Sandra Hayes, a 52-year-old single mother who won the Powerball jackpot in 2006, opened up to The Sun about her life since becoming a lucky millionaire.
Before hitting the lottery, Hayes was a child services social worker. She took a lump sum of nearly $6 million on the spot after she split a $224 million jackpot with a dozen of her coworkers. Even just that small fraction of the total amount, Hayes was able to pay off around $100,000 in student loans and the $70,000 mortgage on her house.
Hayes told the outlet that when she paid her debts off and had a lot of leftover money, she realized how easy it was to go down a path of overspending the rest of the prize money. In fact, she revealed that she knew quite a few people who won the lottery and are entirely broke now because they didn’t exercise financial restraint.
“I know a lot of people who won the lottery and are broke today. If you’re not disciplined, you will go broke. I don’t care how much money you have.”
Hayes continued to explain that not only was it easy to fall into the trap of blowing prize money, but following her win, she dealt with many people in her life-changing after they learned that she was a newly made millionaire.
The single mother expressed, “I had to endure the greed and the need that people have, trying to get you to release your money to them. That caused a lot of emotional pain. These are people who you’ve loved deep down, and they’re turning into vampires trying to suck the life out of me.”
Hayes admitted that not everything was about frugal spending, though. After paying off her debts, Hayes bought herself a new Lexus car and went on a week-long vacation to Hawaii.
Other than the rare occasions that she treats herself, Hayes lives her life quite similarly to when she worked as a social worker before she won the Powerball. For example, she still does her shopping at mostly discount stores and lives on a fixed income to intelligently spend her cash.
