If the lottery isn’t enough to make me set for life, the answer would be “the nearest decent neighborhood I can find to my workplace.”
If I never have to work again, the answer is “the point directly between the houses of my parents, my brother, my sister, and my best friend.”
So in both cases, within a half-hour drive of where I live currently.
Main house in Milwaukee suburbs. Nice cabin up north Wisc. Condo down near Phoenix to be near in-laws. Rotate amongst those 3. Take quarterly vacation to explore the world.
Since I didn’t answer the first time around according to the search engines --------- currently probably near were I am. I would just buy out the *^&%#^( gentry who have moved in and either turn their houses affordable or rip them down to make some space for the rest of us.
I don’t ever want to move again, so I’ll stay here, but I’ll winter in Hawaii.
Another one who would stay put. I would upgrade a bit and look into buying the couple of tracts of land adjoining mine, but that’s about it.
My original answer was to split time between SF and NYC and while if I hit the Fuck-You Money Lottery I’m sure I’d spend a lot of time in those places, but I’m just not sure I’d be very good at being that rich, so in retrospect, I just might stay put too. Maybe dump just stupid amounts of money into the place I have and just have fun with it. Travel at a whim. Rent awesome cars everywhere I go. Come back and see how that ten-foot, muraled, privacy fencing with the big screen TeeVee’s built in is coming along.
Not the first time I’ve been tricked into answering a zombie thread. But this is the first time I’ve looked back just in time to realize that I was the OP. ROFL!
Sad to say, the answer is about the same. I know I’d want to be on a large lake, preferably a mountain lake. And seven years have done little to convince me to stay in the USA. I’d want a temperate climate, and an enlightened, liberal society. No idea where that might be these days.
I wouldn’t stray far from where I’m at, but I would move to a luxurious home on a lake.
Also look into buying a condo in Sydney.
Then, retire and travel. Spend my spare time browsing GoFundMe pages and helping out those with good causes that seem legit.
A relatively-spacious home on a dozens-of-acres plot somewhere in Vermont; security measures, snow removal machinery, AWD vehicles, copious firewood and generators/full-house batteries would be among the necessities.
Still a good thread. Interesting to see how my answers have changed since 2012. I’m more fond of my city now, but less fond of the Midwest in general, probably because winter just sucks and I’m less tolerant of it now. I included Austin last time, but my disgust with the University of Texas (and my changing music tastes) has gradually nudged it off my list.
I also missed this thread the first time around…
I currently live in the DC suburbs, and would move downtown. I love the District, warts and all. Plus, I’ve spent the past decade networking in the DC jazz scene, and having to start over somewhere new would kind of suck – especially since I’d finally have the money to record an album and be a full-time musician.
I’m thinking I’d probably stay in the same general area, but possibly buy a house in Sacramento’s “Fabulous Forties” neighborhood. If you’ve seen the movie Lady Bird, that’s the neighborhood where the “blue house” is, and some other houses shown more briefly. It’s a neighborhood of quiet, tree-lined streets and stately old 1920s-30s era houses which now can sell for a million or more dollars.
Of course buying a million dollar house means paying property taxes on a million dollar house for the rest of your life, so it really depends on how much money we’re talking about. If it’s a truly astronomical, more than a single person could possibly spend in a lifetime sum, then I’d go with the above plan. If it’s more like enough to retire early and live comfortable, but not necessarily luxuriously, then I’d probably just pay off my mortgage and do come renovations on my current house.