For Nicki Condon of Kannapolis, winning a $100,000 Millionaire Bucks prize will bring a new beginning for the new year.

“I am paying off all of my bills and making a fresh start!” she said.

Condon, who works as a nurse, purchased her winning $20 ticket from the QuikTrip on Dale Earnhardt Boulevard in Kannapolis.

“The day before I had bought one of those Millionaire Bucks tickets and my husband scratched half and I scratched half,” she said. “And he won $200!"

The next day while running errands, the couple stopped and cashed in their first winning ticket.

“I said, ‘We’ll stop in at that same QuikTrip and get another ticket because we’re already ahead,’” she recalled. “And the part that I scratched off was the $100,000. And I just kept saying, ‘No way! No way! No way!’ I must have said it like a thousand times. And then I just started jumping up and down.”

Condon claimed her prize Monday at lottery headquarters in Raleigh and took home $70,756 after required federal and state tax withholdings.

After paying off her bills, she has one more idea for how to spend the prize money. “We’ll be married 30 years next year, so maybe a nice anniversary vacation next year,” she said.

Millionaire Bucks launched in June with four top prizes of $4 million and six $100,000 prizes. One top prize and two $100,000 prizes remain to be won.

Ticket sales from scratch-offs make it possible for the lottery to raise more than $725 million per year for education. For details on how lottery funds have helped all of North Carolina’s 100 counties, click on the “Impact” section of the lottery’s website.