Give some to my brother/sister in law and to my parents.
Buy a house for my best friend and his two kids.
Buy an apartment in Belfast to use as a base, and spend the rest of the money travelling.
I’d pay off my debt, and my SO’s debt (<10k), and make our respective cars serviceable.
I’d be able to afford to have a surrogate carry a baby for me and my SO. (I’m fertile but was told never ever to try to carry another child.) Alternatively, we might adopt.
I’d invest the rest for retirement, college, and maybe there would be enough to draw a teeny bit for a yearly vacation or something equally fun.
- Pay off all debt on current house (we currently live in what will eventually be the garage with small apartment above it.). ~140K
- Buy materials to build house, and actaully pay someone to do the crappy jobs (concrete, sheetrock, roofing) ~$250K
- Build barn ~$50K
- Blow ~$100K on a vacation, new car, bigger tractor, + attachments for the tractor.
- Pay off debts for my wife’s family. $?
- Start college funds for the kids with the remainder.
- Continue with life as usual, but plenty of cash, since I would have no debt. Jack up retirement savings to around 25% of annual salary.
Pay off mortgage, buy a small fuel-efficient car, $100K in various banks, and stick the rest in government bonds until the current crisis works itself out.
Pay my bills, obviously and set some money aside for my neice’s kids in the future. I’d buy a house, too…not a great big lavish house. I don’t have kids, so a nice house big enough for my wife and I would be great.
I have heard that if a servicemember comes into a large sum they usually let you get out. I’d consider still working in a civilian capacity, but I don’t know…it depends on how I feel about things. If I had nothing to do but sit on my ass, I’d probably go crazy and get fat.
Even if I hit the lotto for 200 million bucks I wouldn’t buy a lot of lavish stuff. I’d travel a bit, but I don’t need a lot of fancy things. The best thing about getting a gigantic sum of money is that I would be able to do things I would like to do. (see the pyramids, visit australia, help out charities I like, and maybe…maybe…(if it was more than just 1 mil) buy a boat. I like to fish.
I’d donate 10% to the church first. Probably another 10% to various Charities. I’d give each of my sisters and my parents a chunk, too, so that would drop me down to about $400k. I would pay off my house and the rest to my investment property, but keep $100k.
Of that, I would invest half in stocks (I’m willing to outright buy now) and bonds (for balance), the rest I would keep as a cushion. Hmm…looks like I’m still working.
I think the first thing I would do is take a nice long vacation – after all debt is settled, that is. My debt isn’t that out of control, so we’re not talking a major dent in the pile.
Buy a decent travelling car and hit the road … say maybe a half a year or so … just tooling around the country, visiting people, having a good time.
Then I probably would quit my job and go back to school. I have a career right now that is going quite well, but I never did polish up the ol’ bachelors degree. I think it would be cool to re-do the whole shebang and snag a history degree.
After that, I’d try to find a new job putting the new degree to use.
I’d probably buy a small house or condo through the usual methods – no showing up to a realtor’s office with a suitcase full of 20’s or anything. I’d try to be wise and invest a little for retirement … but after the fun of travelling and the experiment in re-education, I suppose I’d be right back where I started … just living my life.
Or, I’d blow it all on pussy and beer.
Standard formula for us in regards to found money is 25% charitable donations, 25% savings, 25% toward bills and 25% fun money.
Obviously, the second two items would have to be reconsidered.
I’d say we would still give 25% charitable and 25% savings/investment, and the rest would get us out of debt, relocate us, give us some time to find jobs we like, and finally have a proper vacation or six.
100K off the top to charity, pay off mortgage (400K), pay off student loans (200K)…that leaves 300K. I imagine we would end up giving away another 50 or 100, pay for adopting a kid, and invest the rest…not enough to quit working but a nice supplementary income, would allow us to work a bit less and/or be less worried about our retirement situation.
Hmmm…let’s see.
Pay off mortgage - around $380K or so.
Pay off cars/credit card - $60K
Pay my mom’s mortgage and debt - Probably around $90K
So what are we up to, $530K
Another $100K for the new garage I want and a few other things around the house.
Give $100K to the brother that I like and and that same amount to my wifes sister.
That leave $170K left. Stick it in the bank.
Because we’d have paid off all our debts, we’d be able to max out 401K savings and use more of our regular salary for items like vacations and such. We already have a small account set up for the kids college. Enough for 2 years Community College and part of the rest. They can figure out the rest on their own.
Yeah a million bucks just isn’t what it used to be. It’s certainly not ‘Quit my job’ type money: I wouldn’t count on more than 3-5% return right now and $30,000/yr is not a good alternative to working for more right now. So $1million = a couple big charitable donations, putting my retirement fund to where it should be, and having a few more options for the next house.
My house is paid off. Interest on a million dollars wouldn’t support our lifestyle and continue to support in with inflationary pressure for the rest of our lives - so no quitting jobs (or at least no retiring right now, we might do something different). Most of it would probably go into savings and investments - it would be nice to know that the kids could afford any college they wanted - grad school too - college is our current savings plan.
First, Id mutter to myself for a few minutes because I just bought a townhouse. If I’d known I was going to have a million dollars to play with I would have waited and bought a bigger place.
Then I’d pay off the new mortgage and start shopping for a new place. I’d probably hold onto the townhouse and rent it out, although I might see if I can talk a friend into accepting it as a gift. That, or try to talk her into accepting enough cash so she can buy her own house and pay off her debts.
I’d put aside 100K of what’s left for “entertainment and travel” over the next few years and invest the balance, most of it in something that would provide income for the balance of my retirement.
Get it into 12 or so accounts at hopefully 5% interest, and live off the $50,000 yearly interest.
I’d quit my job, but still probably help out part-time because I’m sort of integral where I work, so I’d help them with the transition.
Invest it all in stocks and bonds right now while the market is down then forget about it for 10 years. Then retire a little earlier than I planned and enjoy it more.
Pay off the house & bills, get a hybrid truck, beef up the kids college funds, pick up some collectibles I’ve had my eye on, take a trip to Ireland, help out immediate family, then stick the remaining half mil in a safe investment for future emergencies.
I’ve figured that I need $5million to do a major lifestyle change.
I’d figure out how much I’d need if I went into a good nursing home for, say, ten years, and set that aside.
30% to charities/my church.
Fix up my house really good.
If anything is left over I’d buy a lot of books and eat out a lot, or buy the best quality stuff to cook with myself.
I would buy the most expensive rims I could find for my 1997 Mazda. Oh, and a solid gold steering wheel. Maybe a four fingered platinum ring that said something profound like “Joe’s Ring”.
The other twenty dollars would go toward a suitable charity. Or for cigarettes. Either way.
I’d buy a house.
My only debt is around 20k in student loans. (I was surprised to learn recently that about 30% of us have 0 credit card debt). So I’d first pay those loans off and have a really good computer made for myself, which is a luxuary that currently seems out of reach. Then I’d have a nice duplex and garage built so I can continue to help out my folks, and then sell it in the future. I suppose I’d also put a large chunk into something stable like CDs, and be happy that I could pay my bills when there’s a lull at work.