Have you bought your Powerball ticket yet? If not, don’t bother because I’m going to win.
The grand prize for tonight’s drawing is expected to be worth $750 million, but I’m going to take the lump sum of $465.5 million. I have big plans for that money.
Of course, while my accountant’s quite good, even he isn’t going to be able to save me from a hefty tax bill. $465.5 million minus 37% to Uncle Sam leaves me with a paltry $293 million.
I’ll set aside a sensible $20 million for my retirement needs: healthcare, food and boring crap like that. And I’ll also set aside $100 million for my daughter. (That seems like enough, right?)
So I’ll have $173 million left to play with. Here’s how I plan to divide it up for the ultimate tennis life:
The house: Obviously, it needs to be palatial. I’ll have six outdoor tennis courts, two each of hard court, clay and grass. Plus one more indoor hard court in case it rains. All courts will have Hawkeye. Naturally we’ll have pools, hot tubs, indoor bowling alleys, and that sort of thing. I figure the house will set me back $50 million.
Live-in tennis pro: He’ll need a salary. $1 million ought to do it. I’ll play into my 80s, so I need him for 30 years. That’s $30 million.
Tennis balls: I’m not skimping here. I want to pop open a new can every nine games, just like the pros do. Let’s say I play every day, winning 7-5, 5-7, 7-5. That’s 36 games, divided by 9, equals 7 cans of balls a day. Times 365 days for 30 years equals 76,650 cans. I’ll save some money by buying my balls in cases, which works out to 3,194 cases of balls. At $90 a case, I’ll be spending $287,460 on tennis balls. (Didn’t you think it would be a lot more than that? I did.)
Tennis outfits: Here’s where it’s going to get expensive. I’ll need a new outfit each day, at $120 each, for 30 years. That’s $1,310,400. I also need someone to go buy them because I hate shopping. Plus sneakers to match the outfits. Then there’s the coordinating visors, warm-up clothes, tennis bags… We better round this whole category up to $5 million.
Racquets: A new one every day, strung and gripped, at, say, $250 a pop should set me back $2,737,500. (I’m economizing here by having my live-in pro do the stringing and gripping.)
Travel: Four Grand Slams at $50,000 each (I like to travel in style), plus a couple of tennis retreats at $10,000 each, times 30 years equals $6.6 million.
Friends: After I win Powerball, all my friends will hate me. But I can’t play tennis by myself, so I’ll have to buy new ones. Twelve “friends” for a lump sum of $1 million each is $12 million. At that price, they better let me win.
The grand total for house, pro, balls, clothes, racquets, travel, and “friends”: $106,624,960
Hmm. I have a lot of money left over–specifically, $66,375,040.
Apparently it’s really hard to spend $173 million on just tennis. I must be overlooking some key areas where I could be indulging myself.
More realistically, suppose you had an extra $10,000 a year to spend on tennis. What would you splurge on?
Hah, I have chuckled all thru your post, Deb – you really DO like math, don’t you — but, anyway, I Volunteer to be one of your 12 paid tennis friends. You are offering a million bucks, but I ‘love give you a better deal b/c I WON’T just LET you win, ha,ha. Game on?
Great, my first volunteer! That didn’t take long. And I’m getting a bargain to boot! $500K for you, then, since I will have to work to beat you.
Now I have another $500K to dispose of. I can’t get rid of all this money. What a nuisance.
This is hilarious. My addition to your list would be a daily massage — with all that tennis, you’ll surely need some serious muscle work at the end of the day. At about $150 a pop, 365 days a year for 30 years, that’ll cost you $1.6M. But with only an extra $10K, I’d probably go to Wimbledon and the French Open; those have always been bucket list items for me.
Okay, now we’re talking. Massage is an excellent idea. $66,375,040 plus the $500,000 I’ve saving on Karla’s “friend”ship, minus $1,600,000 in daily massages comes to $65,275,040. Thanks for helping me whittle down this pile.
Going to slams would be an excellent way to spend the extra cash. Have you gone to the Australian Open already? I’m wondering why that didn’t make your list. Or won’t $10K get you to all three? I guess it probably wouldn’t.
The Australian Open would be awesome, too, but agreed that $10K probably wouldn’t cover all three! But if I buy that Powerball ticket . . . .
I’m in! With extra cash, I would do some additional private lessons and a tennis getaway weekend with team mates at some fabulous place….complete with lessons, matches, good food, and some time by the beach.
A tennis getaway sounds sweet! Invite me!!!!
I’m in for the tennis getaway, massages, lessons, outfits, visits to all the opens, and all of us together!!!!
Powerball update: I picked all the correct numbers, including the all-important Powerball! Unfortunately, those numbers are spread across ten different tickets.
If I had $10,000 to spend on tennis, in the near term, I would allocate $5000 for about 50 private and semi private lessons with a pro. I figure I could take at least two lessons a week for six months and significantly upgrade my game.
I would spend the other $5000 on strength, flexibility, and cardio training, With a personal trainer or in classes, to empower me on the tennis court.
But if I also had the many MILLIONS that I had won at the lottery I would add a personal chef for the rest of my life to prepare me tasty and nutritious meals. Ahh, what a luxury THAT would be… and a lot less work for ME than all of those lessons and trainings, ha ha.
Another good plan! See? The tennis-math combo is fun!
I have to add my friend’s idea for how she would spend some of her millions had she won the Powerball. She said she’d hire Roger and Rafa for a weekend at the palatial house. (I got the sense that this weekend might involve more than just tennis.)
Love fantasizing about our tennis dream, but where is the shrink who will help us cope with our new found opulence? Plus if I am playing all the time, and losing more than I’d like, I would need someone to help me develop mental toughness.
Also, with all this new found tennis wealth, I think there would be great opportunity to do some tennis outreach to younger kids — especially those with less access to our tennis toys.
It is so much fun to dream…
I’m not a fan of the term “first-world problem,” but needing therapy to cope with winning Powerball has to be the ultimate example. Too funny.
I like the idea of spending money on a sports psychologist, though. I wonder how much therapy you can get for $10,000.
And aren’t you a good person to think of the less fortunate? I’m hanging my head in shame! 😊🎾
Deb, we can find someone just breaking out in a psychology practice and I bet for $10K we can get a lot of love and attention. Plus we will offer to be a reference. The possibilities are endless and as I write this, it is feeling more business-centric and less tennis-centric, and since tennis is our first love, maybe we scrap the idea all together. Let’s just pay for hitting partners who make us feel great and believe in our game to the max. And then we get them on bluetooth when we are in match play, and they secretly coach us. And then we visit our clergy and confess. Now I hang my head in shame 🙁