By Audrey Levine, Staff Writer
Just four questions away from becoming a millionaire, Erin Jones, formerly of Hillsborough, made what she called an “easy” decision when she accepted a check for $50,000 after answering the timeless question, “Is that your final answer?”
”I promised myself that once I got to $25,000, I would be more conservative,” said Ms. Jones, 27, whose two October-taped episodes of ABC’s “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” aired Tuesday and Wednesday. “I tried not to take wild guesses. (On the $100,000 question), I didn’t feel I should go for it.”
The game show, which first aired in the United States in 1999, asks contestants 15 multiple choice questions, with money values assigned to each. Every few questions have guaranteed money, with the final question being worth $1 million. Contestants are given four different lifelines (when they can phone a friend for help) throughout the progression of the questions to assist in finding the correct answer.
If a contestant answers a question incorrectly, the person is automatically awarded the money from the previously passed guaranteed level.
After using knowledge she has accrued over the years, the help of a friend earning a doctorate in math at Columbia University for a math-related question and a total of three of her four lifelines, Ms. Jones said she is happy to have walked out with the money she did.
In looking back, Ms. Jones said, $50,000 is a great amount of money for someone who has been living paycheck-to-paycheck as a freelance Web editor in New York City for the past five years after moving out of Hillsborough where she lived from age 5.
”It is very expensive living in New York City,” she said. “And I hadn’t put a lot of savings away.”
The idea to actually try to be on the television show, Ms. Jones said, came to her on a whim one day while she was just watching it. She said she thought to herself that she should try out and decided not to pass up the opportunity.
”I submitted my name online, and got an e-mail to come to ABC studios for a test,” she said. “If you passed, you went on to the next round.”
After the test with about 30 questions concerning history and current events and for which contestants were only given about 10 minutes Ms. Jones said she was one of only 12 people, from the initial 105, who passed.
”After that I thought, ‘I guess I have a shot,’” she said.
But once she entered the studio and sat down in the hot seat, Ms. Jones said she was a “nervous wreck” as she faced the questions to reach $1,000, the first milestone on the show. She said these five were actually the hardest questions to answer.
”We tend to over-think things, and they’re actually very simple questions,” she said. “But you only have 15 seconds to answer them. Once I hit $1,000, I started to relax.”
Despite still having a time limit for answering the remainder of the questions, Ms. Jones said reaching that first hurdle for guaranteed money was the cue that allowed her to relax for questions that included ones about the Bible, the United States Constitution and math vocabulary.
Aside from her parents Jeralyn and Russell Jones, of Steeple Drive and her fiancé David, among a few other close relatives, who came to the taping of the shows, Ms. Jones said she was not allowed to share the outcome with anyone until the episodes aired.
In addition, she said, she is not actually given the money until after those dates.
”I have a big family and, at the holidays, they tried very hard to get me to tell what I won,” she said. “But my family was totally excited about this. They started buying seats (in the audience) once they found out.”
Now that she will receive the money, Ms. Jones said she is hoping to use some for her honeymoon “somewhere exotic,” she said as well as paying off loans, while saving the rest. She said she is currently planning to stay in New York, so it would be helpful to have funds set aside.
Overall, Ms. Jones said, she is proud to have been on the show, and happy with her experience.
”It was the silliest and greatest thing I’ve ever done,” she said. “But I really enjoyed it. It was incredible to get on a show like that.”

