Worth It?

Nobody matched all six numbers in Wednesday’s Powerball drawing. That pushed the jackpot to $674 million, the third-biggest lottery prize of the year so far, according to Forbes. The next drawing is Saturday night.

That number is real. But almost no winner ever sees it. Here’s how it shrinks.

How $674 million becomes $179 million.

So the winner keeps roughly a quarter of the number on the billboard, before their state takes a cut.

The British twist. Powerball started selling tickets to players in the U.K. this year. Officials say that will make jackpots grow faster, since more tickets feed the prize pool. U.K. winners can’t take the cash option. They only get the 30 yearly payments. And the U.K. National Lottery advertises this same jackpot as £349 million (about $468 million), because its number already accounts for exchange rates and U.K. taxes. Same prize, more honest sticker.

The odds. Your chance of hitting the Powerball jackpot is 1 in 292.2 million. Mega Millions, now at $433 million with a drawing Friday night, is barely better at 1 in 290.4 million. This year’s biggest prize so far was a $1.04 billion Powerball jackpot won in Illinois in August.

Zypper’s take. Buying a ticket for fun is fine. Just know the big number is a 30-year number before taxes. The same habit helps everywhere else in money: look past the headline number and ask what actually lands in your account. That goes for jackpots, job offers and “low monthly payment” deals.

The setup. A 26-year-old associate at an apparel company in Dallas tracked a week of spending for Refinery29’s Money Diaries. She makes $53,000 a year and takes home $1,803 per paycheck, twice a month. She lives alone in a one-bedroom. She has $793.62 in savings after a Hawaii trip, and $33,386.42 in student loan and credit card debt.

The numbers. Her monthly bills, as listed in the diary:

The last three rows are our math from her numbers. Her loan payments equal one full paycheck. Rent takes most of the other one. Together, loans and rent eat about 85% of her take-home pay.

The week. Her daily totals add up to $522.34. The biggest item was $150 she finally sent a friend for her share of the Hawaii trip. Groceries were $97.99. A Walgreens run came to $56.73, partly because a lip balm she thought was on sale wasn’t. Her mom, her boss and her cousin covered a few meals. Her words: “I definitely mooched on other people for food this week.”

The backstory. She was recently passed over for a raise and says she makes the lowest salary at her company. When an aunt left her $5,000, she used most of it to pay off a credit card.

Zypper’s take. Her day-to-day spending isn’t the problem. Most days were under $100, and she cooked a lot. The squeeze is the fixed stuff that leaves before she buys a single kiwi. The easy fix is the $106 rental subscription she forgot to cancel. The bigger one is that $1,803 debt bill. Every dollar of debt she pays off frees up room in a budget that has almost none.

The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate fell to 7.41% from 7.50%, the first drop in over two months, per the Mortgage Bankers Association via CNBC. Applications to buy a home still fell 7% in a week and are 18% lower than a year ago. Refinancing is down 59%, since rates are more than a full point higher than last year.

Walmart+ and Sam’s Club Plus now come together for $120 a year, almost $100 less than paying for both separately. You get free delivery, Peacock or Paramount+, 10 cents a gallon off gas at participating stations, and 2% back in Sam’s Cash. Already paying for both? Link the accounts and most members get a prorated refund.

JustWatch, the app that tells you where to stream a movie, launched its own service. It’s free with ads, $3.99 a month without ads, or $49.99 for life for a limited time. The library is a few hundred titles. The company says the data it collects makes the lifetime deal worth it for them, which tells you what the real product is.

Americans are expected to spend a record $13.5 billion on Halloween, up from $13.1 billion last year, per the National Retail Federation. That’s $115.14 per person. Costumes ($4.4 billion) narrowly beat decorations ($4.3 billion) and candy ($4.1 billion).

TikTok’s new advice: just don’t pay the hospital — A 24-second rant about a $1,000 ER bill for a sprained ankle passed 3 million views. Read the part about what unpaid bills do to your credit before you try it.

What a $50 weekly bet really costs — Invested at 7% from age 25, that $50 a week grows to roughly $519,000 by 65. Bettors got back less than 75 cents per dollar this year.

The 30% housing rule meets reality — A median-priced home with 10% down at 7% runs $2,459 a month, already over the 30% line for a median household.

Grumpy about prices, still spending — The WSJ on why Americans keep buying even while they say the economy feels awful.

The jackpot is $674 million if you take 30 yearly payments, or $283.9 million if you take the cash now (both before taxes). Which would you pick?

Hit reply and tell me why. I read every one.