What would you do with 1 million dollars/pounds/euros?

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Ok, so I have to write a 5 page essay for my composition class, which is mostly done btw, and I thought I'd post the concept here.

Here's the scenario:
Say that you won a contest that pays the winner 1 million in cash of whatever currency the winner wants. In addition to the million, they also pay the local taxes and any other fees, so that when all is said in done, you have exactly 1 million dollars to spend. Here's the catch - you must sign a bulletproof contract saying that you can't give any of the money to family, charities, or non-profit organizations, if you do, you loose everything, and owe them anything you've already spent. Spouses are exempt for this rule, but the contract applies to them as well, so they can't give any of it away.

So the question is, what would you do with 1 million dollars?


I broke my list down to 7 different things.

• $500 Thousand on a new house
• $100 Thousand on two vehicles - A 2007 Toyota Tacoma for me, and a 2007 VW Eos for my wife. (No, that doesn't add up to 100K, but any money left over will go towards insurance, fuel, and any aftermarket add-ons we want.
• $200 Thousand on a Velocity XL/RG personal aircraft, private pilot's license/lessons, fuel, and a spot at the local airport to keep it.
• $50 Thousand for a 2 month vacation with my wife exploring Europe, Asia, and various parts of the US.
• $50 Thousand to invest in stocks, bonds, money markets, etc.
• $100 Thousand to save for retirement, tuition, medical, and the unexpected.
• Anything leftover would go in to a checking account to spend on whatever we needed/wanted.

Had we been allowed to give money to family, I'd give $100 Thousand to my brother Brent to use as a down payment on a house. Everyone else in my family is doing fine, so they don't need it.

Now it's your turn.

[ May 01, 2007, 13:31: Message edited by: Kitrax ]

 

Like you I would spend $500k on a house. Probably $50k on a new car, $10k on a holiday somewhere, paying off uni fees and the rest would probably get stuck in a bank earning interest.

 

Stick it in a savings account with a decent interest rate, then harvest the interest every year.

 

Place it in a managed fund. Continue to work for 20 years. Come back after compounding interest has taken effect, retire early.

 

Wow...such sort answers. I wish I could have just passed with a single sentence. But filling a 5 page essay is kind of hard to do with a single sentence.

 

1) Pay off remaining balance on outstanding debts
2) Invest the rest for retirement
3) Possibly live a little more lavishly due to the decreased requirment to put earnings aside in order to save for retirement

 

1) Pay my uni tuition and pay back my loans
2) Buy a house in the town, so I don't have to worry about where to live
3) Kit myself up. Anything I want, I get.
4) Put it in a savings account until it's time for 5
5) When my parents return to the UK, buy them a house.

6) Not give my brother a penny, cos it'll drive him nuts

 

I'd buy you an exotic pet (yep - like a lama...or an emu).

 

Assuming £'s

About £800k on a new house (Including fee's moving costs, Stamp Duty etc)

£25k on new Saab 95 estate for the little lady
Probably about £20k on a car for myself, I really have very little interest in automobiles.

The rest (£155k) would probably go into a high-interest account as a slush fund for holidays.

This would also leave us with the existing house (already paid up on) which gives a nice little loop-hole in being able to give our existing money away to family (Or if forbidden, would be rented out and the money put into a pension fund which should pretty much cover pension requirements when combined with company plans)

As the major outgoing dept (Mortgage) is no longer a factor, we'd look at cutting our working hours back to 3 or 4 days a week.

 

Pay university, buy a professional digital photographic camera, put the rest in bank get my degree, get a modest house. Live as a photographer. Simple really. Oh and I couldn't resist visiting Germany, Poland and South America at least once.

 

1. Ask for the money to be in British pounds.
2. Get pounds exchanged for U.S. dollars; exchange rate currently about $2 = 1 pound.
3. Pay off familial debts - mine, hubby's, my folks, brother and sister (just 1, the other sister can rot in hell).
4. Get my permanent residency papers.
5. Buy 2 condos, 1 in Canada and 1 in Iowa.
6. Invest in cds or something like that.
7. Buy a car...with cash.

 

I see a pattern forming here, which I already decided upon myself.

A few years back, I was bored, with nothing to do, so as an idle 'blue sky' scenario I brainstormed to see 'how much money I'd need to retire,' working out monthly expenses, etc. I figured (at least for 2002) it's not worth playing the lottery unless the jackpot was over $3.2mil CDN.

But yeah, I'd 1) clear my debts, 2) purchase real estate, automobile, and other long-term assets, and 3) invest the remainder so as to be able to pay expenses with the interest so accrued.

I daresay one could expound on the decisions and reasoning behind them for five pages...

 

1. Pay off debts

2. Buy a house ($500k would barely buy a house around here).

3. Invest the rest

 

1) Buy a new home ($200k-$300k)
2) Buy a state-of-the-art PC setup with the largest monitor and best speaker system possible, and perhaps convert one of the rooms in that new house to a full-fledged gaming room ($25k?).
3) Enjoy a dinner of Filet Mignon, Lobster, and wine at the finest restaraunt in town. ($500.00)
4) Invest the remainder, with about 100k going into volatile stocks, and the rest in more secure investments.

I would have been a little more generous with my spending but hey, the contract forbids it. Sorry, Mom and Dad. Aside from the things mentioned above, I would continue living my life and going to work normally.

 

You people and your lousy loopholes! The exercise is meant for people to be selfish because it's too easy for people to just say, "I'd give it to family/charities." I'm interested in seeing some of my classmate's essays to see if they are like kuemper, or CJ...looking for loopholes.
The assignment outline starts out with this statement: "Half of you will love this assignment, and the other half will hate it. When you turn your report in, as a class, we will judge for ourselves."

Being relatively greedy myself, I loved this assignment, and wrote about the fact that there's only one person I'd even consider giving money to unless I had well over 5 million.

Good replies none-the-less. Keep them coming!

 

Interesting topic...

- 150K$ to get my own shop/house in another country
- 50K$ shares in Coca-Cola/Monster/Diesel/Rockstar (discount caffeine :drool
- 25K$ to further enlarge my cellphone collection (black 8801 :drool
- 75K$ for a new truck that I'd customize
- 100k$ for entertainement stuff (bigass TV, consoles, etc)
- Stash the rest in a high interest savings account and reap the rewards every year.

Cannot give anything away? Fine with me!

 

Personally I like K's loophole of maximizing the quantity of the windfall through exchange rates - quite selfish that.

As for helping her family, you don't know kuemper - they've always helped each other out whenever possible; I remember her brother sending her a money order once so she could make child support payments. In that sense, she'd be repaying HER debts...to her siblings.

But now that you've made it clear that we're SUPPOSED to be selfish (yeah, yeah, I'd have 'repayed' my folks for all they've done if I had had the option but...)

3.5) Invest in the Angus Young Finishing School for Wayward Eighteen-Year-Old Thai Girls; not in the sense of donating to a charitable organization, but putting down capital for an intent on a return for my investment...oh, the dividends!

Now that I think of it:

4) Travel the world for year or so.


P.S. oh, and who's CJ?

 

Dude, $1 million don't buy what it used to.

We already own a house, but there's a long list of improvement projects that would get made in one fell swoop. We'd hire people to do the menial work so we'd have time to actually enjoy the place! Two new cars, then. Most of the rest would go in to college funds for the boys and retirement savings, and I'm sure we'd go out more.

But you want me to be selfish, and there is one thing that I would love to have the money to do:

Complete.
Wardrobe.
Makeover.

Casual wear. Office wear. Evening wear. A separate pair of shoes and a new purse for each outfit. JEWELRY. A personal trainer to give me the body to do justice to all this stuff. A full-time hairdresser. Great places to go while looking so good!

Don't think this would take up $1 million? Just you watch!

 

Probably invest in real estate and businesses, maybe other things that will produce a trickle of income.

Another loophole would be to buy stuff that I can later resell afther the million is spent. then sell the stuff off and I can pay the Tithing to the Church and a few other donations...