Money with a catch... (a fantasy)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

This is just a flight of fancy, so don’t go getting all exciting thinking I’m going to give you a pile of cash. It seems like whenever there’s a thread about hitting the lottery or coming into a large amount of money, lots of people plan to “pay off my VISA and mortgage” or “save/invest/donate” the jackpot. Yeah, OK, in the real world, that’s probably how it works.

But let’s go for the unreal and have some fun. A mysterious benefactor gives you a million dollars (that’s still worth something, right?) under the condition that you must not do anything practical with it. So no paying bills, no finally getting the kids’ teeth straightened, no municipal bonds, and no, you can’t have a big bonfire of currency. You have to spend the money on something, anything, that would otherwise seem impractical, foolish, or out of reach in your normal life.

My first thought is to book some extravagant, fun vacations. I’d love to go to Australia, but the thought of all those hours crammed in a plane is unappealing. With a financial boon, I could afford first class tickets, or a charter, or maybe multiple stops along the way to visit other places. Or perhaps multiple cruises from place to place to place, ending up on the other side of the globe - that would be fun.

Second thought is something I always wished I could do - go to a restaurant and pick up the tab for everyone. Or maybe pay for all the Chinese takeout ordered from a particular place for one day. Or have pizzas delivered to a bunch of schools for lunch one day. Of course, I’d have to be anonymous - it’d be fun listening to speculation about what I did.

Another possibility - a new boat. My husband and I have owned sailboats almost every year of our marriage, but they’ve always been older fixer-uppers. It would be so much fun to pick out exactly the boat we want equipped exactly as we desire, with all the bells and whistles. Then we just hop aboard and go places…

Yeah, in the real world, I’d pay bills, save or invest most, and take out a little for fun, but if I was forced to shed my responsible nature, these are some of the things I’d get a kick out of. How about you?

2

I’d rent an apartment in Paris for 12 months. As long as I didn’t end up like Jimmy Morrison.

3

Let me be the first to mention blow and hookers. Well, I don’t really like blow, so Alcohol and hookers maybe?

4

I’m really a bit of a home body–I don’t mind travel but I also don’t fantasize about it. I like the idea of surprising total strangers with a freebie, but that’s not going to make a significant dent before I get bored with it.

What I want, and have wanted for a very long time, is a large and well-appointed workshop that would allow me to paint a car properly–ideally there would be a hydraulic lift built into the floor as well so I could feel a bit more secure wiggling around underneath my latest project. Now this isn’t all that much either, really, but there’s no room for it at my current residence. I’d need a bigger place in a much less densly-populated area where paint fumes and noise won’t bother the neighbors. So I’d need a new house in the hills. And I may as well put some horses on it cause the wife likes horsies. And if there’s anything left over, I’d like a unicorn.

5

I’d travel to Japan and the UK. Or get a new car, a hybrid, and give it a custom paint job. Or is that too practical?

6

Horses. With a million dollars, I could buy a nice horse and afford board and veterinary care for its lifetime. I would be a happy woman. :slight_smile:

7

I’d build a workshop on my property, kind of like Norm Abrams’, and stock it with an awesome set of tools. I’d do all of my building and woodworking in there.

8

With a million dollars you could sell your house and buy a farm, so you wouldn’t have to board your horse.

I already have the farm, but I’d love a great barn with a heated/air conditioned indoor arena. That should be frivolous enough.

StG

9

Head to an airport, with my partner, and don’t look back, till the money runs out!

I’d go to endless south sea islands. Any place I ever dreamed of, weeks in London’s museums, months on the Greek Isles, Egyptian ruins, The Galapagos, …sigh…

10

I’d buy a new butt. Mine has a crack in it.

11

Congrats, **BBBobbio **- your answer made me laugh! :smiley:

12

Then my work is done here. :stuck_out_tongue:

13

I’d travel – to Europe, to Japan, to Australia.

14

I’d have to keep my job to pay my current bills, I would think. Those fall under the label of “practical.” But I would have a lot of fun on the weekends. And, maybe, I would convert my bedroom into a ballpit with slides all over the place.

15

Now, that is a cool idea - a personal ballpit with slides!! I might add that to my list of what to do if someone gives me lots of money! :smiley:

16

When I retired, I had spare cash.

So I put a model railway right round the walls of one room. :cool:

17

Well, there’s the issue of taxes on that million - if we can’t use any of it for something practical, that means we have to come up with 250,000-ish somehow to pay the taxes on it. Or is this “under the table” or via an inheritance (the heirs don’t pay taxes on their bequests) or something?

Then:

A really good TV (70 inches? no problem! 3D? Why not!!) - our current 47 incher is quite an upgrade from the 20 year old 19-incher we had until 2 months ago, but budget dictated not going larger / fancier.

A top-notch RV and travel whenever we have the time (need to keep the job since after the million is gone, we still gotta eat).

Redo the kitchen the way we’d like to. Our current layout is practical enough and not worth spending the cash to upgrade, so splurging (all granite. custom cabinets etc.) might get by the “practicality police”.

Send the kids to summer camp - for the whole summer. OK, Dweezil is too old for it, but we could ship him off somewhere else, right? Three months of not worrying about feeding the kids dinner, dealing with their messes, etc.

And more travel - like another poster said, first-class tix to Australia and New Zealand, and I’d love to take that cross-continent train (the Afghan?) that Bill Bryson wrote about.

18

The first version of my iron man suit.

19

I would get great seats in every major league and minor league park in the country. I would get pizza and chinese food in NYC, italian beef in Chicago, clam chowder in San Francisco, Prince’s Hot Chicken in Memphis, cuban food in Miami, tex\mex in El Paso, dry rub in St Luis, chilli in Cincinatti, burritos in Sante Fe, wings in Buffalo. Somewhere I have to by a flatbed and have my self driven…

20

I’d eat dinner every night at a different one of the best sushi restaurants in the world. The money should last a couple of weeks.