Nagging wife, sausage help man win lottery

Young New Zealand couple says they've had a 'rough' couple of years

Video: Wonderful World

'Renewal and Remembrance' at Arlington National Cemetery
July 13: Phil Fogarty, Founder of the "Renewal & Remembrance" Project at Arlington National cemetery explains why his group uses their skills to beautify the cemetery and give back to the men and women who gave their lives for their country.

Blind climbers scale Mt. Kilimanjaro

A trio of monkey babies in Indonesia

Baby boom at Tokyo zoo

Watch the ISS orbit the earth

Your turn!

Inspirational athletes
In honor of the 2008 Olympics, we're celebrating the athletes in your own life who inspire greatness.

Giving

Courtesey Patti Stanger

'Matchmaker' lends hand to cancer patients
Cause Celeb talks with Patti Stanger, CEO of The Millionaire's Club matchmaking service, about her work on behalf of the City of Hope cancer center.

Arquette to live in box for 2 days

Shriners may downsize some hospitals

Latest Buffett lunch auctions for $1.7 million

Newsweek: First lady reaches out to D.C.’s poor

Willie Garson touts adoptions in U.S.

Breaking news alerts (about 1 per day)
Click here to sign up or text NEWS to MSNBC (67622).

Find more alerts at alerts.msnbc.com

updated 11:38 p.m. ET Dec. 8, 2008

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - A "nagging" wife who pushed her husband to buy a lottery ticket helped scoop the $4.2 million ($7.7 million New Zealand dollar) first prize — with only minutes to spare. The man from New Zealand's biggest city, Auckland, bought his ticket just two minutes before ticket sales closed Saturday night.

"My wife had been nagging me all week to get a ticket, so I when saw the Lotto sign ... I sprinted in to get the ticket before they closed," said the man, who asked not to be identified — normal practice among lottery winners in New Zealand.

"I must have been their last customer of the night," he said, adding that the young married couple had had a "rough" couple of years, reduced to one income after having children.

Story continues below ↓

advertisement | your ad here

"I have never been so glad to listen to my wife's nagging," the man said Tuesday.

He discovered their newly won fortune Sunday thanks to his wife's request for a barbecued sausage.

'All I wanted was a sausage'
Out shopping for bargains, the man said he didn't have enough money to buy his wife the sausage she'd asked him for. So he decided to check his Saturday lottery ticket in case he'd won a small prize.

"I could not believe it when they said I was actually the big winner," he said.

When he showed the printout to his wife, she initially thought they had won $4,200.

"When she realized how much it really was, she fell to the floor, and then said: 'but all I wanted was a sausage.'"