'I like 100 times their salary a little bit better, because it gives them a cushion,' he says. Pagliarini's rule of thumb is to multiply your current salary by anywhere from 70 to 100 to get a good idea of what you'd need to survive on at your current spending rate over the next several decades. That's just above the country's median household income: $70,784, according to the U.S. If you stash that money in a low-risk investment portfolio, you could then safely withdraw 4% of it annually, which would be $70,800.
Your payout would be roughly $2.9 million, resulting in a take-home amount around $1.77 million after accounting for roughly 40% in federal and state tax bills, depending on where you live.
Say you win a $4.47 million lottery jackpot, and opt to take lump sum payout - typically about 66% of the total advertised jackpot, Pagliarini notes - over the annuity option, which splits a larger total amount into annual installments paid out over 29 years.
