Lotto ways to spend lucky loot
Grigoriy Shuba, 33, bought a $10 Set for Life scratchoff lottery ticket at a Midwood grocery store after he dropped off some jeans at his tailor.
The ticket turned out to be a $5 million winner.
“It came to me as a shock,” he told reporters Wednesday as he held a giant check during a press conference in lower Manhattan.
“I didn’t know I won,” he added. “It didn’t register right away.”
Shuba, who frequently played the lottery before his big win, plans to use the money to finish paying for school and to buy a house.
But he has no intention of taking it easy the rest of his life — and intends to finish his college studies.
“I’m going to work 10 times harder,” he boasted.
His $5 million score comes out to $2.3 million after taxes.
Another fortunate Brooklyn winner, James Pruitt, used a $75 win to buy two more $350 Million Cash Spectacular tickets.
One of those ducats won the $10 million jackpot.
But Pruitt struggled to figure out exactly what she had won at the Lex Newsstand, so she called her husband. He also wasn’t sure. So the next day they brought the ticket to the lottery customer service center on 15 Beaver St. A clerk there gave them the good news.
“I just couldn’t believe it,” she said. “It was spectacular.”
She plans to use the money to pay off some bills, help her daughter start a business and take a vacation to Nairobi to watch the wildebeest migration.
“I’m probably going to retire,” she said, declining to detail her job.
Pruitt will get a check for $6.3 million after taxes.
Kimberly To-Mejia, 40, was also announced as a big lottery winner.
To-Mejia, who is pregnant and due in January, was the sole winner of the $11.6 million Lotto jackpot winner from the Sept. 22 drawing.
“I wasn’t winning anything on Powerball or Mega Millions, so I decided to give Lotto a try,” she said. “I checked my ticket a few weeks after the drawing and couldn’t believe my eyes!”
The winning numbers were 1-2-1517-27-56 with a bonus number 58.
The self-described IT worker plans to take a little time off from work to spend with her family.
She also intends to go back to Asia with her family.
“I haven’t been there for a long time,” she said, noting she “rarely plays lottery.”
Her $11 million win comes out to $4.7 million after taxes.
To-Mejia chose to receive her prize as a one-time lump sum payment and will receive a net check totaling $4,702,192 after required withholdings.