’re so worried about the dollar being worthless soon, you can still take the 2mil/mo and diversify. After a year you should already have plenty money to live comfortably for the rest of your life.
The reason it gets cut down so much is the advertised jackpot is the 25 year pay over time annuity amount. You get only about half if you take lump sum. And THEN that’s taxed at a high bracket.
Half? So they could get 850 over 25 years? That’s 34 million/year… Or 2.8mil/month… In what world is that not enough? Unless you’re afraid they’re gonna stop paying you after like a year or two, which is fair, especially in this day and age… yeah, okay, I’ve changed my mind, I’d take the lump sum too… not risking it.
The rationale behind taking the lump sum is that if you take a lump sum now and invest it, you can live off the proceeds from the investment and the overall value will outstrip inflation and the losses from the taxes and you can take advantage of compound interest to really ramp things up. You can actuality make more money in the long term by taking less now.
Yeah, if you’re financially responsible you can totally do that. Most people, however, from what I’ve heard, aren’t and don’t really make good use of their winnings. When you win that much, however, pretty hard to go back to being poor no matter which way you go.
Other than “they’re gonna stop paying you” there’s also the risk of inflation making it so you receive way less overall, since I doubt the amount gets adjusted to match inflation.
But yes, if the jackpot is so high that you’d get 2+mil per month, assuming you’re so worried about the dollar being worthless soon, you can still take the 2mil/mo and diversify. After a year you should already have plenty money to live comfortably for the rest of your life.