More budgeting tips from a guest writer:

Never dip into your savings in the hope of winning the lottery. If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen.  Spending your life savings won’t help you if you lose it all.  Only spend what you can afford to lose.

When you buy one lottery ticket, your odds of winning go from zero to one-in-eighteen million or so. When you buy two lottery tickets, your odds of winning go from one-in-eighteen million to two-in-eighteen million. The numbers improve, but you need to buy literally thousands to see a significant increase in your chances.

By all means, get in the game. But remember that buying a hundred tickets per week doesn’t increase your odds of winning that much.  Bear in mind the more tickets you buy the more chance your sharing your list of numbers with someone else.

So, in short, the important budgeting tip here, is spend only what you can afford to spend and only on the numbers you really want to play.