Wife goes to store for Thanksgiving turkey — and returns with $4M Michigan lottery win

The day before Thanksgiving, a man asked his wife if she could buy a turkey because he didn’t have time to pick one up. But she was busy, too.

“After going back and forth about who was going to go to the store since we were both busy, I agreed to,” the 49-year-old woman told Michigan Lottery officials.

That decision has her feeling extra thankful this year.

Because after buying the turkey at a Kroger grocery story in Troy, the Oakland County woman said she “stopped and bought a VIP Millions ticket on (her) way out.”

The wife returned home with the turkey — and the VIP Millions instant game, according to a Dec. 21 news release from the Michigan Lottery.

“When I got home and scratched the ticket, I saw I’d matched one of my numbers, but I didn’t scratch the winning amount,” she said in the release. “I logged in to the Lottery app and scanned the ticket on the app scanner.”

It was then that she realized her trip to buy a Thanksgiving turkey had led to a $4 million lottery win.

“When confetti came up on the screen showing I’d won $4 million, I started shaking and felt like I couldn’t breathe,” she said. “My family thought I was having a heart attack!”

She recently went to claim her prize, officials said, and she was given two options — 30 annual payments worth the full $4 million, or a one-time payment worth about $2.7 million.

The wife, who chose to remain anonymous, chose the lump sum payment, according to the news release. Now she plans to pay bills, renovate her home and save for retirement.

“I’m so glad that I ended up going to the store, because if my husband would have gone, we wouldn’t be here claiming a $4 million prize,” she said.

Troy, in Oakland County, is part of the Detroit metropolitan area.

This story was originally published December 22, 2022 at 10:22 AM with the headline "Wife goes to store for Thanksgiving turkey — and returns with $4M Michigan lottery win."