Tonight's Mega Millions drawing is back
down to the baseline of $20 million,
but tomorrow more than 1/2 a billion dollars
is up for grabs in the Powerball drawing.
So Can you imagine if you won?
There would be a lot to think about.
Tim Lammers is in studio 61
with a financial expert with
some advice on what to do next.
If you do hit it big, Tim.
Yeah. And it almost happened in Connecticut.
It was just this week that
somebody in Belchertown, mass,
about a couple of towns north of Stafford,
one $31 million in the Mega Millions drawing.
So let's think about it now.
I'm here with Heath Grossman,
a retirement and investment
specialist at Johnson Brunetti.
Thank you for taking the time to join me.
Glad to be here, Tim.
Yeah, glad to have you here.
Of course, this is everybody's fantasy,
I was telling you.
Or I will buy the $2.00 ticket just to have
a specific Daydream about what I would do.
But I think the first step after you
win might be the most important.
And I hate to say it,
it's probably to do nothing for a while,
isn't it?
Yeah, I think the most important
thing at that stage is going
to be to be quiet, right?
You want to you want to take a
deep breath and gather yourself.
I mean, this is not the thing that you
want to be shouting from the rooftops
and telling everybody that you know,
right? What happened.
You may even want to change
your phone number or scrub any
reference to your address.
And on social media,
yes, take a deep breath.
That is the most important thing.
You do have to protect yourself.
You're putting yourself in
the public eye and therefore
in a bit of jeopardy.
But what about the ticket itself?
Should we be signing it?
Should you make a copy?
What's the good protocol there?
Definitely
take a picture of the ticket,
probably several pictures of
the ticket front and back,
and secure the ticket, right.
You want to put it in a safe or
any other type of safe location.
Don't let anybody else
hold it for you, right?
You want to keep an eye on that ticket.
Ultimately, there's no legal documentation.
That says you own that ticket or not.
You probably also want to hold off
on signing it for reasons that we'll
probably talk about a little bit.
OK. Alright. Now the next thing,
you gotta get people who are
smart with money around you.
I know that's where you guys come in,
but what kind of pitfalls are you trying
to help people avoid when they win? Yeah.
At this point,
you want to assemble your team, right?
You want to make sure that you're
doing the right thing and gathering
people around you that can help you
make decisions and and going forward.
Right. Some people should, you know,
claim this ticket in their own name.
Some people might want to create
a trust to claim the ticket.
They might want to create an LLC
company to to to claim the ticket.
So that's why you don't want
to sign it initially, right?
But again, you know,
you want to establish a team with an
estate planning attorney and accountant,
a financial advisor that's going to
help you make the right decisions
going forward and maybe even protect
yourself from your your yourself and
your own habits or other people that
might be coming out of the woodwork.
And that's what I worry about,
the people coming out of the woodwork,
and I hate to say it,
sometimes it's family too,
but to the extent that.
People can try to preserve their anonymity.
Can this team help with that depending
on the state in which you want?
Absolutely.
I mean, Connecticut does not
allow you to be anonymous,
but if you're claiming the ticket,
as you know, a trust is owning the
ticket or an LLC is owning the ticket.
Now you're going to be able to you
as an individual person are going to
be allowed to be remain anonymous.
Is there a general,
I don't want to say an algorithm,
but a general idea of at what
amount the jackpot is that
it makes more sense to either
take a lump sum or an annuity.
Or is a lump sum always a better option?
What, what is your opinion?
Yeah, I wouldn't necessarily
say it's about the amount. You know,
most people out there do take the lump sum.
It's it's hard to turn down
getting all of that money all,
all at once as opposed to spreading
out that money over 29 years.
But you know, if you make the right decisions
and even at a moderate rate of of interest,
you know you can do a lot better over
the long run by taking the lump sum.
But I also think that it,
you know, you need to have an
honest conversation with yourself.
And other people around you,
are you good with money or not?
If you're not good with money,
maybe taking the annuity and the
and the payments overtime is gonna
be a little bit better for you.
Maybe that protects yourself
against yourself and your own bad
habits or from those people that
we're talking about coming out of
the woodwork. Yeah, but that actually
brings us into our last point.
I'm trying to make sure you
and your lifestyle don't
change anymore than it should.
It should change some.
You should be able to enjoy your winnings.
But what are some of the
pitfalls that people have
with maybe a lifestyle creep?
You know, when it
comes down to it, money,
money is ultimately a tool.
It's a tool for you to live your lifestyle
and the way that you want to or maybe
even help other people or further
organizations that you care about, right?
And now these people are possibly
getting a large windfall, right?
You want to make sure that you're
maintaining some type of sense
of self and not changing who you
are as as a person, right?
You want to, you know,
just like just like any other
person that doesn't win the lottery,
you want to live within your means.
Your means will just be different
at this point.
I I think at some point though people
probably get the sense that it's
impossible given the the amount.
Would be $570 million.
It's impossible to blow through that and
people keep proving that. Well, it's
possible. There's there's stories
out there all over the place
you see all these stories,
you know people that have won the
lottery and they've really blown the
money and made bad decisions, right.
And and in many cases there's,
there's very tragic results.
Right. So you know most important
thing you know with anybody with
when it comes to money is to be
a good steward with that money.
Yes. And to get the experts to
help you do not go it alone.
That's where the folks at Johnson,
Bernetti and all those
estate planners and lawyers.
They will come in to help.
Maybe it's gonna be somebody from
Connecticut. It's happened before,
but that's what we're saying.
If I'm not gonna win,
I just hope somebody in Connecticut wins.
And given how often, Erica,
we're seeing these huge jackpots.
We got a good shot, right?
Who knows?
Maybe tomorrow we'll find out
somebody from Connecticut
won 1/2 billion dollars.
Yeah, that would be great.
Maybe my neighbor.
Maybe your neighbor, maybe.
By the way, Mr. Grossman,
thank you so much for the time.
Thank you very much.