In the days leading up to my 18th birthday, I knew what one of the presents would be: lotto tickets.
A longstanding tradition in my family is for us to get a large stack of scratch cards when we reach the legal age. While I wasn't lucky like some people, I did mange to score $5 and a few free tickets.
While I thought it was a good haul for my first ever scratch cards, it's nothing compared to one 18-year-old girl who has hit the lottery jackpot.
Charlie Lagarde from Quebec, Canada won her lucrative prize of $1,000 ($775 USD) for life from the Gagnant a Vie lottery.
According to Loto-Quebec, Lagarde bought the winning ticket on March 14 when she went to her local liquor store to buy a bottle of sparkling champagne. She made a pit stop at a convenience store and decided to pick up a $4 scratch card.
Once she realized she was the winner of a massive payout, she was faced with a decision many of us only dream of: should she accept the $1,000 a week for life, or accept a lump sum of $1 million?
After discussing her options with a financial investor, Lagrade decided to accept the $1,000 payday.
"It's without taxes so it's equivalent to a salary of more than $100,000 a year, so it's a great start in life for that young lady," lottery spokesman Patrice Lavoie told The Toronto Star. "That was her first lottery ticket ever and she fell upon a winning ticket."
Now financially secure, Lagarde plans on travelling and studying photography.
"One of my dreams would be to work for National Geographic," she told Loto Québec.
While Lagarde is a lucky woman, she isn't the only teenager who's won the lottery.
Last July, 19-year-old Rosa Dominguez won the lottery not once, but twice in the same week.
The lucky lady was travelling back home from Arizona to California when she decided to buy a few lottery tickets after stopping at a gas station in in San Luis Obispo County, California. After starching off her $5 Power 5's ticket, she realized she won a staggering $555,555.
"I was so nervous I just wanted to cry," Dominguez told officials from the California Lottery.
But, her luck didn't end there. A few days later, Dominguez decided to buy another lotto ticket at her local Valero gas station in Greenfield and purchased a $5 Lucky Fortune Scratcher. To everyone's astonishment, she won another $100,000.
When asked what she plans to do with her whopping winnings, the teenager said she plans on going shopping and buying a new car.
What would you do if you won the lottery?
[H/T: CBC, PEOPLE, Toronto Star]