The first $250,000 Money Match top prize will bring DeeDee Haberle a new place to call home.

“I have been living with my daughter and her husband and my granddaughter and have been in the process of trying to get my own place and this is going to bring me that,” said Haberle of Winston-Salem.

She purchased her winning $5 ticket from Three Brothers By-Lo on Reynolda Road in Winston-Salem.

On Sunday night, Haberle sat with her daughter at the kitchen table and watched her scratch off the tickets.

“I have Parkinson’s so it’s hard for me to do the scratching,” she explained. “It was the first ticket that she went to scratch. She got to the very last number and I could kind of see and she looked down at the number and I looked down at the number, and then she looked at me and I looked at her. We were just totally gob smacked!”

Haberle claimed her prize Monday at lottery headquarters in Raleigh. After required federal and state tax withholdings, she took home $176,876.

“It’s just so thrilling to think, particularly at this time of the year, that joy and that happiness would come into our family,” said Haberle.

The $250,000 Money Match game launched in November with four top prizes of $250,000. Three top 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.