What would you do if you won the lottery?

In My Humble Opinion
21

Basically, I’d want to live the life I have now with a few key modifications:

– Give up all pretense of having a career. I might do the odd bit of teaching or writing whenever I felt like it, but it would be liberating not to have to. The dissertation would definitely remain unfinished; I’m not convinced the world needs any more critical books on obscure Elizabethan plays, or famous ones for that matter, and there’s no earthly reason why I’d want tenure anywhere if I were rich.

– Travel, but not luxuriously because that wouldn’t be any fun. It would be nice to be able to afford the odd splurge, however; seeing mountain gorillas in the wild would be totally cool.

– Help out family / friends / deserving strangers.

– (A pet project I’ve often fantasized about.) Set up an educational foundation dedicated to making young Americans more aware of geography and world cultures – scholarships for study abroad, that sort of thing. I’d start off by donating an up-to-date map of the world in every classroom in the country – which would probably burn through a couple of million right there, but hey, there’s always fundraising. (Of course, administering such a program would start to look like – gulp! – a career, but at least it would be one of my own invention.)

22

I’d pay off my Mom’s house and car. Then I’d get us a house a new car. College fund for the little Pres and a nice, well stocked play room. I would publish my own book and spend so much money marketing that it would be a smash hit and my name would be known as an established author. Or maybe I’d just buy a publishing company so I could publish all the excellent writers I know who can’t break into the strangled market. I would fight Barnes and Nobles and Costco and Sam’s and take back the market. Invest.

I would certainly donate plenty to charity, but if it was HUGE, like 20 mil or something, I’d set up a special dorm just for single moms that want to complete college and everything would be taken care of as long as they pulled their weight in the house and brought home a 2.5 GPA. On-site day care with WELL-payed child care givers, a weekly allowance, everything they need child-wise, etc.

23

I’d buy a ranch and raise free range boneless chickens.

24

I’ve said for some time that if I won the lottery, I’d pay off my student loans first, then buy myself a hot car. I think I’d pay my parents back for college, too, and if there’s enough money, buy them a new house.

I’d take a trip to all the countries I’ve wanted to go to, and take friends with me.

I’d get a sweet pad in NYC. I’d hire a personal trainer and masseusse, or maybe that could be a twofer. :slight_smile:

If there’s anything left over, give some to the music department of my high school because it meant a lot to me and it always gets the shaft come budget votes.

25

Pay off all of my debt.

Pay for my dad to retire.

Stay in school, at least for my last two years of athletic eligability. Aw hell, I want to go to grad school anyways, so I might as well.

Buy a big, comfy bus for my lacrosse team for road trips. Paint “Western Michigan Lacrosse Team Bus - Even Michigan Doesn’t Have One of These” on both sides.

Get a really good personal trainer and get in awesome condition.

Invest in an MLL team.

Coach youth lax instead of having a paying job.

Eventually teach in a place that needs good teachers.

Help my bro out.

Buy nice things for my girlfriend.

Take her all over the world.

Buy a motorcycle. Keep the Kia for around town.

26

If I won the lottery, I would first tackle my debts. I’ve got student loans, a car loan, and a credit card bill that I’d love to get out of the way as soon as possible. Then I’d give a chunk of the money to my sister (since she has the same debts I do) and to my parents so that they can start living comfortably.

With what’s left of my winnings, I’ll probably invest. I’d definitely need to see a financial advisor about that. I’d like to see a reasonable amount of return on any investments so that I could teach high school computer science. I’d also like to make some donations to local charities. That’d be a great thing to do as well.

Of course, there’s a part of me that wants to make a large donation to my university go so that I can force them to name something after me. Knowing my luck, though, they’d rename one of the dorms for me.

27

First I would pay off my bill. Although I would miss my regular calls from Dorothy @ Discover card. Maybe I would send her a nice boquet. I did tell her last time I talked to her that she could have saved the US govt. billions of dollars. We could have captured Bin Lauden at almost no cost. She could have just called the Taliban every night during dinner. "Do you have Bin Lauden? When can you hand him over? You could hand him over today and we wouldnt pick him up untill your next payday.’’ Next I would fund a ballot measure where I would agree to match whatever permanant operating levy my community passed for the local schools. It would be worth blowing all the money I had to cause a moral delema for all those tight ass republicans.

28

Depending on size of award…
Pay off bills.
Publish full page ad in local newspapers clarifying to all my relatives that it was I who hit the lottery BUT NOT THEM.
Continue working, but only on my own schedule and time.
Take my sweet time getting a graduate degree in nothing particular.
Travel w/o packing, to all the places I want to go.
Endow a grant for a worthy student in an non-high-demand major.
Hire an editor/co-writer and whip my records/journals/sketchbooks into book form; vanity-publish it if I can’t sell it, just for the heck of it.
Run for the State House just for the heck of it, but spend enough to have a real media campaign.
Buy controlling interest in radio station, use studio to produce my own party mixes, give myself at least 1/2 hour on-air daily.

29

As cheesey as this may sound, Im sincere…
i would buy new home…spend a month in egypt…and then start putting together a grassroots non profit that actually stays true to its purpose to feed and assist in education children/families in third world countries. (no religious affiliation…they dont have to accept a faith to get assistance)

30

One million dollars isnt a lot of money actually. Its enuf to retire on but nothing of any “splurge like theres no tomorrow” kind of lifestyle.

$1 Million

*$50,000 to pay off any debts and loans. I’d keep the home loan just to get the tax break but ammortisize it to 15 years.

*$100,000 for the biggest celebration in my life. Fly in family, friends and old acquaintances to Hawaii.

*Get a second home, use loan also as a tax break.

*Get an estate lawyer to put away the rest and allow me a comfortable allowance to not work and do anything I want using just the interest from the principal. I’d say I’d be getting about $65,000 a year tax free and without working.

*Suppliment my income with jobs that interest me and keeps me occupied doing things I love with people I enjoy being with.
…now if i had…

$10 Million

*$1 million dollar block party! invite celebrities and playboy bunnies.

*Sell the house, set the kids up with college funds and trusts

*By a $2 million dollar custom built ranch style house with a pool of my own design, an backyard BBQ area, a bunk house for guests and a basketball court. Every room will have computer connectivity. Possible locations will be Hawaii, Las Vegas, Lake Tahoe or stay here in Los Angeles.

*My hobby will be making a room look like a bridge of a starship where I will have all stations with working computers and the main one connected to a big screen display.

*Now my yearly allowance would be about $500,000 a year and I can go anywhere and do anything at anytime I want.

31

I’d set myself up as dictator of the world. Somehow. You see, I plan to do this anyways, but the extra money will help me out a lot. Buying weapons, building a headquarters, getting minions, setting myself up a bank account and a summer house in a country with no extradition treaty to the US–those things cost money. I have thirty cents to my name. I can’t even buy a slingshot for thirty cents; how am I gonna storm the White House and summarily execute some poor schmuck without something to shoot the poor schmuck with?

32

Here’s one. Then again, you can always check Ebay.

33

Oh, I have this big scenario planned out.

I’d call all my relatives and tell them to pack for three days and be waiting outside their houses at 7am. Chauffer driven limos would pick them up and drive them to Disney World, where they would be dropped off at one of the hotels and escorted to a conference room.

There would be a big buffet of breakfast foods, then we would make our grand entrance, followed by a group of CPA’s.

I would tell everyone we’d won the lottery, and that we were giving every couple $2 million in a trust fund. The CPA’s were there to go over the fund and handle their investments and financial planning. In addition, we would be paying off one of their bills, either mortgage, my Dad’s RV, whatever.

Then, we would enjoy three days at Disney World, with hotel and dinner paid for, and $5,000 spending money for each family. And each family would get a 2-week all expenses paid trip to anywhere in the world.

Of course, our bills would be paid off, we would buy a lot of acreage somewhere and build our dream home, and I would finally finish my novel.

34

you didn’t need to ask this question. you got it right on your first try. I would sit on my ass and do nothing. I hate working. If I got so bored that I really had to do something, I would buy a bar or a club or something.

35

<<my current friends would be referred to as my posse >>

I prefer the term minions. I’ve always wanted minions.

Besides maid service and a landscaping/gardening service and plotting to take over the world - -

  1. develop a biogas barbeque

  2. develop a program to allow elementary students/classes to write grants to get funds for science projects.

Kids seem to shrug off science as something that has nothing to do with them at a young age. Once the idea sets in, it’s hard to shift. But it’s hard to be indifferent about money and making plans to get some. I think it would make a good group project. People with different talents can do different bits. And it would let the kids know that writing will always be a big part of science - there’s the grant to get the money and then the report at the end showing what the money bought.

Any comments on the above would be welcome.

36

you’re right it isnt…but the question refers to million-s. :slight_smile:

37

Let’s say it’s a standard $2 million Lotto 6/49 jackpot. In Canada we pay no tax on lottery wins, so it’s really $2 million, so…

$500,000 to my parents and sister
$500,000 to Mrs. RickJay’s stepdad and sisters
$300,000 for a house
$75,000 to get rid of all current debt, including car
$30,000 for a new car
$50,000 for new clothes, furniture, appliances, etc.
$8,000 - awesome new computer gaming machines oh yeahhhhh, plus T1 hookup to new house
$50,000 for a big vacation and just fun

The rest, I go to the investments guy my parents have used for 30 years and invest in highly solid, heavily divested savings funds.

I would NOT stop working permanently - but I might go back to school for a year and become a teacher. But I’d get right back into making a salary. If we work for awhile without a mortgage or rent payment of any kind, and let those investments pile up, we can retire very early and extremely wealthy.

38

Investments.

My own house, or houses.
I’d like one near a populated area, for access to libraries, bookstores, and young single women, and an isolated retreat out in some wooded, mountainous nowhere area, where I can hunt, fish, hike, or fire guns off my back porch without scaring anyone.

One cool car, for impressing women when I go on a date.

One 4-wheel-drive, for use at my isolated retreat.

Computer hardware and games.

Exercise equipment.
My cheap barbells and homemade gear still WORK, but I’d like a whole mess of nice, shiny stainless steel stuff… and enough plates that I can just keep several bars loaded to my working weights for various exercises and not have to be constantly shuffling plates around.

I’d like to get something nice for my parents, sister, and a couple of close friends.
Dad has so many hobbies, it would be easy to find something for him. Mother and sister and friends would be harder to shop for… just have to ask them to pick something.

That about does it. Reading, playing with the computer, lifting weights, women, and outdoor stuff pretty much cover everything that I’d want to do.

39

Hmm.

Well, I would buy at least two houses in the center of Cambridge, maybe more. One of them would be my own - not too large, but fairly big, and with some sort of garden - and the rest I would rent out for fairly reasonable prices to students. I’d also invest a lot of money in other things. These should secure a decent income for the rest of my life.

I’d pay off my (rather small amount of) debts, pay my parents back for college and various other things, as well as giving them a general helping out sum. Probably enough to put my younger siblings through college and let my dad retire.

I would get a top of the range custom computer built. This one I would go over the top with - extravagant to the point of silly. :slight_smile: Multiple gigs of RAM, Terabyte of hard drive space, etc… I have a lot of friends who are computer geeks and are constantly boasting to eachother ‘look, look, I have 250 gig of harddrive space. Think how much porn you could fit on that!’. The resulting lynch mob would be too humorous to pass up.

I’d get a leased line installed to my house (mmm… bandwidth. :slight_smile: ), do a little bit of remodelling. Nothing too extravagant, just set up a server room (with appropriately cool computers to go in it) and a library, and make sure everything else is in good condition.

Then I’d go on a ludicrously big book shopping spree. For several days straight I would just buy every book I saw that looked remotely interesting. I figure I can probably blow about £10,000 that way easily.

After that, there are a couple things with lasers I want to do. Corrective eye surgery and hair removal specifically (I loathe having to shave, and my facial hair is very awkward about it too).

Hire a top dermatologist, see if we can’t get rid of this irritating mild persistent acne I’ve got.

Then I’d continue with my degree. When I graduated I’d probably take a year or two off, do a little bit of teaching, a lot of writing, and probably hire a couple personal tutors to pick up the subjects I’d like to have done at university and didn’t. Then I’d go back to university for a PhD.

After that I’d probably try and get a research position of some sort. On the other hand I might not - most of the work I’m interested in is theoretical, so a lot of it can be done from home anyway (although I’d lose the advantage of working in a team).

But, the very first thing I would do is sit there with a stupid grin on my face for 10 minutes straight. :slight_smile:

40

I’d quit my job, buy a condo, and go into business selling MLB jerseys and T-shirts.
I am a man of simple pleasures.
That, or I’m just very, very dull.