Super sweet Valentine's gift: Halifax couple celebrates lottery win
Now set for life, Dustin Ellsworth and Mark Boudreau plan to rip up their mortgage
Dustin Ellsworth needs to thank his armpits when he pays off his mortgage on Friday.
"I actually needed deodorant, so that's why we went to Shoppers Drug Mart," he said of his spontaneous decision to buy a scratch-and-win ticket last week.
In the final block of the game, he scratched three matching parasols.
Ellsworth plays so rarely that he got his mom to check the ticket to see whether he won.
"I went to my mom and I asked her, 'Did we win?' And her reaction gave it away."
Ellsworth, who is originally from Gros Morne, N.L., and his husband, Mark Boudreau, then called Atlantic Lottery.
"[We] called the customer service rep and read her the numbers and put her on speaker phone and she said, 'Congratulations, you're set for life!'" said Boudreau who is still emotional about the win.
"We hugged and cried for 15 minutes."
Appointment to pay off the mortgage
The couple has decided to take a lump sum of $675,000, rather than getting $1,000 a week for 25 years.
Their next call was to the bank, to make an appointment to pay off the mortgage on the Halifax house they bought just one year ago.
"We went through the papers yesterday because we needed to find something and we just started throwing them all into our shredder box, and I said, 'Oh, we don't need this, we don't need this!'"
"I feel very happy, obviously, but I feel very humbled, very fortunate," said Boudreau.
"What I can tell you is that Dustin and I, when we were younger, really struggled with a lot of issues financially at home and money has always been a worry.
"It gives a little freedom for us to not have those daily worries and to do something special for ourselves."
Ellsworth, 31, has also quit his job at the Halifax Regional Centre for Education.
"Now I can pursue something that is more meaningful for me."
Once they pay off their debts, the couple plans to go on an overdue honeymoon. It's something they've been wanting to do since they got married two years ago.
That's not the only trip in their future.
Hoping to see Cher
Boudreau is a superfan of Cher, and he plans to see her take the stage for a 17th time.
"We [couldn't] afford a fence or to finish our basement, yet I was going to see Cher," he told reporters of his passion for the singer over the years.
"She just announced a world tour so I'm hoping we can snag some tickets."
"We can do whatever you want to do," Ellsworth said with a smile.