The impact that the following sums of money would have on your life

In My Humble Opinion
1

OK, suppose that there were lottery jackpots ranging from small to large.

**$1,000
$10,000
$100,000
$1,000,000
$10 million
**

What impact would winning one of those jackpots have on your life?
**
$1,000: ** Virtually no change in life. I’d use it mostly to pay off credit card debts.

**$10,000: **Substantial impact, but not career-changing or life-changing: I’d pay off debts and make an estimated tax payment, maybe splurge a bit on travel or other things.

**$100,000: ** Big impact, but I might not change my job/career. Pay off all debts, sock away a large chunk of that money into my 401(k,) maybe travel to Europe, Antarctica, go on cruises. Stash a portion of it away in savings. I don’t need a new car but my current car might need repairs or other work. Maybe buy new furniture.

$1,000,000: Life-changing. I’d quit my job, enroll in flying school, travel the world, try to become a professional airline pilot. Not sure if I’d buy a house, but then again, rent payments for decades would be money for nothing. Maybe a cheap house.

**$10 million: **Life-changing. Quit job, provide for all of my family members’ retirements, try to become a freelance movie director, travel the world, try to invest money as best as I could.

What about you guys?

2

$1,000: Big dinner out, go buy some clothes, toss the rest into savings.
$10,000: Start up that investment account, save for rainy day.
$100,000: Split it with my wife & get a divorce.
$1,000,000: Split/divorce, then invest & save.
$10 million: Split/divorce, then invest & save, buy a house & retire.

3

I agree with the analysis in the OP.

A grand…would pay the rent one month.
10 grand…nice: I’m no longer “in poverty”…for a year.
100 grand? Enough to live out my days, if I nurse it very carefully.
A million? Gadzooks, I’m rich. I splurge half of it and nurse the rest.
Ten million? I suppose I’d buy a house in the “nice part of town.” I’d end up giving some to my favorite charities. Splurge 90% of it in one way or another.

As you said, life-changing.

But…hey, be careful. I know a guy who got a million in a personal injury lawsuit. The damned fool started playing Gold Futures as if it were a slot machine, and lost the whole amount. So don’t be stupid is the first rule for all of this!

4

$1000: go into my bank account. No change.
$10000: go into my investment account. No change.
$100,000: half into my investment account and use the other half to spend next winter in the Carribean. Otherwise, no real change.
$1,000,000: Now we’re talking. Buy a condo in Brooklyn, maybe on the Grand Army Plaza.
$10,000,000: Buy a modest condo facing Central Park.

5

$1,000 - new pair of work shoes, remainder goes into the rainy day fund

$10,000 - pay off what small debt we have, any needed maintenance on the vehicle, take the spouse out for a really nice dinner. Remainder goes into rainy day fund.

$100,000 - put in a transfer to one of my employer’s stores in a less crappy area, pay for professional movers, better living situation. Maybe get a good deal on a foreclosed property or just a small “starter house” or something. Remainder, if any, goes into rainy day fund.

$1,000,000 - All of the above, any extra goes into filling up retirement accounts. No longer worry about losing my job as that would be sufficient, with frugality, to see me through to actual retirement and then some.

$10 million - all of the above and fuck my current job, I don’t have to work any more if I don’t want to.

6

I am retired, so my answers may vary some.

$1,000: No real impact, probably put into my savings.
$10,000: Again, no major impact, might get some work done around the house.
$100,000: Some impact, probably invest half with my Mutual funds, other half toward house improvements and travel.
$1,000,000: Now we’re getting somewhere. Half of it for a new house, about 40% for retirement annunity, and the rest for travel.
$10 million: Wow. About 20% to family and friends, 30% for new home built from ground up, 30% in some sort of retirement account, and 20% to travel as much and as often as possible.

7

$1,000: Into bank account; no real life changes.

$10,000: Pay down $10K of mortgage principal, probably. No change.

$100,000: Take $5-$10K and do something fun. The rest, investment accounts. No real change.

$1M: This moves the needle a bit. Probably move to a new house this summer or next, instead of waiting 3-5 more years as we’re currently planning to. Frees up some cash flow, so maybe we’re a bit more aggressive in looking for our next jobs. Fundamentally, we’re still showing up to work on Monday, but this is meaningfully beneficial to Life Plans.

$10M: I’m showing up to work on Monday, but only to give my notice. Taking at least six months off, possibly up to a year or two. Maybe I’m retired, maybe I want to go back to work on my own terms to fill the time, but this is enough to change the basic assumptions.

8

1,000 student loans
10,000 student loans
100,000 student loans
1,000,000 student loan, pay off house, take a trip to Europe, invest the remainder in index funds
10,000,000 same as 1,000,000 but take extended family on a cruise or a week at a national park, maybe a new house.

9

Wow, are you in med school?

10

I recently inherited $22,000. I paid off all my credit cards, and bought a new car outright. My monthly expenses have been reduced by about $500, because of not paying credit cards and other outstanding bills (we had some medical bills), and probably $2,000 over a year not making repairs on my old car.

This means we can save more.

I put $2,000 cash in my son’s savings account, and bought him $3,000 in bonds. I put $3,000 in our savings account, and made arrangements with the bank to deposit $200 in each savings acct. each month, which we can afford now.

We fixed the AC on DH’s car, and bought a pinball machine, new bicycles, an original Pac-Man for the boychik, and some computer games DH wanted.

The money is “gone,” although it lives on in, I think, things wisely spent. My son will have bonds mature when his becomes bar mitzvah, and more when he is ready for college. I have a reliable car, which means that for the next several years, if we want to drive cross-country, we don’t have to rent, and our car has all the new safety features. We have lowered our expenses significantly, which means that more cash is free for day camp and things for the boychik, which in turn, means more opportunities for him to learn while having fun, and more time for me to work, so we end up breaking even on the day camp, but we had to have the funds in advance.

Anyway…
1,000: would probably bank it.
10,0000: would probably buy a new car for DH. We might still have to take a small loan, but our credit has improved since we paid off all the medical bills. We went from about 622 to 750.
100,000: we would make long term investments so our son’s college would be a done deal.
1,000,000: we would buy a house, and not make it a big one. We would put money aside to invest to bring in funds for the upkeep.
10,000,000: we would make serious investments with a consultant so that our money could work for us, and not the other way around. I would write, and DH would go to grad school, the things we really want to do that we can’t do because we have to support ourselves. We would also give some money to our families. My brother has a very promising start in a Hollywood career right now. He works in CGI, but wants to branch out into production, and I might invest at least some money in him. He knows lots of people, and if he needed, say, $60,000,000, and I gave him his first million, so he could tell people he already had people who showed faith in his project, and had “seed money,” it would make it easier to get more investors. He’s a good shmueser and convincing, so he’d get it.

11

$1,000: A nice trip to the Ozarks
$10,000: Pay off both cars
$100,000: Pay off all debt and put the rest towards retirement
$1,000,000: Sell our present house and move
$10 million: retirement

12

Sadly, I think the only one of those that would be real life-changer would be the $10 million. The others would be nice/helpful, sure. I accept checks.

13

$1000: Renew all my gaming magazine subscriptions.
$10000: Down payment on a new car.
$100000: Down payment on a new house.
$1000000: Buy a new car and a new house.
$10000000: The above. I don’t know what I’d do with the extra.

14

The $1000 would get me noticeably closer to the threshold I’ve identified for myself as “secure”, but wouldn’t be enough all by itself. I’ve been steadily approaching that threshold for a while now without windfalls, but this would get me there a little quicker.

$10,000 would blow me past that threshold, and allow me to buy some things that I’ve been putting off, most notably a car, but would not otherwise change my lifestyle.

$100,000 would enable me to take some more risks, and be rather more choosy in what jobs I would take.

$1,000,000 would be enough to set me up for life. I’d still do work mostly similar to what I do now, but some of it I would do for free, and some of it I would be much more choosy about. I’d probably buy a few frivolous things for myself, like a CNC lathe and/or a good 3D printer. Once I adjusted to the wealth, I’d probably set up a few scholarship funds.

$10,000,000 or more is mostly like the 1 million, except the frivolous purchases would be a definite instead of a maybe, and with more scholarship funds.

15

$1000: use it towards a new dining room table for my new house, which will hopefully have a large dining room good enough for entertaining.
$10 000: contribute it towards the down payment of the new house and leave that much less of my savings alone.
$100 000: Maybe go conventional instead of VA, giving me the opportunity of getting a project house instead of a pristine house ('cos I’m going to have to change the ugly decorating choices in a “pristine” house anyway).
$1 million: Pay cash for a house, and sell my current house instead of turning it into a rental. Fewer headaches. Invest the rest. Continue working.
$10 million: No real idea what I’d do with this much money. Probably the same as with $1 million, but perhaps I’d quit my job in order to have the freedom to travel more often, and the freedom to not have to sweat about the prices of things when travelling (Holiday Inn Express is booked? Fine, I’ll take the Intercontinental).

16

$1,000 – Put it into savings.
$10,000 – put it into savings
$100,000 – Get a second car and put it into some sort of investment.
$1,000,000 – The above plus buy a bigger house. Maybe set up a science fiction magazine.
$10 million – The above and fund a SF publishing house.

17

$1,000 -weekend get away with some shopping
$10,000 nice vacation
$100,000, new car, nice vacation some upgrades of tools and furnishings
$1,000,000 buy a house in the country, new car and truck, decorate home to suit. Save what was left over

$10,000,000, I would hire a rotating group of possibly 12 experts at different things to help start my dream business.

18

1K: put in checking account. No real impact.

10K: split between kids’ college funds.

100K: split among kids’ college funds and long term investments. Maybe replace our older car.

1M: maybe quit my job and start that business I’ve been dreaming of. More likely the same as 100K.

10M: make sure we’re set for kids’ college and our retirement. Set up my destitute brother in a decent living space while he runs out the clock till the cancer finishes him off. Quit my job and open my own computer forensics practice. My wife loves her job, so she probably wouldn’t quit, but she might scale back her hours a bunch.

19

$1,000 - probably just goes into my saving account
$10,000 - pay off student loans which are actually right around 10k. Sweet, now all my savings can go towards a house and I’ll be approved for a higher loan
$100,000 - I’m getting a nicer house!
$1,000,000 - I’m getting a nicer house and working part time
$10 million - I’m quitting my job and writing the great American (urban fantasy) novel

20

1K to 100K: pay off loans
1MM: pay off loans and think about retiring early some day
10MM: retire immediately, share some with my family