Jackpot

The story of a $365 million lottery winning hit the headlines recently. Apparently it took the winning party about a week to come forward. Turned out to be 8 workers somewhere who had jointly bought the ticket. I guess the week's delay was due to some miscommunication in their party. ("I thought you were going to go claim the jackpot for us!" "No dude, YOU were supposed to do that!")

Anyways, the story got me thinking about what it would be like to get a huge sum of money like that. Even something a lot smaller, like $5 million. My thoughts go something like this:

Pros:

• It'd be nice to have the capital. It really gets my goat that I have to pay things like PMI (private mortgage insurance) because I didn't have enough money to pay 20% down on the house. Also, if I paid cash for a house, it would eliminate about $200,000 in interest that I'd be paying over 30 years.
• I like toys. There are so many electronics and tools I would buy if I had the money. Plus, I would buy a house with a nice big garage to put them in.
• My church wouldn't mind getting 10% of 5 mil. The building campaign would quickly turn into "OK, We Did The Next Thing, What's Next?". Sorry, inside church humor.
• The money could fund many of the worthy non-profits out there (eg., Durham Rescue Mission) who have dedicated themselves to helping those who need it.
• The money could fund many of our missionary brothers and sisters who have to spend large amounts of time raising funds when they really want to be reaching people.
  
• No more clipping coupons and waiting for Buy One Get One Free sales, hon. Wait, who am I kidding? You'd still do it.

Cons:

• Headaches. To him whom much is given, much is required. I would feel enormous pressure to be responsible with the money (Yeah, I'm a first-born). And dealing with large sums of money is not something I am familiar with. I'm better at doing things like buying CD-R's for 13 cents a piece instead of 20 cents.
  
• I assume that being filthy rich would have a somewhat negative effect on any social life we try to have. Maybe not so much our current friends, but it would affect our ability to socialize in new crowds (eg, Charlotte) down the road.
  
• I can't imagine the effect it would have on Aria and her future siblings, especially as they get around high school/college age. I would think that children of millionaires would always have to be somewhat leery of new friends and new boyfriends/girlfriends.
  
• It goes without saying that I wouldn't need to work. A measly 3% interest would allow me to have a $150,000 salary and not cut into the principal. While not working sounds attractive in some ways, I'm thinking that it would probably be a negative overall. Even though there are days when I'm dragging my feet out the door in the morning, I think having the structure of honest work to my life is a good thing.

So, those are my thoughts. What do you think? Any pros or cons you would add? Overall, would you want the money or not?