News writer; Opinion columnist
Follow the lottery long enough and you'll hear hundreds of stories of people blowing millions of dollars in some of the most outrageous ways possible. From producing their own reality shows to opening their own fireworks factory, there is no shortage of winners who indulge in crazy overspending.
However, there is another side to the coin. Some people win big and decide they don't need to spend a thing. It's not just that they're good at saving their money; they enjoy a simple life without fast cars or designer handbags, and they won't change their ways even with a fortune in their bank account.
These are true stories of lottery players who won big and still spent small.
Lunch meat
Most lottery winners celebrate a big jackpot with a bottle of champagne, sometimes followed by steak, caviar, or a thick cut of prime rib. However, Joseph Greer had a decidedly more modest meal in mind after he won $100,000 from the North Carolina Education Lottery. Greer told Lottery officials on August 12, 2025:
I'm tired of eating the thin bologna. I want the thick bologna now.
Fortunately, he can afford all the sandwich meat he wants after collecting his prize.
Greer's big win actually started with a loss. He spent $50 on an $8 Million Money Maker scratch-off ticket, but failed to match any of the winning numbers. Greer didn't give up, though, and he mailed his ticket in for a second chance drawing with a top prize of one million dollars.
While he didn't win the jackpot, his ticket was selected from a pool of 979,465 entries for the six-figure second-place prize.
The appliance repairman said that it blew his mind when he received the call informing him that he was a winner. “I about passed out. It was pretty crazy,” Greer said. “I'm still in awe.”
After paying taxes, he collected a check for $71,750 and said that, in addition to enjoying a nice lunch, he also planned to invest the money for his retirement.
Down sizing
For winners fortunate enough to collect a multi-million dollar prize, the first big purchase is usually a fancy new house with a dozen bedrooms, a big pool, and other extravagances such as a solarium or game room.
However, when Amanda and Graham Nield won £6.676 million from the UK National Lottery in 2013, they had a slightly different idea for a new residence. They decided to go smaller.
The husband and wife both worked at a carpet factory and lived in a pleasant five-bedroom house in Wakefield, a city in West Yorkshire.
Amanda admitted to reporters that before she won, she assumed she would go on a wild spending spree like so many other lottery winners.
Before we won, I'd tell Graham I'd go straight to Paris on a shopping spree or point out cars and houses I'd buy. But when we did win, I didn't want those things. It's weird.
The Nields admit that they had planned to downsize before their big win by moving in with Amanda's elderly parents to help care for them. However, with their winnings, they were able to build a small bungalow near her parents' house, so they could have their own space while helping.
“The best thing the money did for us was allow us to retire and build a home where we could care for my mum and dad,” Amanda said.
While the couple has allowed themselves to enjoy some spending, they admit that their habits remain modest despite their wealth. “We still look for the best deals,” Amanda explained. “I don't spend thousands on designer clothes. If I like a jumper for £30, I'll buy it, but I wouldn't if it was £300.”
Other than a new Nissan Pathfinder and a trip to Australia, their spending hasn't changed much since their big win because the Niehls valued their sense of normalcy over the ability to live large.
A prize and a plane ticket
When Jose Caballero was 23, he left his native Mexico and illegally crossed into the United States with the hopes of fulfilling a modest dream. He wanted to save up $15,000. He made his way to San Jose, California, where he found a low-paying job delivering furniture for a manufacturing company.
Caballero expected it would take years to save up enough money, but after winning an opportunity to appear on the lottery game show “The Big Spin”, he found himself with more cash than he ever dreamed of.
Players on the show get one chance to spin a massive prize wheel to win jackpots ranging from a few thousand dollars to millions.
When it was Caballero's turn, he won big and took home a two-million-dollar prize; however, there was just one major problem. As part of the process for collecting his money, he revealed that he was an undocumented immigrant. While he was still entitled to the money, he was arrested by the INS and forced to self-deport back to Mexico.
While his money went much further in his hometown of Apartzingan, Mexico, than it would have in America, he still decided to live modestly and below his means. He bought his parents a new TV and purchased a pickup truck with a tape deck so that he could listen to his favorite artist, Donny Osmond, sing in Spanish.
His biggest purchase after returning to his hometown was a four-bedroom house, which cost just $15,000, less than what some winners will spend on a single shopping trip to Gucci.
Other than that, not much has changed for the former laborer. He's swapped out sneakers for cowboy boots, but he still wears the Levi jeans he bought in bulk at a swap meet before his big win. He also purchased land where his family grows mangoes that they sell around the country.
He says that perhaps the most significant change to his life is that several women have proposed marriage to him since he won, but so far, he hasn't accepted any of their offers.
Speaking with reporters, Caballero explained his casual attitude towards his fortune:
Money isn't good or bad; it's the person who uses it. If I spent it (all), I'd be lazy--I wouldn't work. So I have to work to live. To do anything else would be to waste the money, like eating it. I'm like anyone else--your work shows what you are.
The biggest problem he faces is that since he was deported, his application for a visa to visit the United States has been denied four times.
Straight to the moon
When David Copeland won one million pounds from the UK National Lottery, he allowed himself one extravagant purchase. He bought the moon. To be accurate, he only purchased a part of the moon, paying 120 pounds for an acre of land on its rocky surface.
His biggest earth-bound purchase after winning was a four-bedroom home he bought for just under 200,000 pounds in rural Hertfordshire, a city just north of London.
While he did quit his job as a lab technician, he wasn't satisfied to sit around doing nothing, so he launched a second career as a driving instructor for police officers. Copeland did take an occasional vacation, but he continued to live modestly, saying the thing he valued most wasn't material goods but the control he had over his own time.
When speaking to reporters in 2006 about his life post-lottery win, he stated:
My money has all been carefully invested, and I spend the same that I did each week when I was a lab technician - old habits die hard. The last thing I bought was actually a tin of baked beans.
He added that he left his driving instructor position so he could take up part-time work as a chauffeur. He explained this about his low-key job:
It could be picking up important business individuals/clients from an airport to your place of work for a meeting, or, perhaps, you are a busy CEO who needs a regular driver to drive you to business meetings around the UK.
Copeland says that he's content to work at a profession he enjoys and that his big win hasn't really changed his outlook on life.
Back to work
For UK resident James Clarkson, the most challenging part of winning the lottery was convincing people he was really a winner. He was sleeping at his girlfriend's house on January 4, 2025, when he checked his numbers early in the morning.
His eyes went wide when he saw that his ticket matched the winners, and he tried to wake up his girlfriend to celebrate. Groggy in the early morning hours, she thought he had to be joking, told him 'no, you haven't won', and went back to sleep.
It wasn't until Clarkson called into the lottery hotline later that day and verified his ticket was a winner that anyone believed he was now a multi-millionaire.
After confirming the win and collecting his money, Clarkson enjoyed a celebratory roast beef and champagne dinner at his grandparents' house. The next day, he went back to work as an apprentice heating system installer and told reporters that he had no intention of quitting his job.
James says that he's always appreciated the value of hard work. After leaving school during the COVID-19 pandemic, he found a position as an apprentice bricklayer before going to work for his father, who installed and maintained heating systems.
He attributes his strong work ethic to his family, stating:
I know people might think I'm mad to still work, but I want to and, of course, there'll be some nice holidays in between. I need to have a purpose in life, plus dad wouldn't let me not work anyway.
That's not to say he didn't treat himself at all. He planned a vacation to Cape Verde, paid off his parents' mortgage, and bought a new Audi. "If you drove a cold work van all day, going from job to job, you'd understand," he told reporters.
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