Oakland County woman wins $4 million while buying family's Thanksgiving feast

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An Oakland County woman said she bought a $4 million scratch-off ticket when she happened to go to Kroger for the family's Thanksgiving feast.

TROY, Mich. (FOX 2) - This past Thanksgiving, an Oakland County had about 4 million reasons to be thankful after she happened to buy a $30 scratch-off ticket - and won $4 million.

The 49-year-old woman, who was able to remain anonymous, said she bought the ticket at the Kroger on Coolidge Highway in Troy on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Fate nearly made it someone else's big winner - as she and her husband debated who was going to go buy the Thanksgiving bird.

"It was the day before Thanksgiving, and my husband asked if I could run to the store and buy a turkey since he didn’t have time to," she said. "After going back and forth about who was going to go to the store since we were both busy, I agreed to. I purchased the turkey and then stopped and bought a VIP Millions ticket on my way out."

With that decision, and a stroke of luck, she walked away with her Thanksgiving meal centerpiece and a hopefully lucky ticket.

"When I got home and scratched the ticket, I saw I’d matched one of my numbers, but I didn’t scratch the winning amount. I logged in to the Lottery app and scanned the ticket on the app scanner. When confetti came up on the screen showing I’d won $4 million, I started shaking and felt like I couldn’t breathe. My family thought I was having a heart attack!"

The woman said that it was an extreme turn of fortune that she - and not her husband - went to the store that day.

"I’m so glad that I ended up going to the store, because if my husband would have gone, we wouldn’t be here claiming a $4 million prize!"

The woman went to Lansing recently to claim her prize and took the lump sum payment of $2.7 million. She's going to pay bills, complete some renovations on her home, and then save the rest for retire.

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