A Powerball winner wants you to know that millions of dollars in an unexpected windfall may sound awesome, but the dream scenario is actually a nonstop “ drama ” waiting to happen.
Sure, a Powerball winner often thinks that millions of dollars and the opportunity to never work again seems like an ideal circumstance (as opposed to being unable to pay your electric bill and running out of food stamps early), but newly-minted multi-millionaire “Wild” Willie Seeley of Manahawkin, New Jersey didn’t find free money to be all that fun in real life.
It was only a month ago that Seeley and his wife Donna came into Powerball money — four million, to be exact, their share of a huge lottery jackpot topping out at $450 million.
Seeley was one of the “Ocean’s 16,” a workplace lotto pool group of winners in Ocean County, New Jersey. But just weeks later, Donna calls the couple’s good fortune “the curse,” and Willie says that he has a bit of advice for any future Powerball “losers,” which isn’t investing related :
“Just disappear… Get lost while you still can.”
By Friday, the Seelies were wistful for a time when they lived paycheck to paycheck, and Willie lamented:
“There are days I wish we were back to just getting paid every two weeks… You have to change your whole way of life, but we didn’t want to change the way we lived. We liked the way we lived.”
Saying the pair are “simple people” who resent being treated like celebrities, snapped and papped for tabloids, he adds:
“Would you want a camera following you around all day when you finally have the time to go hunting and fishing and do all the things you wanted to do?”
Do you think the miserable Powerball winners have a point, or would you trade places with the unhappy pair without a second thought?