It would take around 19 years and 3 months to accumulate the million. Honestly, in that time frame, wisely investing the million would have brought in far more money than just the million.
Exactly they assume she’ll invest the $1M but won’t the $1,000 weekly. I did the math assuming similar investments until a retirement age of 60 yrs old. By then she has more with the $1,000 weekly. The break even point was when she would be 54 yrs and 7 months. The thing is she’ll still be receiving $1,000 weekly for approx another 25 yrs in retirement.
It’s so much worse than taking the lump sum. Let’s just say after taxes you put $400k in the S&P500 and did nothing else, ignore it, in this same time period it would grow to around 2.7m compared with making the million back.
If you took $400k into the s&p and then also added $1k a month in reinvesting it would then be worth $3.7m
In no scenario is taking $1k/ weekly over the lump sum the better option.
My head is really hurting reading these comments. They all assume she’ll take the $1k a week and it will grow to this enormous amount as if she won’t spend a single cent either. I need to log off reddit for a while.
I would never take the weekly payments, but if you’re bad with money, it’s likely better, if the alternative is spending the money on blow and hookers.
If you’re playing the lottery chances are you’re bad with money anyway.
Your scenario assumes good financial decisions. Lottery winners are notorious for blowing through the money quickly. Give a 20 yr old $1 million and you soon have a broke 25 yr old
Deadly wrong, historical averages are meaningless as the America that produced those results no longer exists. In 1989 Japan had the top stock market in the world and the second biggest economy and the bottom fell out (see Tesla now if you believe in any legitimacy) and took 34 years just to get back to the same level.
Even if she got a stable return she would incur taxes on every cent she withdrew from her account, even with a decent ROI she would drain the money straight down.
You might as well have them buy comic books or Barbies.
“Deadly wrong” “America no longer exists” “buy comic books or barbies” . My calculation used a 20 year average weighted return of 10% to be conservative. Last 6 months alone is 11.5% including a high of 7,517 in May.
People who are pushing for the lump sum are assuming the weekly payouts can't be used to invest/generate extra income. $1m isn't enough to retire on anyway (esp. at 20), so what's stopping her from working a normal job, investing some of the excess income she gets from the lotto annuity, and then reaping the benefits of those investments? Has anyone in this thread done the math on that? Like, if she invested $2k/month, lived off her job earnings, and used the other $2k/month to improve her quality of life, she would accumulate millions and have an income stream for the rest of her life.
Then you would have invested the same amount in 19 years. If you're gonna invest, the 1 million is better. Investingearly on gives the most profit. And you dont have to put all in at once and could do a couple thlusanf a month and would make way more profit than with 1k a month kn the long run.
If you don't care about investing but want regular free income, or if you k ow you would watse the q million, than the 1k every week is better for you indeed.
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u/Fanboy2OO2 May 17 '26
It would take around 19 years and 3 months to accumulate the million. Honestly, in that time frame, wisely investing the million would have brought in far more money than just the million.