Imagine the possibilities. $1.4 billion.
I don’t care who you are, a billion (or so) is going to change your life. I am second-generation Irish and I am convinced that prize is mine Wednesday night. Don’t even buy a ticket. It’s all mine. I could pay my taxes and credit cards and have enough to buy the family farm in Ballyvourney, Ireland. I would let any relative live there rent free and would set up an open account at the nearby (stumbling distance) Mills Pub. Any visitors would be welcome, of course.
My next stop would be at Captiva Island off Fort Myers, where the Red Sox live. I would buy (maybe build) a McMansion as close to water as humanly possible. I think buying a yacht would be impractical, so I would just charter a yacht for trips when I need it. Naturally, I will buy season’s tickets to the Red Sox. Hell, I might buy the Red Sox.
I would set up a trust fund for my favorite daughters Griffin, Aran and Bridget (note the Irish influence) and their children. Elinor, my favorite sister (she basically raised me), would get another trust fund for her and all the nieces and nephews. No one would pay another tuition bill.
Blue Eyes would get $10 million off the top, then I would pay for everything she needs the rest of her life. Imagine what she has put up with for 32 years. She would be underpaid. I don’t want to give her too much because she would fund every animal rights group in the world and have wolves, chickens and goats running around the yard. I might give Fabulous Bob Besaw a mil but I fear that his “do-gooder” tendencies would eat into that fund quickly. Jefferson Phil, who introduced us all to the pleasures and perils of the Allagash, gets a mil. Chief Al is swimming in money already and needs no help. He just bought a Harley to keep in his living room. Grima doesn’t get a dime until he drops that phony English accent.
I would keep Cobb Manor even though New Hampshire John once called it “a dump.” Projects would include an Olympic pool. The two-story barn would be rehabbed into a craft beer microbrewery with a full-time bartender. Even with taxes we are talking hundreds of millions of dollars. I would build a nice, cozy waterfront restaurant for John Conte so he could cook to his heart’s content without ever worrying about the rent. There would be an open account established for all my friends.
I will have many, many friends. One of my best friends will be the BMW dealer. It looks to me like the Beemer M3 ($65,000 a pop) will be the vehicle of choice. Not to be a piker, I will supply a similar model to all my friends who want one. It will be like Elvis and the Cadillacs. Naturally I will require a bright red Tundra with a gleaming maximum Airstream for my endless trips.
Then, I will calm down.
Because, as Jeffery Carbone, the managing partner of Cornerstone Financial Wealth in Charlotte, North Carolina, says “Lottery winners (that’s me) unfortunately try to get richer, but now it’s really about maintaining your wealth.” We have all seen the stories about the death and destruction that lottery winnings can bring. Not me. I have Carbone in charge.
The last estimate I saw was $1.4 billion (as in billion) that will give me $868 million for the cash option. USA Mega.com tells me that $217 million will go to federal taxes and another $43 million for Maine taxes, leaving me “only” $608 million. Nothing to sneeze at surely. We will carefully invest the $608 million (deleted by gifts) in a “conservative portfolio” that earns a nice 3 percent a year. It may not sound like much, but three percent would generate a “steady cash flow” (I love that) of around $18 million a year. I don’t know Carbone. But he must have been smiling when he opined that “would be enough money to cover the bills, buy a nice car (or 15), offer financial support to family and friends and still indulge in some nice meals and a few vacations.”
A few vacations? $18 million a year? According to my Roslindale High School math, that’s $346,000 a week. I would be up until dawn trying to spend that much.
If I hired Carbone, he would put 40 percent in municipal bonds, where returns would be free of state and local taxes. Another 30 percent would be invested in dividend-paying stocks (more money) with 15 percent in real estate, both commercial and rental properties. We would put about 10 percent in alternative markets like gold and other commodities. The rest would go to more lottery tickets (You never know.)
My last “real estate” transaction lost a year’s pay by investing in a weedy lot in the Royal Highlands, just north of Weeki Wachee, Florida. I think I bought that eight years ago. It is now worth about 10 percent of the purchase price. That won’t matter now. I will buy the neighboring land from Marky Mark, who was dumb enough to buy land there, too. I will buy Marky Mark and Bangor Jane any damn thing they want for the rest of their lives, for putting up with me all those winter months.
But being conservative with all that money might “backfire,” Carbone advises. “With yields on cash accounts still low, investors who stuck all of the money in cash could end up in losing their fortune to inflation.”
One thing I have never been accused of is “being conservative with money.”
BMW M3 anyone?
Emmet Meara lives in Camden in blissful retirement after working as a reporter for the BDN in Rockland for 30 years.