North Carolina Woman Finds Lost $532k Lottery Ticket After 5 Months
A North Carolina woman is breathing a sigh of relief today, after she found a lost winning North Carolina Education Lottery Cash 5 lottery ticket, worth $532,234, after it had been missing since September.
Ana Maya of Graham is thanking her lucky stars that she happened to find the ticket just a few weeks before the March 6 expiration date.
“These last couple of months have been very stressful trying to find it,” Maya said. “I totally forgot where I put it.”
Maya, a 32-year-old customer service worker, bought her Quick Pick ticket on September 6 from Huff’s Interstate in Burlington. But she was in the process of moving when she hit the $532,234 jackpot. She had packed the ticket away for safe keeping, but apparently it was a little too safe.
Fortunately for Maya, as she unpacked more boxes from her move, she found the North Carolina Education Lottery ticket she had lost, Tuesday in an old notebook from high school. Right where she had placed it to keep it safe.
“I was very, very relieved when I finally found it,” Maya said. “That was the last place I would have looked.”
Maya plans to use the $346,005 she took home after state and federal taxes to put money aside for her two small kids, pay some bills, invest some, and take a well-deserved vacation.
Cash 5 is one of four lottery games in North Carolina where players have the option of buying their tickets through Online Play, either through the lottery’s website or with the NC Lottery Official Mobile App. Cash 5 tickets are $1 and drawings are held every night.
Hopefully Maya is able to manage that money well. Many North Carolina cities fall well short in national rankings when it comes to smart money habits. Here’s where nearly every city ranks:
Several North Carolina Cities Among Worst in Country For Money Management
No. 329 - Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill
87th percentile, median credit score of 758
No. 931 - Fuquay-Varina
Fuquay-Varina
64th percentile, median credit score of 736
No. 1208 - Hickory
Hickory, NC
53rd percentile, median credit score of 695
No. 1506 - Wilmington
Wilmington, NC
41st percentile, median credit score of 705
No. 1765 - Greensboro
Greensboro, NC
31st percentile, median credit score of 675
No. 2096 - Monroe
Monroe, NC
19th percentile, median credit score of 677
National No. 1 - Scarsdale, NY
Scarsdale, New York
99th percentile, median credit score of 768
National No. 6 - Princeton, NJ
Princeton, New Jersey
99th percentile, median credit score of 765
It's Not All Bad News...Here's Some "Happy" News
Cheer Up: What's the Happiest City in North Carolina?
No. 27 - Raleigh
Raleigh comes out as the happiest city in North Carolina, largely thanks to a rank of No. 23 in Emotional & Physical Well Being.
- Emotional & Physical Well Being: 23
- Income & Employment: 71
- Community & Environment: 63
- Total Score: 62.35
No. 168 - Fayetteville
It’s not that things are all unhappy around Fayetteville, it’s just that we didn’t exactly score well in a lot of the key factors for this study. Fayetteville does rank as the least happy of the major North Carolina cities in the study. Just behind Fayetteville overall is Jackson, Mississippi and Birmingham, Alabama.
Fayetteville also took a hit, coming in at No. 181 on Lowest Income Growth and No. 180 on Most Work Hours.
- Emotional & Physical Well Being: 161
- Income & Employment: 155
- Community & Environment: 171
- Total Score: 40.83
No. 3 - San Francisco, California
- Emotional & Physical Well Being: 4
- Income & Employment: 1
- Community & Environment: 44
- Total Score: 71.15
No. 7 - Seattle, Washington
- Emotional & Physical Well Being: 6
- Income & Employment: 2
- Community & Environment: 99
- Total Score: 67.67
No. 180 - Memphis, Tennessee
- Emotional & Physical Well Being: 176
- Income & Employment: 181
- Community & Environment: 172
- Total Score: 34.86
No. 182 - Detroit, Michigan
- Emotional & Physical Well Being: 179
- Income & Employment: 179
- Community & Environment: 177
- Total Score: 32.31
