What To Do With a $1 Million Jackpot

For years lottery-loving retirees Nick and Sharon Meyer’s favorite conversation began like this: What to do if lightning struck and they won $1 million? “We used to joke about it all the time,” says Sharon. “How we would spend it, what we would pay off, what we would buy.”

There were no storm clouds over the Casey’s General Store in Sibley, IA (population 2,793) on January 23, but lightning struck anyway and the Meyers, retirees from Iowa farming country, got to put their well-conversed plans into action. Nick had been buying a $20 “Set for Life” scratch ticket once a week for about six months. He scratched the winner in his car, still parked outside the store. “I saw these little zeros,” he says. “By gosh, there it was - a million dollars.”

Meyer called his wife, then drove home with the ticket. “I didn't believe it,” says Sharon. So the Meyers drove back to the store and then believed. “I've been so stunned by the whole thing,” says Sharon. “But we knew just what to do with it, we’d talked about so often.”

The Meyers, both in their early 60s, opted for a lump sum payout. The Iowa State Lottery took out $450,000 in state and federal taxes and then cut them a check for $650,000. Then the new couple, they married two-and-half-years ago after their respective spouses passed away, put the windfall to work. Within four days the former auctioneer and housewife paid off some outstanding debt; bought themselves new cars, a truck for him and a sedan for her; put a chunk in a Roth IRA-type savings account; and invested in the future of their collective family: three children and eight grandchildren.