Daydreaming, and I thought of the varying amounts of money and what each level of significant win would provide me.

Before taxes, any win that isn't atleast 50k, amounts to a portion of debt paid, maybe some new clothes, a couple nice dinners, and maybe a few days in a big city.

But 50k, before taxes, as a minimum life changing amount win? that's all my credit card debt, private student loans, and a nice little 3 month emergency fund paid. At that point my income/expenses ratio is no longer on the precipice of "I am putting a quarter of my income a month into either debt or savings before I even get to all the bills I must pay", and frankly, I'd be happy winning that and never playing again.

If I want to pay off all of the above, with the addition of my car loan, and federal student loans, and for fucksies, push 3 months emergency fund to 6? 125k before taxes, and suddenly I'm entirely debt free. At that point my CoL and salary are so favorable that give me maybe 2 and some change years, and I can be a homeowner with a reasonable mortgage payment.

And tbh? Thats it. 50k/125k pre tax is enough to change the course of my life and the people around me, to set me up to be in a position to accrue generational wealth and set the stage for social class mobility.

Anything beyond that is actually too egregious for me to even wrap my head around. Winning a few million, a million, hell even 500k pre tax, is such a wild amount of money that day dreaming doesn't occur to me, because at that point the amount of money won eclipse the entire handling of financials that will literally entirely encompass my financial situation for the rest of my life. Crazy to think that, and things like the powerball/MM get to the literal hundreds of millions... what single person could need that? Hell, what family could?