Former Hundred Thousandaire

If you have read my recent posts, it will come as a great surprise to you that once upon a time I accurately predicted the outcome of sporting events.  ESPN awards a cash prize each month to whoever can build the longest streak of correct predictions.  Last April I had a twenty-five game winning streak which was long enough to win the $100,000 prize.

Whenever someone hears about my winnings, they always ask what I bought or how well I invested it.  Others, who have known about it since it happened, will talk to me like I still have stacks of cash lying around.  The truth is that most of the money is gone.

I had not yet received my money when I left North Rock on vacation.  When I got to Lexington, my brother Joshua  presented me with a giant check that he made.  After that, I checked my bank account and the money had been direct deposited.  That night I fed our family of nine at Red Robin.  We traveled on to Fairfax the next day, and the party grew from nine to thirteen.  Thanks to my cat like reflexes I was able to grab the check at both Macaroni Grill and The Cheesecake Factory.  Unfortunately my poor choice of seats at Cheeburger Cheeburger and The Silver Diner put me too far from the waitress to get those checks.  Still those three meals used up the first $525 of my winnings.

I had decided before April was over that if I won the money, I would give half of it away.  When I got home from vacation, I made a list of likely recipients.  Of course, God got his cut first.  My denomination does not enforce tithing, but I believe that ten percent is a good place to start.  I will not list all of the charities that I donated to, but a couple of my favorite are Riley's Warriors and City Connections.  I also shared the wealth with my family.  I felt like Oprah, passing money out to everyone.

The IRS wanted their share also and were not willing to wait until April 15 to get it.  I had to estimate how much I thought that I would owe and sent it to them.  Even though I may be the least patriotic person you know, I like paying taxes.  I am completely spoiled by the freedoms and prosperity that are available living in this country, so I gladly handed over $31,000 to pay for them.

I did make one big purchase for myself, and that was a new central heat and air unit.  Nearly every year that I have lived in my house either the heat or air or both have broken down.  The unit cost $8,800, but I got a energy efficient tax credit of $1,500.  Yes I did just claim that I like paying taxes and then made sure that I paid as little as possible.  I never claimed to be consistent.



I paid an extra $10,000 on my home loan.  That leaves me with around $8,000 left.  It is hard to believe both that I spent that much in a year and that it was not any harder to spend.

One time I made a joke on facebook about spending my money on astroturf.  Afterward I heard that some people thought that the status was me bragging about the money.  That added to Matthew 6:3, "do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing," made me reticent to post this.  However I thought some of you might be curious about how I spent the money, so I posted this anyway.  Since most of the money is gone, that means that it is time for me to win again.