There; I’ve said it. The guilt of carrying around my deep secret just got too much to bear; I need to come clean and confess that every week, I buy “Three Lotto Max tickets (with Encore).” This costs me $16 a week or $832 a year. But I forget some weeks (I’m old), and I’m out of the country other weeks (I wander), so let’s make that $600 a year.

Please don’t tell me I could find a better way to invest or spend that $600. I know a lottery is a tax on the mathematically challenged. As Morgan Housel said: “Buying a lottery ticket is the only time in our lives we can hold a tangible dream of getting the good stuff that we already have and take for granted.”

Read on…