A North East carer, who looks after children with disabilities, has won a whopping £10,000 every month for the next 30 years. Joanne Jobson, 51, from Hartlepool, County Durham, plans to use her life-changing lottery win to buy a house and go on holidays all over the world.
Joanne found out she had hit the National Lottery’s Set For Life jackpot in February, waking up after a night shift and seeing a message on her phone from the lottery company. Joanne, who has been living with her mum while saving up to buy her own house, couldn’t believe it at first.
She said: “I logged onto my account and couldn’t believe what I was reading, I had to re-read the message several times as I thought it was telling me what ‘I could win’, not what I had ‘actually won’.”
She was so excited that she jumped out of bed to tell her mum, recalling: “I remember just saying to mum ‘I think I might have won a lot of money! ‘ and showing her my phone … mum was convinced it was a scam.”
Joanne never thought she would actually win the lottery, adding: “Never in my wildest dreams did I think when I played that I’d actually win I didn’t think things like this happened to real people like me, but I’m proof they really do!”
To make sure she had really won, Joanne looked up the winning Set For Life numbers for February 22 on Google, finding out that her numbers – 16, 17, 19, 23, 38 and Life Ball 5 – were the winning ones. After checking her lottery ticket many times, Ms Jobson called the National Lottery and they too told her she had won.
But since it was late on a Friday, they said they would call her back on Monday. Ms Jobson then went to work for her night shift, explaining: “I needed to get to work and didn’t want to let my colleagues down so as if on autopilot, I got ready for my shift.”
At work, she couldn’t keep the news to herself and shared it with her team. She added: “Once I got to work I couldn’t help but tell the team what had happened … it ended up being quite a lively shift after that as everyone was so happy and excited for me.
“Even then, I was still reluctant to let myself believe that it was actually real. By Sunday I was exhausted and I finally said to my mum that perhaps it was time to hand in my notice.”
When she told her sisters about the win, they cried. Joanne, recalled: “It was very emotional for us all … I think that was the moment when it finally sank in for me too that I really had won.”
Ms Jobson wants to take her family on holidays to places like Barbados and the Maldives, or maybe even a world cruise with her winnings. She’s also looking for a house to buy. She added: “I’ve been living with my mum trying to save for my own place but was still some way off from making that move happen it’s amazing I can now make that dream a reality.
“At 51, this win literally changes everything for me, I now have peace of mind knowing I’m financially secure until I’m 81! I’m going from working nights and saving hard to being able to buy things when I want and plan holidays I could only have dreamt of before.
“I still can’t believe that I’ve won, it’s absolutely life-changing for me.”
Join our WhatsApp communities
Robert Johnson is a UK-based business writer specializing in finance and entrepreneurship. With an eye for market trends and a keen interest in the corporate world, he offers readers valuable insights into business developments.
