Floridians can now dream bigger....

[HEMI6point1]

....And I am starting to like Charlie Crist more and more.

A couple of days ago the state's capital agreed to let the Powerball be played here: Miami News, Fort Lauderdale News, Florida News & Weather Channel 7 Fox Miami WSVN-TV - Local News - Florida agrees to add Powerball to lottery options

I can just IMAGINE the lines at the local gas stations when it goes over 200 million. But hey, you have to be in it to win it.

Speaking of the Powerball, a long time ago we went to PA to visit relatives, and we decided to stop and get a Powerball ticket. The clerk asked if we want to "double up" for an extra 5 dollars, which would double the jackpot shall you win. Does anybody who plays the Powerball know if they still do that?

 

["Dr. Dirt"]

In Arizona we adopted the Lottery in various forms and their motto is "You can't win if you don't play." I disagree. It provides funding for education and roadways throughout our State. I never play nor will I start (despite the 800 Billion Power-ball) so I am the "Real Winner." I get all this money for education, roadways willingly offered by the gambling populous and I never have to contribute one red cent to that portion of the State's improvement.

A very wise president once said "Gambling is a tax on imbeciles." I concur.

 

[clwill]

I love the line (whoever first said it): the lottery is a tax on people who are bad at math

 

[NHRAMike]

Another person has said that it is the biggest tax on poor people.

 

[Jenn]

In Arizona we adopted the Lottery in various forms and their motto is "You can't win if you don't play." I disagree. It provides funding for education and roadways throughout our State. I never play nor will I start (despite the 800 Billion Power-ball) so I am the "Real Winner." I get all this money for education, roadways willingly offered by the gambling populous and I never have to contribute one red cent to that portion of the State's improvement.

A very wise president once said "Gambling is a tax on imbeciles." I concur.

I'm the power ball winner in that sort too! I received $4200 in scholarship moneys from it one year but lost it the next year when I had a bad semester and my GPA dropped. Thankfully, I had put what I didn't need for school in a savings account and was able to stretch the money very far.

I'll tell you what though, one day I bought an apple juice and decided to ask for a lottery ticket just to see if the clerk would sell it to me as I was underaged. She did, and the next day when I checked my lottery numbers, I hadn't won anything, but I opened up my apple juice and won $2500 from Minute Maid/Coke.

Sweet huh?

 

[d'kid]

I play maybe three or four times a year, if I happen to think about while I'm at 7/11 and have an extra buck in my pocket. the numbers are Kat's and my birthdays and the number of years we've been married.

That amounts to one energy drink or one pack of cigs a year.

d'kid

 

[MM]

if the pot gets up around $175-$200 million i'll buy a ticket....we don't have powerball here in the Chi.....we got the mega millions, but i can scoot over to Indiana (20 min drive) and get a powerball ticket

 

[Nitrohaulic]

if the pot gets up around $175-$200 million i'll buy a ticket....we don't have powerball here in the Chi.....we got the mega millions, but i can scoot over to Indiana (20 min drive) and get a powerball ticket

HA! You're like the people James Gregory talks about in this video!

If it's just three million, I'd just as soon stay here at Jiffy Lube

YouTube - James Gregory on GDA

Lotteries are a BIG peeve with me! Tax on the poor. The GOVERNMENT is the only guaranteed winner! There's a big principle factor, too. The fact that it's a form of gambling that's ILLEGAL for you or I to run as a business in the private sector. Protectionism. That's crooked as hell. Whether gambling via a lottery is morally correct just depends on where the profits go?

I watched a show on Discovery channel at 2 AM that they should have shown in the middle of the day so people would see it. It was about lottery winners and what happens to them. Most are more broke within a few years than they were before they won. The suicide rate among lottery winners is higher than average. Odds are, winning a big lottery is NOT going to be the good thing for you that you'd expect. If you were already so bad with money that you were broke before you won, dropping a bunch in your lap all at once is probably NOT a good thing. Let's just leave the keys to the crack house with an addict.

How the hell can people b*tch about the price of gas while lotteries and credit card companies report growing profits every year? How?

I was in a Boston area diner months ago and there was a (taxpayer funded! ) commercial that was designed to make the viewer feel warm and fuzzy about the fact that the lottery added FOUR BILLION DOLLARS to their education system last year! Like I asked everyone in the diner, shouldn't they have divided four billion by the number of MASS taxpayers and mailed out rebate checks? Hello? The government's in BUSINESS and people are okay with it? Who doesn't think they'll just find ways to make sure that extra money is spent so they'll have to NEED it the following year? That's insane!

 

[Nitrohaulic]

8 lottery winners who lost their millions - MSN Money

Craig Wallace, a senior funding officer for a company that buys lottery annuity payments in exchange for lump sums, agrees.

"Going broke is a common malady, particularly with the smaller winners. Say you've won $1 million. What you've really won is a promise to be paid $50,000 a year.

Twenty years from now, if inflation has averaged the same 4% that it has for the last 70 plus years, that last $50,000 payment is going to be a LOT easier for them to make than the first one because the dollar will be worth so much less. You won't have won anything near one million in today's dollars. That's why the lump sum payment is so much less. Crooked, crooked, crooked.

 

[Jenn]

How the hell can people b*tch about the price of gas while lotteries and credit card companies report growing profits every year?

So are chocolate companies and I'm a good reason for that. I put $75 bucks in my mom's van for her, and I went in to pay for it and saw a chocolate bar and said "a buck for a chocolate bar, a buck, I remember when they were 50 cents" but then I bought it, because after pouring $75 bucks in my mother's van, what was one more dollar?

Discover has a promotion this month for 5% cash back on gas station purchases. That's 23 cents back a gallon on diesal and they are only offering me 5 cents off at the pump for paying cash.

Apparently I'm one of the few people in America who pay off their credit cards every month, but so far this year my cashback bonuses have been $120 bucks.

 

[Nitrohaulic]

So are chocolate companies and I'm a good reason for that. I put $75 bucks in my mom's van for her, and I went in to pay for it and saw a chocolate bar and said "a buck for a chocolate bar, a buck, I remember when they were 50 cents" but then I bought it, because after pouring $75 bucks in my mother's van, what was one more dollar?

Discover has a promotion this month for 5% cash back on gas station purchases. That's 23 cents back a gallon on diesal and they are only offering me 5 cents off at the pump for paying cash.

Apparently I'm one of the few people in America who pay off their credit cards every month, but so far this year my cashback bonuses have been $120 bucks.

Like Bruce Williams often likes to say, you're what the credit card companies refer to as a freeloader if you pay your balance off every month.

It's bad that I can't remember the exact number but, I remember hearing what credit card company profits were last year and it was mind boggling. People don't seem to want to talk about that as much as they do gas because it IS something they have control over.

Please tell me people don't complain about gas prices WHILE on their way to buy lottery tickets!

 

[G'ginna]

Like Bruce Williams often likes to say, you're what the credit card companies refer to as a freeloader if you pay your balance off every month.

It's bad that I can't remember the exact number but, I remember hearing what credit card company profits were last year and it was mind boggling. People don't seem to want to talk about that as much as they do gas because it IS something they have control over.

They do have control over it, but they don't want to exercise that much discipline to get away from them.

 

[Jenn]

Like Bruce Williams often likes to say, you're what the credit card companies refer to as a freeloader if you pay your balance off every month.

I call it making my money work for me. Let my paychecks earn interest in savings, earn cash back with my credit card, and pay the balance off when it comes due.

Since not all stores accept Discover and Amex, I do have a master card that's always sending me balance transfer offers or promotional APR just to get me to use it. I also use my credit card as a weapon for cash discounts...give me a discount or I'll charge it.

I will give customers discounts if they say that too.

 

[Nitrohaulic]

I call it making my money work for me. Let my paychecks earn interest in savings, earn cash back with my credit card, and pay the balance off when it comes due.

Since not all stores accept Discover and Amex, I do have a master card that's always sending me balance transfer offers or promotional APR just to get me to use it. I also use my credit card as a weapon for cash discounts...give me a discount or I'll charge it.

I will give customers discounts if they say that too.

Right, which means you're basically carrying an interest free loan for eternity, beating them at their own game. They want you to fall into renting their money instead so they can put up some more impressive buildings.

I forget how many millions they spent on lobbying for the new bankruptcy laws. Borrow money under one set of BK laws, then the credit card companies get the laws retroactively changed in their best interest on loans that are already out there. That sh*t was bought and paid for.

 

[G'ginna]

I call it making my money work for me. Let my paychecks earn interest in savings, earn cash back with my credit card, and pay the balance off when it comes due.

Right, which means you're basically carrying an interest free loan for eternity, beating them at their own game. They want you to fall into renting their money instead so they can put up some more impressive buildings.

I have a friend that did that so well that Discover asked her to NOT be a customer of theirs anymore.

 

[Jenn]

I have a friend that did that so well that Discover asked her to NOT be a customer of theirs anymore.

Are you serious? Wow! That almost doesn't make any sense because Discover does get a good amount from the merchants as well. Particularly from a person like me who charges every thing and carries almost no cash. So I'll charge a 1.30 thing of soda, which means they get about 40 cents for swiping the card and a percentage.

My student loan is deferred interest and if you pay in advance like I do, and make your payments on time every time they lower it by .5 points for every 12 months you pay on time.

 

[G'ginna]

Are you serious? Wow! That almost doesn't make any sense because Discover does get a good amount from the merchants as well. Particularly from a person like me who charges every thing and carries almost no cash. So I'll charge a 1.30 thing of soda, which means they get about 40 cents for swiping the card and a percentage.

My student loan is deferred interest and if you pay in advance like I do, and make your payments on time every time they lower it by .5 points for every 12 months you pay on time.

Dead serious, I saw the letter. Of course it was about 10 years ago so they may be a little farther behind in catching up, or they may have worked out a better deal.

 

[Nitrohaulic]

Credit card use is what has my Sunoco station owning friend in Jersey in such a bind. Costs him over $30,000 for a tank of gas that he loses money on (just to bring in customers for his race/rod/repair business) every day. His street price is .08 more than he pays for it, with the credit card companies getting .05!

I suggested that he close the pumps and just keep what's profitable running. They said "Yeah, then Jersey makes us spend $40,000 pulling the tanks out of the ground if the station sits for six months."

 

[HEMI6point1]

HA! You're like the people James Gregory talks about in this video!



YouTube - James Gregory on GDA

Lotteries are a BIG peeve with me! Tax on the poor. The GOVERNMENT is the only guaranteed winner! There's a big principle factor, too. The fact that it's a form of gambling that's ILLEGAL for you or I to run as a business in the private sector. Protectionism. That's crooked as hell. Whether gambling via a lottery is morally correct just depends on where the profits go?

I watched a show on Discovery channel at 2 AM that they should have shown in the middle of the day so people would see it. It was about lottery winners and what happens to them. Most are more broke within a few years than they were before they won. The suicide rate among lottery winners is higher than average. Odds are, winning a big lottery is NOT going to be the good thing for you that you'd expect. If you were already so bad with money that you were broke before you won, dropping a bunch in your lap all at once is probably NOT a good thing. Let's just leave the keys to the crack house with an addict.

How the hell can people b*tch about the price of gas while lotteries and credit card companies report growing profits every year? How?

I was in a Boston area diner months ago and there was a (taxpayer funded! ) commercial that was designed to make the viewer feel warm and fuzzy about the fact that the lottery added FOUR BILLION DOLLARS to their education system last year! Like I asked everyone in the diner, shouldn't they have divided four billion by the number of MASS taxpayers and mailed out rebate checks? Hello? The government's in BUSINESS and people are okay with it? Who doesn't think they'll just find ways to make sure that extra money is spent so they'll have to NEED it the following year? That's insane!

The people who win the lottery and go broke within 5 years are the ones who think it's free money. It's not. The best thing to do is shall you win, take 1.5mil for all your goodies and invest the rest in tax frees.

 

[HEMI6point1]

8 lottery winners who lost their millions - MSN Money



Twenty years from now, if inflation has averaged the same 4% that it has for the last 70 plus years, that last $50,000 payment is going to be a LOT easier for them to make than the first one because the dollar will be worth so much less. You won't have won anything near one million in today's dollars. That's why the lump sum payment is so much less. Crooked, crooked, crooked.

That's why you would choose the "lump-sum" option.