For Lisa Arcand, winning $1 million in the lottery helped make her dreams come true. Or so she thought.
She took the earnings and bought a house and new furniture, went on a couple of vacations, enrolled her son in Central Catholic and opened a restaurant on Merrimack Street in Lawrence.
Then reality struck.
“Winning the lottery is not all it’s cracked up to be,” said Arcand, 42, a single mom and lifelong Lawrence resident. “Actually, it’s been very depressing.”
Today, less than four years after striking it rich on a scratch ticket, Arcand has decided to close her dream business — Fisherman’s Corner.
“I emptied my savings to get this place,” she said last month, standing behind the counter of the nearly empty eatery she opened just five months ago. “Now I’m behind on my bills.”
Unfortunately, Arcand’s story is a familiar one.
Many lottery winners end up worse off than they were before they won, says Susan Bradley, a certified financial planner who runs a practice specializing in helping people who come into sudden wealth.
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28-10-2007, 14:55
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