If you won a million dollars, what would you do with it?

Buy my mom a house someplace cheap. 50K. She is happy in a room with the Internet.
Buy my sister a house here in Portland. Not cheap. But 300K would do it.
Put aside money for my sisters kids to get started in College. 150K should be a good start towards getting her three kids educated.

That leaves me with 500K. I’m not sure what I would do with that. But it probably involves Costa Rica and a replacement liver.

I’d put it in a Roth IRA and consider my retirement taken care of.

@noelleptc :: I have made it 33 years without driving. No need to start now.

Put half of it away. Buy a house with part of the remainder. Take a trip to Greece, Turkey and that part of the world.

I would use 15k to buy the car I’m saving for, some to pay off my HECS debt, and maybe a holiday for my girlfriend and I to Europe late next year. The rest I would use to buy a unit or two in good parts of the city to rent out until I am ready to move in.

I’d buy some new studio equipment and contribute to the dreams of others. A million doesn’t go too far these days, sorry to say…but, it’s enough to make a difference in several peoples’ lives.

I would pay for a friends medical tests, pay off mine and my brothers mortgages, and if there is any money left I would finally buy a 1968 SS Convertible Camaro.

Set up pension plans for my daughters, pay off the mortgage, have a nice holiday and buy a Pinarello

I would fund a low budget film, pay off my mother’s debt, buy her a new car, build my dad his cabin in Washington, buy myself a home, help a friend out of a sticky situation by getting her and her children their own place to live and paying for her medical bills and buy another friend her own art gallery on the beach in North Carolina. Whatever’s left over I would give to Parkinson’s research.

Give half to Uncle and stash the rest in an IRA. Oh, maybe I’d spend a few bucks on myself and friends.

@Vunessuh -You rock.
I’d buy you a wildebeest:)

Pay off my student loans, buy a house, and put the rest into a Roth IRA.

@Vunessuh you might need $10 mil for all that.
I would do the following:
1. pay my lawyer
2. pay off my mortgage then rent my Capitol Hill condo
3. spend 6 months in a fancy fitness spa
4. put a down payment on a charming old house and move
5. set up a fund to be shared equally by my nieces and nephews

Exchange it for a million pounds! :¬)

Frankly, a million dollars probably wouldn’t change my life appreciably. Oh, there’s some debt I’d pay off, and I’d look into some new / better investments and make a fair number of gifts. However…

If I had ten million dollars, I could turn that into a fortune!

Unfortunately, I probably would do anything other than what I am doing, which is putting the kids through school and saving for retirement. The best I could hope for is that my wife would feel financially secure, but I’m not even sure that $10 million would do that.

If she felt comfortable, I’d give away perhaps 100K of it to an organization we support very strongly. I’d want to take trips around the world, but I don’t know if she would come for more than one week at a time. She certainly wouldn’t want us to go during the school year.

It wouldn’t change my life appreciably, I don’t think. Maybe I’d get a sailboat.

@ucme Good luck with that. If you find anyone willing to exchange at 1:1 can you let me have their number? :)

@meiosis Sure thing.

Put some towards home enhancements and put some aside for travel.

With the rest, I’d be interested in doing what Percy Ross did. He used to have a syndicated newspaper column where people would write to him asking for money. The letters with their reasons were published, and Mr. Ross would respond with a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ and the reason why.

@anartist Nahh, I know how to bargain and budget.
Or, I’d make my dad live in a shack and buy my mom a scooter.

I’d buy this, this, this, this, and this.

I’m a man of refined tastes.

I would go back to school.
Give each of my kids equally.
Take a trip to my homeland.
Help the homeless.
Donate to the Children’s Hospital.
It would be nice having a million dollars, the things you can accomplish with it.

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard I, for one, would love to see you wearing the outfit in the last photo while holding the gun in photo #2.

@Pied_Pfeffer, only for you, dollface.

Put in trust. Live off the interest.

Invest a lot of it, but what I would love to do is go to school for the rest of my life. I mean im in school now and some of it sucks since I need to take certain classes for major and what not , but if i could just go to school and learn whatever I was interested in, not necessarily working towards another degree or something, but just learning for the sake of learning, that’d be a dream come true.

That is so mind boggling. It’s easy to say what I would do but in reality I would probably be in shock for a few weeks. After the initial shock I would hope to make some rational decisions.

Pay off college loans and prepay for my daughters college.
Then get a nice house and a new car, then with the rest I would put half in a savings account and the other half I would invest.

@noelleptc, thanks, me too :-)

Keep enough that would pay for college by the time I’m old enough and enough to buy a car in 2 years, pay to add on to our house, buy my brother a house of his own (right now he’s living with his SIL and BIL), and if I had any money left, I’d put it towards this business I’d really love to start when I graduate.

Give up work, do a degree, buy a nicer house and buy a business to see me through to retirement.

@ChazMaz

That IS a dream. Have you been following interest rates the past few years? Good luck with that.

@ChazMaz I calculated that I would need to win three million pounds, not dollars, to maintain my current level of income at today’s interest rates. And that’s only going to get worse.

Finance a condo for my mom where she’d never put out more than $500. mortage ever again.
Finance a car for my mom to give her a $200. monthly payment and include a prepaid repair plan.

Buy myself a newer used car.
Buy myself and my partner fancy teeth.
Buy myself LASIK surgery.
Buy myself and my partner a fabulous honeymoon here: http://www.memphistours.net/hurghada_egypt/Dahabeya-Nile-Cruises/Legands-of-the-Nile/index.php
Invest some to restart my business.
Invest some with a friend of mine in finance.

A million dollars won’t stretch very far these days. I would put it into a contributory charity Foundation, then hire all my relatives to issue grants through an application process. I would use only the interest to pay expenses, and the principle would increase through charitable contributions.

@YARNLADY What interest? How much do you expect to return?

@MissA These days, it seems the proposition is much harder to achieve, with interest rates so low. With our personal investments we are are lucky to see 6% on the year, and that would only be $60,000 simple interest a year. A good Foundation would have to have a steady influx of donations.

pay off my $25,000 worth of bills…. start a public academic library with me in charge… some really good academic books from grade 1 – Ph.d. for my library…and lots of take out… and give the some of the rest to charity… and set aside $200,000 for me and my mom to live off of.

First of all. Putting that money in a trust for 20 years at a time. IS going to give you a much greater interest rate then checking or a CD.

“to maintain my current level of income at today’s interest rates.”

Part of your current level included the cost of going to work. THAT not being an issue. And, if you keep working. Including into your income from the interest. (that is compounding interest) you will be bringing home more. Always having a SAFETY NET.

But, piss that money away. And, when you hit 65. Your principle will be gone and you will be SOL. (shit out of luck)

Or, pay off your debts and give yourself an allowance. Let’s say 60k a year. Operating like you have a job. Putting money away in a retirement account. Paying off the mortgage and such.
Hopefully by the time your “million dollars” is gone (meager interest included in20 years or so). You can retire with a nest egg.

The goal is to avoid pissing it all away over the course of 5 to 10 years.

@ChazMaz You’re definitely right about not pissing it away. The trick is not to break into the capital, but live off the interest alone. As soon as you start frittering away at the original lump sum you’re on a spiral to disaster.