Couple finds $5 on the ground and wins $400,000 after buying a lottery ticket – what experts say they should do next

Sometimes the best financial decisions start with a lucky break. For one couple, both 26 years old, that break was a $5 bill they found on the ground during a vacation — which they used to buy a lottery ticket that won them $400,000.

The husband called into The Ramsey Show last week, where financial experts George Kamel and Dr. John Delony were hosting, to get advice on what they should do with the money.

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It took both hosts about zero seconds to answer.

“I’d go buy a house in cash,” Delony said immediately. Kamel’s response: “100% in cash.”

How they did the math

The couple wasn’t starting from zero. They had recently paid off about $80,000 in debt and were earning roughly $115,000 a year combined. Their goal was to buy a $250,000 home within the next five years. After federal and state taxes, the husband estimated their winnings would net around $275,000.

That number — $275,000 in after-tax cash — sitting alongside a $250,000 target home price is something Kamel and Delony rarely see from callers. Buying the house in cash would essentially achieve in one afternoon what the couple had planned to work toward for five years.

“So making six figures at 26 completely debt-free with a paid-for house, how much are you going to be investing a month?” Kamel asked. “You’re going to be just fine. I’m not even going to use the investment calculator because I think it’ll break with that many zeros on the end.”

On any money left over after the home purchase, Kamel assured the caller they could enjoy some of it and give some of it away. Investing whatever remains made sense too, he said, but the house was the priority.

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The ‘Baby Steps’ framework behind the advice

Kamel and Delony’s recommendation flows directly from the Ramsey Solutions “7 Baby Steps” framework, a structured financial roadmap that prioritizes, in order, starting an emergency fund, paying off all non-mortgage debt, building a fully-funded emergency fund, investing 15% for retirement, saving for children’s college and then paying off the home.

The couple had already completed the debt payoff step, making the home purchase a logical next move rather than a splurge. And in this case, the windfall made it possible to skip the mortgage entirely.

Advising people to buy a home outright instead of getting a mortgage can be controversial. While buying a home in cash means you have immediate ownership and don’t have to pay interest on a loan, it also leaves you less liquid and there could be opportunity costs if you put all of your money into a home when investing some of it in stocks might yield higher returns than the interest you would have paid on a mortgage. In this case, the couple is young and being mortgage-free could help them to invest more of their income going forward, but buying a house in cash is a choice everyone should weigh based on factors including their income and current mortgage rates.

What the research says

The advice given to this couple to move quickly and deliberately reflects a broader truth about windfalls. According to the Certified Financial Planner Board, “a financial windfall can be life-changing, but without proper planning, many Americans risk mismanaging these sudden gains with potentially damaging consequences.”

Northwestern Mutual’s 2026 Planning & Progress Study found that 46% of Americans don’t expect to be financially prepared for retirement — and that 74% of those who work with a financial advisor feel confident they will be, compared to just 43% of those without one.

That confidence gap is precisely why Kamel and Delony’s immediate advice matters: having a clear plan before the money arrives is what separates good outcomes from bad ones, and can be the most reliable protection against squandering a large fortune.

The couple’s situation — debt-free, high income, clear housing goal and a windfall that neatly covers it — is the exception rather than the rule. But the lesson applies broadly: When a financial windfall arrives, you should not be jumping to buy a bunch of items you don’t really need. Instead you should be asking yourself, “What does my existing financial plan actually need right now?”

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This article originally appeared on Moneywise.com under the title: Couple finds $5 on the ground and wins $400,000 after buying a lottery ticket – what experts say they should do next

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