Relocating from West Van to New Westminster this spring was an auspicious move for Anita Kallberg.
The newly minted local won $675,000 in the Set for Life lottery this month with a scratch-and-win ticket she bought at Popeye’s Smoke & Gifts in Westminster Centre uptown.
“I usually buy the Set for Life, so I had $10 on one (winning ticket) and a free ticket on the other,” Kallberg told the Record. “I just was walking out of London Drugs, and I remembered that I had them in my purse, so I stopped at the little smoke shop there and got three tickets.”
When she finally got around the scratching the winning ticket a couple hours after she got home, she was in disbelief.
“No f---ing way; I can’t believe this,” she remembered saying.
She just had to phone someone with the news, she said, but her husband was working and didn’t pick up, so her daughter and sister were the first to hear the good news.
“People can’t believe it,” said Kallberg, who owns a photography business with her husband.
The couple decided to take the $675,000 payout instead of the $1,000 a week for 25 years, but they have yet to decide what they’re going to do with the money.
Kallberg said they might take a trip after paying off debts and squirrelling some cash away for retirement.
“When you work for yourself, you don’t really get holidays,” she said. “We’ve been married for 40 years, I think we could have a holiday now.”
