What would you do with your life if your time wasn't preoccupied by making money?

Spend other peoples money. I would learn everything I wanted from libraries, internet, television and learn from masters and become a more useful contributing member to society… I would also make a large donation to PBS’es Nova…and hopefully add to science in the world, directly and indirectly. Also I would start a family and I would spend my time being a good husband and father.

I would first give a large proportion to my Family to make sure they would always be financially secure.Then I would set-up an assisted suicide clinic in the UK with discretion if it remains Illegal-this would be for persons either with a terminal, or mental illness if they so chose to end their life.Almost of the remaining i would set-up as many homeless shelters as I could.The remaining I would travel someplace it was easy to purchase a gun and shoot myself in the head.

If i was very smart set-up some kind of profitable business where I could continually maintain most of “the lottery” and help as many other other people as I could too.If i was very smart I guess i’d know what to do.

Before I can answer, how much money do I have? Set for life to many people might be 10 million, and some would be even less.

Depends how early in life. Too early, and the answer is Fluther all day.

Travel, study, write. Have more time to do fun things with those I love.

@Hypocrisy_Central Let’s limit it to 20 million

@Yanaba You recieve the money on your 18th birthday.

@KidCurtis I would need a good 500 million to 3 trillion to not care about money completely. I still want to have my own science foundation. but then I find $1200 a month to be good enough just to survive…but my vision would need much much more to play with invent the really cool science toys equipment to do research. I guess I could work for some organization that has the money for me to do research, but the policies would have to be non-restricting of my insanity creativity…and they would have to be willing to hire someone without a formal post-secondary education.(unless I can get that education with my free time.)

@talljasperman Please tell me you are a member of a local hackspace! They are the perfect place for you!

@Yanaba Sorry. I don’t know what a hackspace is. If it is a perfect place for me than fill me in.
Edit: I just wiki’ed it Sorry I live in a small mountain town, I don’t travel much. The local hackers don’t just advertise…so I only know two and I’m out of regular contact with them(they don’t like that I don’t smoke pot and won’t accept their downloaded pirated movies)...but I’ll look into it…I liked the conversation and AD&D brand humor. +10 toothpicks of doom + 20 vs/ gingivitis.

Probably pretty much the same things I do now, only give a lot of money to charity, too. So: Read, make art, raise my kids (in a bigger/better house), and Fluther into the night.

Travel.

Take ALL the classes. Then travel to other places, and take their classes, including the ones that aren’t in a formal classroom setting so much as a cultural experience.

In that case, set up an open community cafe/workshop that teaches anyone who wants to learn, especially the young and women, any and all technical skills they could wish for—electronics, programming, aeronautics, construction, pirate radio, you name it. For free. All they have to do is go out and help someone(s) with their skills in turn.

I like the discipline that working 3 or 4 days a week puts into my life. So I would continue to work. It would be nice though to not have to worry about running out of money before I die! So I would put enough in the bank so that I could live indefinitely off the interest, the rest I would donate to charities I like and have a hell of a good time on my days off with all the toys I would buy.

Read.

Study – as in lectures – I love listening to people talk. I would also have a radio show and interview people – ranging from celebrities to regular folk, each with their unique story.

Travel more.

Open a karting track with my husband.

Dump my house for cheap.

Move back to FL as my home base.

Get involved in some benevolent things. Take more time to look around and appreciate. Get out to the countryside more. Dandle the grandkids on my knees.

Make sure that the money gained is secured and placed so that it builds equity for the future. Based on that, I would engage in some philantrophic work in my hometown.

I am desperate to travel the world. There are so many places I want to visit and things I want to see.

I also plan on running my own canine rescue centre if I ever come into enough money to make that possible.

I would take a number of courses that interest me (history etc).

I would teach. All the time. For free.

I would like to do all the major trails in the US (Appalachian, Pacific, Etc). I would also like to walk Hadrians Wall.

I definitely do not do my job for the money. So I would keep doing exactly what I do now.

A few things:

1) A fine arts degree
2) Lots of painting
3) Travel.

How much money are we talking about?

A few million that I could live comfortably without working? Mainly write more. Expand my online game/sim.

A few billion? Buy some tropical island and start my own banana republic. I’d be an evil dictator who would be on the US “rogue states” list who would draft one female per year to be a slave in my harem :-p

Nothing changes unless it’s enough money to send the kids to college and to assure our retirement and allow us to travel as much as we want.

Then, if I can pull myself away from my fluthering, I’m starting an artist’s colony that gives artists stipends to come and live and play for a month at a time. We’ll be someplace beautiful and we’ll offer other folks a chance to come and study with us. We’ll offer courses that answer the main questions of life (as found on fluther). I think I would staff the colony with those jellies who offered the best advice (as I see it) and who are interested in joining us.

I would put a question on fluther asking people to suggest names for the colony, but they could not include Wundayatta (since it’s truly a boring sounding name, having only one exciting consonant).

My dream vacation is to take a couple of my close friends on a cross country tour of the US, stopping at National Parks and searching for good vegetarian food, and shopping at thrift stores and taking landscape photos. Of course we’d sleep in one of those great big, fancy Winnebagos or an airstream trailer. Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Sedona here I come!

Stay in college forever.

@KateTheGreat, my coworker and I were just commenting how glad we are not to be in college anymore. I don’t ever want to take a test again.

@nikipedia But you could audit courses and never take a test…. or even do the reading if you didn’t want to. Then again—there are lectures on dvd.

But if your future life doesn’t depend on your grade, who gives a poop about the tests? College life was fun!

Ummm @HungryGuy, aren’t we saying the same thing?

@wundayatta – Right. I meant my comment in answer to @nikipedia.

I married a man who loves his work and gets paid very well for it, so I already live that life. I putter around the house and do household chores whenever I feel like it, and spend most of my time on the computer.

We also provide a home and as much help as possible for our son, his family, two grandsons, and several other extended family members.

I spend very little money on myself, but save a substantial amount for my “old age”. I fully expect to live to be over 100. When I want some special time, or when the weather is nice, like right now, I do my computing from a lounge chair beside my backyard pool.

Well at 20 million I would not feel set for life, so I would have to use that to make 200 million, then maybe I could sleep better at night.