Originally posted by: dullard
Haha. Flot's "smart thing to do" was posted 1 minute before me and describes exactly how all these people get bankrupt. A "nice steady $25-35k a year of 'Free money' for the rest of my life." won't pay the property taxes on all those houses you just bought. Let alone pay the maintanence and utilites on your new large house.
Er, no, I was agreeing with your point. I meant take the million, spend a percentage of it on buying a place to live, and take the rest as a reasonable yearly "bonus" of sorts. If you have a million dollars, and you buy a $500,000 house outright - the remaining $500,000 will last you nicely over 20-30 years. At the end of that, you'll still have a $500,000 house (presumably with appreciation etc it's worth a million) that you could sell and retire comfortably off the proceeds.
I was advocating spreading your money out over time, rather than trying to live like a king for a few years. $25k a year would be a pretty nice bonus for most people. Certainly no one winning less than $2m should consider quitting their job and going berzerk - but it could sure be a nice pick me up.