A mega sena (popular lottery ticket in Brazil) costs five reals if you fill it with six numbers. So I'd certainly pick the 5 reals bill, as the expected value per real is always smaller.
The picture changes if the ticket was filled with more numbers; if you hit any six then you get the jackpot, and it's accordingly more expensive (seven numbers for R$35,00; eight for R$140,00). For those I'd need to do the maths, but there are complicating factors:
if multiple people hit the jackpot, the prize gets split
there's a secondary prize if you hit five numbers, and a tertiary one if you hit four
the jackpot varies quite a bit from one draw to another, as it accumulates if nobody hit it in the previous draw
To simplify it: let's say that only the primary prize counts, it's around 30 million reals (typical value), and that your odds are one in 50 million. Then the expected value becomes:
with 6 numbers: R$30M/50M = R$0,60
with 7 numbers: 7*(R$0,60) = R$4,20
with 8 numbers: 8*(R$4,20) = R$33,60
The five reals bill is still more valuable than a mega sena ticket with seven numbers, even if it costs R$35. But if it was eight, I'd pick the ticket.
The ticket in the picture has 5 plays which means it's at least $10, $15 with powerplay or double play, or $20 with both. If the ticket in the picture isn't what we're getting then it can range from the $2 single play ticket to an $800 ticket with 20 plays at $4/play ($2 + $1powerplay + $1double play) for 10 draws (at least that's what I could get here in Iowa, the max amount of draws on a ticket is per-state).
The lottery ticket comes with mystery and suspense. Even if you could buy more tickets with the $5, the ticket has more value to me based on its origin. What if the street man is a wizard or from the future? Gimme that ticket, future street wizard.
I don’t really like the sweet breakfast pastry concept. I guess waffles, preferable cornmeal or Belgian waffles. I’d much rather have a breakfast burrito with green chile or huevos rancheros though.
Congrats! Some unsolicited money advice I wish I had known earlier in my career:
If you have a mortgage and the interest rate is less than 7ish percent and you're wanting to pay it early, something to consider:
You might put whatever extra you were planning into a Roth IRA until it's maxed and also max out your 401k if your employment has that. Historical yield is 7ish% and compound interest will help you immensely 20-30 years down the line.
Paying off the house early is nice feeling but you can possibly refinance for lower rates later if it's currently similar to or higher than historical investment yields. You could also do a little bit of both but prioritizing retirement accounts is the smarter move imo. So if your mortgage rate is 5% and you want to pay that down, you're leaving 2% on the table by not putting it into either an IRA or an index fund instead.
This is assuming you're not carrying other debts at higher rates like credit cards, those should be your priority. Next would be 3 months of all bills saved up, you can find some decent interest rates on savings accounts. I have Acorns and it's at 5% so the 3 months reserves will stack interest for you too.
I forget what my mortgage rate is but I think it's somewhere between 5.8-6.8%. I'll have to look it up.
My wanting to eventually pay the mortgage off earlier is to dramatically decrease my monthly bills and make it easier to save and easier to put money in my pocket each month. I'm not really keen on dumping all of my money into something like an IRA. I discovered recently that high yield savings accounts are a thing and I'm much more comfortable with that. Granted, mine is only like 4.3%.
While I do need to put more into retirement and do plan to contribute more to my 401k, I don't really want to go ham over putting every penny I have into retirement. Life is uncertain and you really don't know how long you'll live, even if you try your best to do a healthy life. It's all about balance between enjoying the now and planning for the future, and not putting too much emphasis on one or the other. You don't want to live like you're homeless only to die in a car accident and never get to enjoy what you've worked for.
Absolutely! I grapple with that all the time. I love having fun and traveling and having cool stuff. It's fun having some money you're not afraid to spend.
You deserve it, you're the one who got yourself to where you're at. At the end of the day do what's right for you, just maybe spend a little bit less over the years and instead put it toward the end game.
As time goes on, sitting on ass collecting interest and being able to live off that interest comfortably will be awesome, and if you were able to live it up the whole time is priceless. Treat your now self and future self, but future self likely won't regret now self traveling etc. (so long as you're not doing illegal tax evasion and damaging your body long term lol)
[Outdated, please look at pinned post] Casual Conversation
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