“Some people are so poor all they have is money.” – Bob Marley (or Abe Lincoln, the internet will never know)

The Powerball is up to it’s highest ever, $1.3 billion or so, and people are going nuts! If you look to history you will find plenty of lottery winners and others who have come to money and fame fast (sports stars, rock stars, etc), who crash and burn and sometimes even die from the stresses and bad decisions that stem from large life changes like that.

Why does this happen? My belief is poor planning. This could have happened to these people at anytime but getting money only accelerated the inevitable. Money is a tool just like anything else and if you view money as more than a tool, if you worship it, or just about anything else, it can destroy you. The way I see of getting around this? Sort out life before you win any money. If you already have a positive relationship with money, getting a lot of it shouldn’t affect you. Many of us have a bad relationship with money, some of us just are able to avoid consequences because we make enough to avoid issues but not enough to cause bigger issues. Some of us don’t make enough to get ourselves into issues. Although most of us won’t win a million or a billion bucks in our lifetimes, it will still be valuable to think about what your goals and aspirations and work toward those. With that attitude you will feel like you’ve won the lottery everyday, that’s how I feel, most days.

There’s been a meme going around that the Powerball split among everyone in the USA would yield $4.33 million per person, which I’m pretty sure was a super clever marketing stunt by a guy to grow his exposure to the world, good work on that dude. What it really comes out to is $4.33/ person in the USA. We all scoff at that, but there are places where that’d be enough to feed some for a week or more! Think about that next time you are buying your $5 latte.

One thing that excites me each day is that I get to be the lottery to other families. I sponsor children via Children International. It’s a pretty interesting program that does what it says below:

Taken right from their website:

Your monthly sponsorship gift of $32 will change your child’s life! Sponsorship will provide them with:

• Medical and Dental Care

• Educational Support

• Family Assistance

• Emergency Food as Needed

• Clothes, Shoes and More!

You get a letter every few months from the children and can read more about them on the website if you care to. My specific children, in the Philippines, belong to a family that lives on $100 a month! So to give them $32/month is basically like winning the lottery to them, every month! How much cooler is that than winning the lottery yourself? And you can do it for only the cost of 6 lattes a month!

The last letter I got from a boy who’s about 5 said that he wanted to be an architect when he grew up and he even drew me a picture of a house. I am really hoping that I can help support that dream for him, for less than a cup of coffee each day for me. 

Somebody could win the Powerball today (It’s Wednesday as I’m writing this so I guess that means numbers are drawn, I just learned that today (Tuesday as I’m writing this)) But remember, you could make it like someone won the Powerball also and you probably won’t miss the $32/month.