Yesterday, I posted a question on Facebook and Twitter:
(FILL IN THE BLANK) If I won the lottery, the very FIRST thing I’d buy is _____.
Immediately, the answers started rolling in.
Four first class tickets to Paris. One way.
my home…entirely.
one week trip to NYC, staying in a fancy hotel near Broadway and tickets to every show I could get my hands on.
I would rebuild the Laos Buddhist temple that burnt down in a fire in Colorado.
I would buy a large plot of land I could live on sustainably and start my own cat sanctuary ala Hemingway
My freedom from the Federal government student loans.
I was surprised how many people said a house, only because I initially considered a house myself and then realized I have no idea where I’d want to live forever and ever. I’m amazed how many people already know where they want to “end up”. Then I thought about how completely achievable that dream is.
Lots of people buy houses, after all. And not just with mortgages. People save up cash to buy houses they fix up. People pinch and save like crazy to pay off their mortgages early. And I don’t just mean rich people, but normal people with spouses and kids and real bills. It happens all the time.
I started thinking about how realistic the other lottery dreams might be.
How long would it take to save up for a trip to Paris if I made it a priority? If I went without other things that were less important to me? I bet I could do it within a year if I really buckled down.
Buying a farm isn’t all that crazy. Neither is starting a fund to rebuild a temple. Or going to New York City for a week.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized all of these dreams were completely doable with enough sacrifice of time and money.
Yes, even yours.
We could go without. We could take side jobs. We could, most of us, throw ourselves into making these extravagant dreams come true if we really wanted to.
But is that wise? Is it prudent to struggle in our day-to-day lives in order to enjoy one big, shiny payoff?
I can’t say, of course, what the answer is for you.
But I do know what it feels like to have a dream come true, and it’s pretty freaking incredible. I know that I’d rather have one really great trip, one fantastic life moment, than decades of going through the motions. I know that bliss is found in the quality of our experiences rather than the quantity.
And I know that I am unlikely to win the lottery.
So I’m not going to sit around and wait to make my dreams come true.
Are you?
For me, the point of winning the lottery is to be able get something special without the having-to-sacrifice-time-and-money-bit, or something that might not be the # 1 priority on the list.
I don’t even play the lottery, because I’d rather save the money it costs for something real. But maybe I should.
Do you?
I feel the same way. If we put aside every dollar my husband has spent on the lottery, I can’t imagine what we could do. I don’t even want to think about it.
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We are certainly working on it. I do, however, have to find a way to set aside money to get to Ireland. Every time I start to, something comes up – like a leaky roof. I’ll keep trying though!
Megan’s most recent post: How The Internet Saved My Sanity—Again
My biggest problems are I don’t have any dreams. When I think about winning the lottery all I think of is freeing my friends and family from the rat race. After that, it’s all just the freedom… the knowing if I wanted to, I could… do something.
Which is why Pete and I are saving as much of our money as we can while still living the life we adore. So that by 2015, we should be able to… do something. Whether that’s living a year in Italy, or renting a house on Siesta Key… or hosting my entire family at a cabin in the Poconos. It’s about the “going with my whims” for me, I guess.
For me this sounds like having some really nice dreams and totally not like “no dreams”.
Christina’s most recent post: My books in June 2012
You may be right, they might be dreams… I see them as possibilities. They sound like fun, but I don’t while away my time thinking about them. I guess I always thought of dreams to be something that drives you to improve yourself so you can attain that one (or many) thing(s). And I have none of that.
Actually I would never consider buying a house – at least not in the situation (I have no family) I am in now. I do not want to own anything like that. I actually stay in a small apartment although I could afford more and when my stuff stops fitting in – I sort out my stuff and reduce it back down and I would not change that with a billion on the bank account.
I think what I would love to do is:
1) Sharing it with my sister who has a family and works too much. I would LOVE to be able to make her life much easier.
2) Stop working for bills. Don’t get me wrong – I like my job, but doing this for the rest of my life? Likely not. It would be great not to need to think about if what I do can pay my bills but only if I love to do it and if it is a good thing adding value to mine and other people’s life.
3) Being free to live where I want without worrying over double rent, insurance issues and all that STUFF. I’d rent a condo as one of my “usual places to be” right away … for example.
4) Traveling even more
It all might be not 100% achievable without winning the lottery, but never the less … I try to get closer to this over time anyway.
PS: I do not play the lottery. It is too expensive for very likely never working out
Christina’s most recent post: My books in June 2012
Gosh … I am tired. I meant, that I would rent an apartment in PITTSBURGH right away. Nice … forgetting the most important word in the sentence *ouch*.
Christina’s most recent post: My books in June 2012
Great post! I think it’s important to plan out life goals and start reverse engineering the budget to make sure the important goals are attained. For me, so many times in life a goal (whether its a monetary goal or otherwise) seems so huge and daunting that it’s hard to get started, but I’ll never achieve that goal if I don’t get started and now is as good a time as any. Plus, the longer you work on it, the more likely it is you’ll accomplish it.
If I won the lottery, I’d be able to shoot for my dream of having another child. I could pay for a tubal reversal and if that didn’t work, IVF. There’s no way to achieve that dream without a chunk of cash, not with time not being on my side (I’m 36) but for most other dreams, I do agree with everything you just wrote.
It would be impossible for me to win the lottery. I never buy tickets! Wait, I bought one ticket for the last huge Powerball game months ago, but that’s a very rare occurrence around here.
Our one big dream for the family is to be able to opt out of the rat race completely. We still have figured out how to do that, though.
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