Mega Millions office pool? Be careful

Studies have been done on every single lottery winner as a group and it showed not one single person's life was enriched in the long term by winning these large sums of cash. All lose their privacy first of all. Some faced murder attempts by family members, death threats to others if they didn't  cough up funds, law suits from every conceivable source including one from a traffic officer who pulled over a winner and gave him a ticket. People don't change who they are  intrinsically by having more money. If you were a careful spender before you were probably going to be the same afterwards but needed help. If you didn't know how to handle money before, having a ton of it later didn't make you any wiser in the end. So many didn't know how to wisely  invest it  and also tried to help out relatives with their financial needs. An apparently good  deed, but costing them everything in the end because they couldn't say no, without being seen as greedy. Many investing in shady  business deals through those same family members who took advantage of someone's good fortune.

 One thing those who were surveyed all agreed on was this. They all said they came to take for granted the little things in life that brought them happiness. By  not having much money helped them realize. And with big money came big headaches they never dreamed of. One living in a huge home needed the resources to maintain it, the neighborhood to live in it, pay for the social circles to float around it and keep the life style one now can afford and pay for the care and maintenance of all those toys one has dreamed of having. Your former friends can't pay for those trips around the world joining you  so time to make new ones with a catch .Do people become one's friend for their money, or for who they are as a person? Because having money sure attracts so many unethical people like flies to honey. Last but not least, one starts to lose their perspective on just how valuable that single dollar really means when you have mega amounts. Poor folks will try their best to stretch it out. Lots of money tends to change people because it is a form of power. So, how would you handle having that much? We all think we would be immune, but are we? How do we spend that tax refund each year, or something left to us by grandma or a loved one? We all get tired of living day to day hand to mouth and I'm sure I'm not the only one who dreams of what life would be like to have a break from financial worries. But maybe it's a blessing in disguise we don't in the end.

There is a riddle, which most college students couldn't answer, but almost every kindergartener got immediately, it goes like this.

What is more powerful then God,

More evil then the Devil,

The rich want it

But the poor have it

Answer? Nothing.

Personally, I like the idea of what one young winner did.  Bought a simple farmhouse  out in the midwest, cut off ties to her boyfriend who had dumped her and their baby just before she bought the winning ticket. I'd do what the star in the movie Flawless did with the income she had dropped into her lap. Spend her life, finding good causes to give it away  quietly .Every single dollar came from a working ,struggling person. From personal experience, understanding starvation ,suffering, how can an individual keep such a vast wealth to themselves? In knowing how many still live in the terrible clutches of poverty and all its horrors and not step up and make a difference when fate gives the means now to make a change in the world for good. One can be a taker or giver in life .Money is simply a tool to reveal what our character is really made of. It can be our master or we make it our slave .In the end, we leave this world taking what we came into life with, nothing. Only who we have become.A wise man said,"For what shall it  profit a man,  if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul."

If I won the jackpot, I would open a new kind of homeless shelter-- a whole complex really. It would have single rooms and apartments for those folks who have a job but have lost their housing, or are trying to get back on their feet,  or for those who were willing to work at the shelter for room and board. I'd have another building for sort of the typical overnight stay, only with beds, not mats on the floor--and lockers, so their things wouldn't get stolen. There would be a big 24 hour reading room--open all the time, no matter what, no curfew, no lock-in, you can just come and get out of the rain, have a cup of tea or coffee, and you can come and go. And also bungalows or a big house or apartments--some place for moms or dads with kids -- for families, with a playground--some place safe. And I'd have vans to go find homeless people and bring them to the shelter or just give them a blanket or shoes and socks. And of course, a hot kitchen, three meals a day--for anybody. And counselors who could direct people to free clinics, help them with food stamp forms or job applications, with references--anyone who came could use our mailing address for a job application and our phone number. We'd have sort of a clearinghouse of updated info--and groups for people to talk about their problems and ge some help. I would work with medical providers and other social services-- try to coordinate care so that someone who is on the edge, maybe not yet homeless, but in danger of it because they got sick or something like that--my place would be there to fill the gap, support them between the time that Social Services ended and stability began...

Anyway, that's my dream. That's what I'd do if I won the lottery.

This is how we do it at my work.  We only play when it gets real big.  Everyone puts in the same amt, 5.00.  Copy all the tickets once they are bought, list all the names of who put money in on the copies, pass the copies out to those people.  Keep the original tickets in a lock box at work safe and sound.  If we hit, one person is voted to claim the lump sum and have taxes taken out, then everyone splits the remaining amount.  If you pool with people you know and trust at work it wont be an issue.

winning that much ching sounds amazing but also scary as h#ll.  don't know if I could handle it to be honest.