What would it be like to live in a mansion? Imagine so many rooms, such as a huge kitchen and ten washrooms. How about a library, family room, formal dining room, entertainment room, meditation room, dungeon, torture chamber, and secret passageways? Sounds like everyone’s dream. Since you’ve won the lottery, you might as well get two mansions, the main house in the city and your country palace in a secluded remote area. Yeah sounds really nice doesn’t it?
However, when you win the lottery, the proverbial huge house or mansion is something you should avoid like the plague. Why? Because they cost money. Lots of money just to maintain and heat. Lots and lots of money for general household “stuff.” And a mansion is really a statement of old money, heredity, and huge amounts of wealth, power, and pull. Those are the people who live in mansions. The rich live in smaller homes.
And if you win the lottery, you will be rich, but will not be wealthy. So buying a mansion is really going to be a waste of money for you. Factor on the cost of the mansion itself, real estate fees, and other fees that go along with buying a house. Your utility bills are going to cost you a pretty penny each month with the amount of heat, electricity, and water (showers, dishes, flushing the toilets, watering the huge lawn) you will be using.
You are going to need to do maintenance every now and then to keep up the look of the mansion. And of course don’t forget your property taxes. These can be astronomical for a mansion. Pretty soon. After 3 to 5 years of living in your huge house, you will you money dwindling and eventually may have to sell your mansion to keep from blowing all your lottery money. Soi the larger the house you buy, the more it will eat away at your winnings.
One of the major reasons people who suddenly get lots of money want to buy a mansion is that the home they lived and grew up in could have been quite small or crowded. People who win the lottery do strange things! It’s a way of compensating for not having a larger home. Now that you can afford a mansion, you should buy one. And tht goes into another reason why lottery winners sometimes buy huge mansions: you feel it is expected of you.
The best fictional example of this is the TV show The Beverley Hillbillies, about poor mountain folk who get thrust from poverty to instant richness by oil, and, as egged on by relatives, relocate to Los Angles to a huge mansion that actually makes no sense to them. The weekly situations that Jed and his family get into are hilarious, yet sad at times. A luxury like a huge swimming pool is not appreciated as it should be, they still cling to their old simple ways of life, and modern conveniences are more of a passing novelty than a daily part of their living. They would have fared better if they had traded in their rickety shack for a nice bungalow, got conveniences that they actually could use like a telephone or television, and didn’t have to live off the land as much to get water and food. A newer truck, a trip into town, and groceries would let them live the lifestyle they are used to without having to eek out just an existence from being poor.
So forget about the mansion. You can still buy a four or five bedroom home that is large, yet not so large that you have to hire an agency to clean it once or twice a week. Find a home that is suitable to your taste, large enough to feel open and comfortable, and small enough that utilities and property taxes don’t eat away your winnings. Remember that if you win the jackpot on the lottery, it is your money to work for you for the rest of your life. A mansion could eat away half or more of your lottery winnings within the first year or two.