After a few rounds, my stack of tickets was much smaller than everyone else’s because I kept missing buckets. When I missed again, my mother allowed me to take another turn, and when the beanbag made it through, I grabbed a $5 Silver Bell holiday scratcher and added it to my pile.
When all the tickets were counted, we all sat quietly and started scratching them. Occasionally, one of us declares a $5 or $20 win. The My Silver Bells ticket had five winning numbers on the top: 47, 44, 21, 41 and 39. If you uncovered one of the numbers, you would win a prize. I didn’t get number 39 until I reached the last row of the ticket. Just below the number was a cash prize of $50,000. I sat there quietly, re-reading the rules.
“I think I won,” I announced to the room incredulously.
Everyone rushed to check the ticket and agreed that it looked like a winner, but of course, we all piled into a car and drove to a gas station in town that happened to be Christmas Eve. was open I went up to the scanner and checked my ticket. On the blue screen was the word “WINNER” in small letters.
I offered to share the money with my family, but my older brother said I should keep it. He and my family were really happy for me – they didn’t want a penny of my winnings. With his blessings, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with the money: buy a house.
The following Monday, I was handed a check for $37,000 at the Idaho Lottery headquarters, after I was told that I could already pay taxes on my gambling winnings.
This was followed by a search for a house that I could afford. The amount of time I’d spent on Zillow over the past months came in handy because I was familiar with the market. I knew I could afford a home for between $90,000 and $150,000, but I wanted to be on the low end of that range. My goal was to have the lowest possible monthly mortgage payment and pay less than I would normally spend in rent.
