Finovate

Winning was step one. This is the blueprint.

Winning the Lottery is something that millions of people dream of every day. Because this one event is enough to drastically change the trajectory of someone’s life.

But as we all know very well, every coin has two sides. While winners often pay off their debts, retire early, donate large sums and substantially improve their lifestyle; sometimes, the darker side of this dream is enough to make people question if it’s even worth wanting…

Negative outcomes include:

• Bankruptcy due to a lack of financial planning
• A lack of healthy relations due to winners being exploited by or cutting off their own friends and family
• Anxiety, depression or unhealthy addictions developing
• Tragic events occurring multiple times

We can go even further in depth by looking at a real-life example. In 2002, Jack Whittaker was the winner of the Powerball, one of the biggest lottery games in the United States. And guess how much he made from that single lottery win? A whopping $314 Million!

Initially, Mr. Whittaker donated millions to charities, built churches, and gifted cars and houses to his friends and family. But this wholesome life didn’t last long. His life quickly spiraled down, with him being robbed countless times, his granddaughter passing away due to a tragic drug overdose, and Mr. Whittaker frequently finding himself in legal and financial trouble. He was later quoted saying, “I wish I’d torn that ticket up.”

Now of course, if you want such a large sum of money to never run out, and if you want to maintain the 7, 8 or even 9 digits in your bank account forever, then a financial plan wouldn’t hurt. Would it now?

Well, there are 2 good reasons why you may invest your money; to grow it or to receive an income. Let’s delve into each of these separately.

Growth is when you invest your money in something and expect its value to increase over a period of time. Now there are many different streams you can take if you want growth.

Methods for Growth:

• One thing you can do is invest in a stock that doesn’t pay a lot in dividends, but steadily grows in the long run. Let’s take a look at an example. Towards the end of 2001, Amazon had a stock price of a mere $0.54. Now, that amount has skyrocketed to around $209! So if you invested $1,000 in Amazon in 2001, and left those stocks untouched till 2025, you would now have almost $400,000! More specifically $387,040! That is just Mind-Blowing! Wouldn’t you agree?
• Another path you can follow is investing in Real Estate. This basically means putting your money into a property or land with the goal of earning a return. Now this method applies for growth and income, but for now I’ll just tell you about growth. If the value of the property or land appreciates, what you bought can very well give you a handsome return. Additionally, real estate also depends on factors such as infrastructure, location, and market demand. So for instance, if the land you own is enshrouded with pulchritudinous edifices, sits in the heart of Mumbai, and is really sought after, then you my friend have yourself a lucrative asset on your hand.
• Now, if you want to play it safe and not risk it for the biscuit, you can invest in mutual funds. Now if you’re scratching your head and thinking, “What on earth is that?”, no need to worry, because I will fill you right in. A Mutual fund is a type of investment where instead of investing in only a single asset, your money is split across many different assets, which are picked by experts. Then, the value of the fund goes up or down based on how those assets perform. Once you are happy with your fund’s value, you can cash out by performing a redemption. Which is basically how you sell all the assets in your mutual fund and receive the final value of your fund in your bank account.

Now let’s take a look at earning an income. This is a short-term method to earn a lot of money. Here, you require active involvement and there is a regular flow of cash.

Methods for Income:

• Firstly, we can once again invest in a stock. However this time, we will be looking for a stock that pays a lot of dividends and frequent dividends. For example, we can take a glance at AT&T, a telecommunication giant. This company has a dividend yield of about 4% as of the middle of 2025, which is quite high in contrast to other stocks. Furthermore, these dividends are also paid quarterly (every 3 months). 
• Alternatively, we can jump back to something we looked at a couple paragraphs ago; Real Estate! Rather than just letting a property or land appreciate, why don’t you rent it out? That way, your property appreciates as it would have, and you have a frequent flow of money to your pockets.
• Another possible approach could be investing in REITs or Real Estate Investment Trusts. These are companies that own, operate, or finance income-producing real estate (like shopping malls, apartments, offices, hotels, warehouses and etc.). In English, that basically means, instead of buying physical properties yourself, you buy shares in REITs, which means you own a small piece of a large real estate portfolio. By law, REITs must distribute at least 90% of their taxable income to shareholders as dividends. Hence, REITs usually pay dividends monthly or quarterly. Therefore, this is a stable and frequent source of income.

Having said all this, I believe the key take away from this whole blog should be diversification. Instead of pouring all your lottery winnings, or even hard-earned money into one source of earning, it is much safer to spread it across a gamut of different methods. Because you never know when you hit the JACKPOT.