Man went to grocery store for hot dogs sees a sign at the service desk. His impulse decision made him $107,000 richer

Joseph Bednarek from Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, had no idea his regular grocery run would change his life. His wife Ellen asked him to buy hot dogs from the Pick ‘N Save store on Pioneer Road. He thought it would be a quick trip, but something caught his eye.

According to CBS 58, Bednarek saw a sign at the service desk that stopped him in his tracks. The Badger 5 lottery jackpot had grown to $96,000. He happened to have a $10 bill in his pocket, which was more than he usually spent on tickets. “And I looked, I backed up and saw $96,000. All I had left was a $10 bill. Normally I buy five and I went there and, ‘oh well, give me $10 worth,'” Bednarek said.

That quick choice at the service desk ended up winning him $107,000. The final amount he received was higher than what the sign showed because more people bought tickets before the drawing happened.

This couple has always had good luck

Joseph and Ellen have been married for 21 years, and lucky moments seem to happen often for them. Ellen still laughs when she talks about their wedding day and how she got a tribal chief to marry them even though Joseph thought it was impossible.

“And I said ‘what if I could get us married by the tribal chief?’ And he says, ‘I don’t think they do that.’ I said, ‘watch me,'” Ellen remembered.

The most money Bednarek had won from the lottery before this was $400. When he checked his ticket after buying it, he thought he made a mistake. 

“I just kept looking at it. What did I do wrong? Did I write them down wrong? I called up two or three times, the lottery hotline, they give you all the numbers,” Joseph explained. He asked Ellen to look at the numbers too, and she saw that they really did match.

The Badger 5 game is only for Wisconsin and lets people pick five numbers between 1 and 31. They draw the winning numbers every Wednesday and Saturday night. Your chances of winning depend on how many of your numbers match the drawn numbers. While this supermarket trip had a happy ending, not all grocery store stories turn out so well.

The Bednareks already know what they want to do with the money. They plan to pay off what they owe on their camper and get a new roof put on their house. 

Joseph joked about spending what would be left over after that. “The rest of the few thousand we’ll probably fill up our gas tank 10 times. That’ll be it,” he said with a laugh.

After Bednarek won, the Badger 5 jackpot went back down to $10,000, which is where it always starts. The prize money gets bigger with each drawing until someone wins it. Unlike some shocking family deceptions that make headlines, this story shows how real luck can happen when you least expect it.