Tauranga retiree wins $1 million in March Bonus Bonds draw

A retired Tauranga woman has won $1 million. File photo/Warren Buckland

A Tauranga retiree is planning a special trip for her husband after a $1 million Bonus Bonds windfall.

The woman, who has asked to remain anonymous, found out she was the winner of the grand prize for March on her wedding anniversary.

When she got the call, she thought it was for her husband and passed him the phone.

"I thought, 'oh this can't be for me'. When my husband handed me back the phone my jaw dropped – I had won a million dollars," she said.

"How tall would a pile of money of that amount be?" she asked him.

"I'd never seen money like that before in my life," she said.

She said her only big purchase would be taking her train-obsessed husband to Australia to ride heritage trains.

She also planned to reinvest some winnings back into the scheme, which doles out prizes between $5 and $1m to bondholders each month instead of interest or investment gains.

"We live in a retirement village so it's different than if we had our own place which we could do up. We have a good life here, so there's no need to spend it at the moment," said the winner.

She said she bought her bonds 16 years ago with the little bit of money her mother left when she died.

"If it weren't for her I wouldn't have won the grand prize."

She had previously won $5000.

"I thought, 'alright that's my big win' and never thought I'd receive a prize larger. Wasn't I wrong?"