How big would a lump sum BIG WIN have to be to change my life?
$100.00? No. I recently received a hundred-dollar honorarium. I put the money in my rosebush fund and nothing has changed.
$1000.00? No. I actually made that much money at a book signing. I must admit it made me happy and totally fed my ego. I used the money for a weekend holiday. But the next week, I had the same bills, the same things to do, the same life.
$10,000.00? Now this is where it gets tricky. We did receive that amount as a disability back payment. It got us back to what we had been before the injury. But what really changed things for us were the following monthly disability payments. No, I misspeak. The monthly payments didn’t change our lives. It made it possible for our lives not to change. Without them we would have been homeless, hungry and lost. The $10,000.00 didn’t actually change our lives; however it is a case of it kept a catastrophic change from happening.
$100,000.00? Again, a yes and no answer. I sold some property for something near to that amount and used the money to build a better, more efficient home. My new home is not fancy. No one would drive out of their way to see it. It is not huge. It is a Goldilocks house – just right for me. The central air and heat work so I am never too hot or too cold. I never run out of hot water. The roof never leaks. I am so much more comfortable in this house. So, while my life as such is not different – I can’t vacation in Europe every year, I can’t afford to own a Porsche, I still buy my clothes at WalMart – It is true that life has changed for the better.
$1,000,000.00? Yes. Without a doubt, a lump of money this big would change my life. I had a relative that had this much money and you would never have known it. She lived a quiet, frugal life. Nothing about her life called attention to her wealth. She lived so her value was in what she did with the time of her life and not in her accumulated wealth. On the other hand, I just read about a person who ended up with something like this amount and had to hire a bodyguard to keep greedy people away. People know he now had money and his life definitely changed, and not for the better. His value has become a walking, talking ATM. How sad.
I have written several times about how I hope I would manage a BIG WIN. I hope I would be disciplined enough to be like my relative. I hope I would remember; wealth is a resource to be used for good. I certainly would hope I wouldn’t have to spend a single penny on bodyguards!