Would you still work if you won the lottery?

@Musicman [quote]Since I am already retired I would remain retired. But, I definitely help friends who need a little help whenever they need it. I never charge them.[/quote]
You can give someone $18,000 this year as a gift tax free. If you wanted to give the person more you could simply put the person on your payroll and pay all of the required taxes. Of course your payroll compay would take care of the W2 forms and paychecks. The benefit of doing it that way is that it would increase the person's eventual Social Security payout unless the person is already retired. Giving money is tricky so it's best to check with a good tax accountant before doing it so that you will get it right.

Of course you can always give the person a big chunk of money for sometime he sold you, like a $Million for a pair of pants The person would then have to take care of the taxes on his own.

@Diotrephes I was a professional carpenter. I help friends who need work done on their house. I have the knowledge and all the tools. I never charge them and I do the work when it's convenient for them.

@Musicman Like you I'm retired; and I'd continue working at that. Money would let me get whatever would help with things I can no longer do myself - gardening, property maintenance et cetera. Those would be my job. My hobby would be managing the benevolent uses to which the bulk of the money could be put.

@JustNik I would have to agree 100% here and do the same.
I have already thought about working with the town to improve or create new, much needed athletic fields/complexes if I won a big one.

@JustNik @Teslin Volunteer work can be very rewarding. 🙂

@JustNik [quote]If it was just a million or two yes, but if I won a big jackpot, I wouldn’t work a paying job. I think it would be neat to look into expanding on community gardens and accessibility, elder programs, and dive into housing, which seems to be an issue darn near everywhere. I don’t think I’d be bored.
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Most poor people don't have a clue when it comes to millions of dollars. First of all, if you are married half of it belongs to your spouse, especially in community property States. Now, suppose you had just $5,000,000. If you just threw it all in a barrel and did no investing whatsoever, you could take out $20,833.33 a month for the next 240 months (20 years). It is highly doubtful that you have that much money every month right now so your standard of living would greatly improve.

If you had $20,000,000 and did the same thing you could have a monthly budget of $50,000 a month for 400 months (33 years 4 months).

If you did any kind of sensible investing you could live comfortably (compared to your current standard of living) off of the interest income without dipping into the principal.

The most important thing is to create a budget and not squander money on knickknacks every hour.

@BlueSkyKing My dad use to call it a tax on the poor.

@Musicman Rather go to the horse races.

@Musicman Just one of many.

@SethGreene531 I can definitely understand that.

@Musicman I've seen people retire, and their whole world stops.
Those that go back, even on a part-time or casual basis, shake off that despondency.
The change in the human being is amazing.

@SethGreene531 I agree with you. We have to do something. You can't just sit and watch TV.

@Musicman I probably would work with animal rescue.

@Starcrossed That would be neat! 🙂🙂🙂

@Musicman it would be so fulfilling to my soul.

@V00doo Would you stay at your current job or find something else?

@Musicman I love what I do. Just maybe in a different capacity