If I were Filthy Rich
By Beta_Nerdy+158 When I win the Powerball lottery, I seriously doubt the annuity will be paid for the rest of my life
Have you read the article about the bankruptcy of the Publishers Clearing House? They WERE paying their winners $5000 a month for life until earlier this year, then the checks stopped. These winners were dumbfounded because their budget included a $5000 monthly payment from a form of annuity, and then the checks just stopped.
Yes, I know the Powerball Lottery and Publishers Clearing House are different, but there are similarities. Up to recently, they both were large, highly regarded organizations that PROMISED their winners income for life.
If you win the Powerball Lottery and choose the Annuity option for income for life, are you really guaranteed the checks will come every month/year for the rest of your life in today's insane world? Things are happening today in the insane world we live in that few people would have ever expected 5-10 years ago. I would not trust that the annuity checks will be sent to me for the rest of my life!
I say collect your winning in one lump check and invest/save your money in a wide variety of places in the USA and OVERSEAS. Invest/Save your money in countless ways, both domestically and internationally.
Recent responses
+103 @sirlost33 Annuities are pre paid, publishers clearing house was essentially running a Ponzi scheme that blew up on them.
+70 @Terradactyl87 That's the main reason I'd always take the lump sum. I don't trust our banking system for the next 30 years. So many things could go wrong and you'd be locked in without any options. If you have the lump sum, you can plan around whatever is happening in the world.
+49 @drummerboy2749 This is one of the first concepts in college finance courses that they teach you about the time value of money. Always take the lump sum.
+24 @DoverBoys You're right, PCH and multistate lotteries are different, but you don't understand how different. PCH was a strictly private magazine subscription service. It's sweepstakes was just a marketing tactic to get more people to look at PCH. Multistate lotteries are government-backed highly scrutinized legal entities whose sole purpose is to collect money from ticket purchases and reliably pay out prizes that have been legally verified under transparent rules and odds. Profits are legally bound to support whatever the state wants, which is usually K-12 education. They couldn't be further from each other. The only similarity they share is money.
+13 @parallelmeme My understanding of those winnings must be wrong. I always thought places like Publisher's Clearing House handed over $XXXX to some banking entity to provide the annuity and PCH no longer had any involvement in the annuity. You make it sound like PCH was paying annuities out of their regular cash flow. Really? I'm verklempt.
+12 @bahamapapa817 Lotteries are not for life. It’s for 20 or 30 years whatever they tell you in the fine print. If I were younger than 30 I would consider taking the annuity (probably wouldn’t) only because I remember how dumb I was with the little money I did have Older than that would almost definitely take the lump sum and invest for a better return.