Man went to shop to return orange juice and came home £250 million richer

Imagine if something you bought on a whim while returning orange juice at a shop propelled you to unimaginable fortune.

That's what happened to one man in 2018 after he bought a bottle of juice that his wife said was too expensive, leaving New Jersey man Tayeb Souami to pop back to the shops and return it.

He'd bought the carton of juice for $5 (£4) but the family was having to budget very strictly and decided that was too much to be spending on orange juice.

Tasked with returning the drink and finding something cheaper, Tayeb spotted an advert for the Powerball lottery along the way and the thought 'why not' wormed its way into his head.

He went to the shop to return a carton of orange juice and ended up buying a winning lottery ticket (CBS New York)

I'm sure many of you have had the same thought whether or not you play the lottery, that at some point you'll get a ticket and it'll be your turn to become incredibly rich, and Tayeb thought he might as well take a chance.

If he won then he'd have an amazing fortune and if he lost then it wasn't that expensive a purchase in the grand scheme of things.

The bloke ended up buying two lottery tickets but largely forgot about them and didn't actually check the numbers, but next day while washing the car he remembered what he'd bought and took his tickets in to be scanned.

The first one came up with zilch, a waste of money, but when he scanned the second one it flashed up the message 'must be seen by the retailer'.

He remembered the cashier saying 'oh my god, oh my god' before she told him he'd won 'very big'.

You can probably tell where this is going, as Tayeb learned he'd only gone and won the lottery to bag himself a $315 million (£250 million) jackpot.

As for what he spent the money on, he said he'd be able to pay for his children's education and that 'I love orange juice now'.

"You could become a millionaire too, you just have to buy us first. The orange juice will sort it out for you." (Getty Stock Photo)

There's possibly another reason why the cashier was so excited that somebody had the winning ticket as the shop that sells it is entitled to a slim, but still very meaningful cut of the proceeds.

Of course like many lottery winners there's a choice between getting the money all at once in a lump sum that's below the stated amount or receiving the whole chunk in instalments over a much longer period of time.

Should you ever be lucky enough to win the lottery, whether or not you got your ticket while returning orange juice, one of the biggest pieces of advice you'll get is not to be too generous with it.

That may sound a bit mean but so many lottery winners have been inundated with requests for cash and found that before long they've given away much of their fortune while the money has also irreparably changed the relationships they have with people around them.