A New Brunswick nurse is ‘set for life’ after winning a $675,000 lottery prize last month.
Mariette Cleven of Maugerville, N.B., bought her winning Set for Life ticket on Dec. 13, 2024, which happened to fall on a Friday.
She scratched her winning ticket while talking with her brother on the phone.
“He told me he never wins anything more than a couple of dollars when he buys tickets,” Cleven said in a news release from Atlantic Lottery.
“I barely got off the phone with him and there it was: ‘Set for Life.’”
Cleven then sent a photo to her brother and daughter to share her big news.
Set for Life is a $4 Scratch’N Win ticket that offers winners two options for their prize. They can either receive $1,000 a week for 25 years, or a lump sum payment of $675,000.
Cleven chose the lump sum payment.
“I think I’m still feeling a little overwhelmed,” Cleven said. “We never really had much, so I’ve been feeling overwhelmed thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, all this money is going to be coming in.’”
Cleven says she plans to pay for her daughter and son’s education and travel to the Magdalen Islands, Iceland and the Netherlands.
Cleven also plans to continue working but may retire a few years earlier.
“I was a single parent for a really long time and things were rough for a long time,” Cleven said. “The first half of my life I thought was hard, but the next half is going to be really good.”
Cleven bought her ticket at Oromocto Plaza Lotto Booth in Oromocto, N.B., which will receive a one per cent seller’s prize.