You just won the Powerball

I'd look into setting up a trust to cover the costs of athletics for my high school so that students can once again not have to deal with "pay to play".

I'd then look to set up one or more other trusts to fund some local sober/halfway houses.

If there is anything after that, the last item would be one more trust that will help provide meals for families at Thanksgiving and Christmas... be it through direct action, or just donating to organizations already handling that sort of thing.

Run my own foundation offering grants to people for whatever they might want/need.

My application process will be simple - one page explaining how much you want and what you will do with it. Once I accept, then someone else will do background checks and follow ups to make sure it's all legit.

Want to go to college? Support your family? Climb Everest? Start a company? Fight Cancer/AIDS/hunger? Write a book? Apply!

I'd have fun doing it

I would buy 1000 acres of land and build a giant castle and lots of guns, oh yeah guns guns guns... oh wait, what do you mean improve my community and the world???  lol

Actually I've thought about it some and it's kind of a tough thing to do.  We give to several charities today, but if you added up the total combined charity budgets for a year it's probably not even $1M so to throw $35M at local charities would be a very interesting exercise.

So, I would certainly give huge contributions to the charities we give to today, but I would also fund purchasing/building a new building for our church.

I would likely give all of it to Christian based charities and work on expanding the church in the community, but that's mostly just to tick off Tony.

This is kinda funny because the only reason I buy lottery tickets is the fun I have researching the things I might do. It has changed over time, as I learned what is actually involved in different things, like owing a sailboat (yah, I know I could pay someone to maintain the boat for me, but I'd rather just lease a boat and hire a crew). And earlier today I was joking with a guy at work about this. He said he couldn't spend all of what he'd win with the PowerBall. I said I could. I could easily buy Skittles for every Boy Scout and Girl Scout in the world. I could hire a prostitute to play Scrabble with me occasionally. Yah, just Scrabble, just 'cause it would be amusing to do it. Things like that and I could easily spend the after-tax remains of the cash option of $550 million.

Assuming I would only have $35 million (post-tax, right?), that would give me just over $2 million a year for the rest of my life (assuming I live to be 99 years old), I would:

Go back to school part time and train and work out the rest of the time. I'd get a masters in Accounting, then another bachelor's and maybe masters in history. I'd get a good swimming coach and tri coach.

I'd take interesting trips. It's summer vacation? I'll go skiing in Chile. New motorcycle? I think a trip across Africa is in order. Wanna hit the beach? Djibouti looks good. Mountains? Back to Morocco!

And I would finally get a Facebook page just to post the short list of people I would be willing to help. My mother would get a new house and I'd pay off my siblings' debt. I'd provide for undergrad and post-graduate costs for my sister and the kids of a couple of friends. I'd probably give money to a few ferret rescues also. If you're not on the list I would have posted, don't bother calling or sending me requests.

I absolutely would not start a business. I have no desire to try to be an "entrepreneur". 

And I'm sure I could think of other things to do as time went on.

Find some way to put all of that $35M to public education. I am constantly blown away at how little we seem to value education in this country.

$35M isn't a lot, but this is my own soapbox for this year as my kids just started public school and it's eye opening how poorly funded even one of the top public school systems in the country is.

Could I buy WTC and change all their stupid ways that I hate?  That would at least make most of the BT community happy, right?

Otherwise I'd probably want to support fitness-type initiatives...like others have said--school sports.  I'd probably also like to find a way to support sustainable organic farming and such.

I would be torn between providing a little support to a lot of agencies and concentrating my support with a few agencies to have a more meaningful impact.

1. Order the P5 with Di2.

2. Set up a trust so that NONE OF US in the family have access to all the money at one time. Establish a reasonable yearly stipend for everyone in my family so we don't get too  stupid.

3. Endow a foundation along the lines of Gates and spent the rest of my life reading research and humanitarian proposals. I need to work, and I'll always be a science geek.

"Fast cares"? Are those the ones where you care for a few minutes, then don't care anymore? I think those can get REALLY expensive!

Small thing on a list of probably many, but I was a "non-traditional" undergrad student at a school of mostly traditional students at Georgia Tech (I was 36 when I graduated. I was on the 18 yr plan, lol. Average student was 23).  If you can't go to school from 8-4 there, don't bother.  IOW, no working and going to school at the same time.  I would start a scholarship fund for non-traditional students.

In addition, start a missionary fund at my church, fund a local high adventure Christian youth camp in the Blue Ridge Mtns to be able to send kids on scholarship (less fortunate kids). 

Help animal rescues.  We love our brittany from American Brittany Rescue and our Terrior/Poodle Mix from a local rescue.

I only had 1 child, b/c I always felt compelled to adopt an older child from foster care if I felt like I really wanted another.  I'd do that or foster kids or both.

Host foreign exchange students.  We did it in '08 and it was the best. Now that my hubby and I work from home, we have nowhere (no extra rooms) to house foreign exchange students!

I love school and love to learn.  I have an MBA and I'd get a law degree in Constitutional law, simply because I could. That's a dream.

The possibilities are endless.

What's so weird is that for me, and my family, I'd only be interested in travel.  Material possessions are basically irrelevant.  Just no interest, but we've been blessed.

Andi

Great idea!

Yeah,,,,,, cars,,,,,,,, lol, I neid two poof ried a litl butter.

I've heard people say they would do the absurd, like buy a solid gold toilet, to altruistic, like start a foundation when it comes to their PowerBall winnings. I will start a Foundation to give out Solid Gold Toilets.

-copied from a FB comment

I hadn't thought of this, but this is exactly what I would do.  I would create a foundation (including hiring an investment/finance professional so the funds are sustainable) and provide grants and funding for the county bike programs.  I know the parks department, that supports our path system, is worried about maintaining what they've built, not even considering problems with budget cuts. I would probably have to rename all of the paths after my family, friends, etc.  I think it would be fun to hear "I'm going to ride the Emily to work."  Ha ha.