MANDEVILLE, Louisiana — If you've been putting off tidying up the house, let this serve as an incentive.
Harold and Tina Ehrenberg, a couple from Mandeville, Louisiana, were cleaning up for Thanksgiving guests when they found a lottery ticket they'd purchased months earlier. It turned out to be worth $1.8 million.
"We have family coming into town for Thanksgiving, so I was cleaning up the house and found a few Lottery tickets on my nightstand that we hadn't checked," Tina Ehrenberg said in a statement released by the Louisiana Lottery.
It's a good thing the couple found the ticket when they did. The drawing was June 6. Theirs was the only winning ticket.
Had they waited two more weeks, they'd have gotten zip; the window to claim the prize — 180 days — would have closed.
The pair said they couldn't believe their good fortune.
"I called the winning numbers hotline over and over," Tina Ehrenberg said.
Added Harold Ehrenberg: "We kept checking the numbers again and again!"
After taxes, the couple took home $1.2 million, which they plan to put toward retirement.
"We don't have any plans to buy anything crazy or go on any big trips," Tina Ehrenberg said.
"The most fun," her husband added, "is going to be depositing that check."
