There’s A New Millionaire In Clewiston Florida – Jose Ortiz

Congratulations to Jose Ortiz in Clewiston who scored big with the Florida Lottery. Jose bought a  CASH4LIFE ticket at Clewiston Jiffy and won $1,000 a Week for Life! What brought Jose to that Marathon station is unknown, but it was clearly the move. In a trick that I didn't know you could do, Jose took his winnings as a one-time, lump-sum payment of $1,000,000.00. I'm impatient and would probably do the same thing.

A day of Sonny's BBQ and fishing on Lake Okeechobee. Congrats my guy.

As Forrest Gump once said ""So then I got a call from him, saying we don't have to worry about money no more. And I said, 'That's good! ' One less thing."

I just learned that April is Stress Awareness Month. So what has Florida stressed out? A lot of different things, actually. According to Wallethub, 83% of adults are stressed out from inflation. But there's so many other things to worry about, too. Like Fort Myers traffic. Or Naples insane rent prices. And hurricanes. Taking a look at the overall state, let's see how Florida stacks up against the others.

To determine the states with the highest stress levels, WalletHub compared all 50 states across 41 key metrics. The diverse data set ranges from average hours worked per week,  the personal bankruptcy rate, to the share of adults getting adequate sleep. A lot of these factors can compound each other. Here's how Florida ranks against the other states. It seems like we aren't worried about losing our jobs, but we are worried about our spouse and whether or not we can pay rent!

Stress Levels in Florida (1=Most Stressed, 25=Avg.):

The job security part actually makes sense as Florida has a very low unemployment rate of 2.6%, and forecasted faster-than-national average economic growth rate. I think if they just polled Southwest Florida, 'driving in traffic' would rank high on the stress test. So how do we rank up against everyone else? Middle of the pack, actually.

Notes: *No. 1 = Most Stressed
With the exception of “Total Score,” all of the columns in the table above depict the relative rank of that state, where a rank of 1 represents the worst conditions for that metric category.

In order to determine the most and least stressed states, WalletHub compared the 50 states across four key dimensions: 1) Work-Related Stress, 2) Money-Related Stress, 3) Family-Related Stress, 4) Health- & Safety-Related Stress.

We evaluated those dimensions using 41 relevant metrics, which are listed below with their corresponding weights. Each metric was graded on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing the highest level of stress.

We then determined each state’s weighted average across all metrics to calculate its overall score and used the resulting scores to rank-order the states.

Data used to create this ranking were collected from U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, FINRA Investor Education Foundation, Council for Community and Economic Research, Administrative Office of the United States Courts, TransUnion, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Child Care Aware of America, National Partnership for Women & Families, Sharecare’s “Community Well-Being Index”, Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Kaiser Family Foundation and The Road Information Program.