# You just won the Powerball jackpot..let's say it's 600 million. What do you do with it? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 1, 2015, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-just-won-the-powerball-jackpot-lets-say-its-600-million-what-do-you-do-with-it/733113 "2015-10-01T05:34:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Hermitian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hermitian/32/470_2.png) [@Hermitian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermitian)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2015, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-just-won-the-powerball-jackpot-lets-say-its-600-million-what-do-you-do-with-it/733113/41 "2015-10-01T18:39:33Z")
> [@lost4life](#): > > [ul] > [li]Women who will exchange currency for sexual relations.[/li][li]Illegal substances derived from erythroxylaceae plant family, common in the Colombia area.[/li][/ul] And the rest of the money you just wasted. ---
**Author:** ![HubZilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ccd318/32.png) [@HubZilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HubZilla)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2015, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-just-won-the-powerball-jackpot-lets-say-its-600-million-what-do-you-do-with-it/733113/42 "2015-10-01T19:01:42Z")
Work with some Nigerians to get a mailing list. Send $1,000,000 to each of the first 50 responders that give out their SSN and Credit Card numbers. Publicize the results on all the major news networks. Do the same thing for the next 100 responders after the news breaks. Enjoy watching the world burn. ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_T-Cups](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Sir\_T-Cups](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_T-Cups)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2015, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-just-won-the-powerball-jackpot-lets-say-its-600-million-what-do-you-do-with-it/733113/43 "2015-10-01T19:18:45Z")
Eliminate both me and Ms. Cups’ debt. Pay off all debts and get new houses for our respective parents (wherever they want to live). Give Ms. Cups the Disney wedding she always wanted Honeymoon around the world New house for us somewhere beach-front Money to my brother and his family Put the rest away, live incrementally, and as another poster said “live in the sweet calm of financial stability” ---
**Author:** ![Reluctant\_A](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/839c29/32.png) [@Reluctant\_A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reluctant_A)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2015, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-just-won-the-powerball-jackpot-lets-say-its-600-million-what-do-you-do-with-it/733113/44 "2015-10-01T19:25:25Z")
I’d hire a financial planner, and give him about 60 percent to invest. With the other 40 percent, I’d: [ol] [li]Pay off all debt (of course).[/li][li]Get my teeth fixed.[/li][li]Hire a personal trainer and a nutritionist, to get my body squared away, back to my fighting weight.[/li][li]Buy a condo in downtown Sacramento (which I would only occupy for, roughly, 50-60 days a year).[/li][LIST=a] [li]Season tickets to the Kings for life! (I would not, however, move to Sacramento. I would commute, and stay at the condo for extended home stands)[/li][/ol] [li]Purchase a WNBA franchise (and maybe an NBADL one, too).[/li][li]Ingratiate myself to Dave Prazak, and become his “money mark” for SHIMMER.[/li][li]Fund a scholarship that would provide full rides to minorities and women pursuing degrees in STEM disciplines.[/li][li]If I could manage it, I’d like to start up a business that made little more than enough to cover its operating costs, and basically existed for the purpose of giving veterans jobs.[/li][li]Hire the owner/admin of my favorite message board away from his current job, and pay him whatever he’s making at his current job, plus 15%, to become the full-time admin of the message board.[/li][li]Hire a hacker to track down a bunch of internet trolls for me, and go all ‘Jay and Silent Bob’ on their asses.[/li][/LIST] ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2015, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-just-won-the-powerball-jackpot-lets-say-its-600-million-what-do-you-do-with-it/733113/45 "2015-10-01T19:26:18Z")
Hmm… 1. lump sum, get financial manager to put 25 % somewhere so safe only the Fall Of Civilization can lose it. 2. redomicile the bulk of my fortune away from P.R. because I don’t @&$%# trust the Commonwealth not to futz around with my bank accounts. High-six-figure pied-a-terre stateside. 3. Payoff of all debts of parents and siblings, and student loans of nephews. Trust fund to care for elderly infirm father. Full top to bottom remodel/update of mine and dad’s homes. 4. donation to scholarship funds of all the schools I went through, and to an inner city arts-education program I am fond of. 5. Grand Tour of the world’s fine cultural and historic sites, natural wonders and upscale red light districts. That will take me a few years. 6. DoperCon!! Featuring live Ask The… panels, 1920s-style death rays, the Straw Man costume ball and a quarry to throw things into. 7. create a news site/webcast dedicated to telling the local political class what putzes they are. 8. Vanity project, small book/music/comic store coffeeshop just to occupy my days. And of course **lost4life** ’s female entepreneurs will be in the background all along… ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2015, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-just-won-the-powerball-jackpot-lets-say-its-600-million-what-do-you-do-with-it/733113/46 "2015-10-01T19:44:51Z")
[quote=“Reluctant\_A, post:44, topic:733113”] [li]Hire the owner/admin of my favorite message board away from his current job, and pay him whatever he’s making at his current job, plus 15%, to become the full-time admin of the message board.[/li][/QUOTE] Make that “the guy who does my favourite webcomic” and it sounds like a really good idea. ---
**Author:** ![SigMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@SigMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SigMan)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2015, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-just-won-the-powerball-jackpot-lets-say-its-600-million-what-do-you-do-with-it/733113/47 "2015-10-01T20:40:38Z")
1. Disappear. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Rather\_a\_Vicious\_Gentleman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/919ad9/32.png) [@Rather\_a\_Vicious\_Gentleman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rather_a_Vicious_Gentleman)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2015, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-just-won-the-powerball-jackpot-lets-say-its-600-million-what-do-you-do-with-it/733113/48 "2015-10-01T20:43:04Z")
I’ll tell you what I’d do man. Two chicks at the same time man. ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-just-won-the-powerball-jackpot-lets-say-its-600-million-what-do-you-do-with-it/733113/49 "2015-10-02T12:15:20Z")
> [@HubZilla](#): > > Work with some Nigerians to get a mailing list. Send $1,000,000 to each of the first 50 responders. > Publicize the results on all the major news networks. Do the same thing for the next 100 responders after the news breaks. > Enjoy watching the world burn. You win the thread! > [@bump](#): > > set up a trust in order to claim the prize anonymously. I’d name it something embarrassing for news readers to read out loud. And you come in second! 🙂 I think it was Louis CK who did a routine on being the world’s richest man. He said he’d buy up all the pants in the world, and all the textile factories. Then he’d stop making pants. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-just-won-the-powerball-jackpot-lets-say-its-600-million-what-do-you-do-with-it/733113/50 "2015-10-02T12:37:02Z")
Except for the new house I’m buying (fingers crossed) I don’t have much other debt. I would get a decent sized house probably not too far from where I am now. Maybe across the river into PA. In the country but not too far from civilization. Then I would get a nice house in a warmer climate so I don’t have to live through shitty winters again. I would fix up my mother’s house. She is comfortable where she is so I doubt she’ll move. A nice car or two. A cook to come in a couple of times a week at least. Travel. That’s about it. The rest I can use on hookers and blow. ---
**Author:** ![RickG](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rickg/32/5174_2.png) [@RickG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickG)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-just-won-the-powerball-jackpot-lets-say-its-600-million-what-do-you-do-with-it/733113/51 "2015-10-02T17:11:11Z")
[ol] [li]Call in rich.[/li][li]Invest.[/li][li]Spend a lot of time at the gym.[/li][li]Donate lavishly to the Foundation Fighting Blindness, American Jewish World Service , and our synagogue.[/li][li]Donate to the local public radio station an amount sufficient to buy out a single pledge drive (it’s **that** week again around here).[/li][li]Travel (business class–I don’t like to be ostentatious). Rinse. Repeat.[/li][/ol] ---
**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-just-won-the-powerball-jackpot-lets-say-its-600-million-what-do-you-do-with-it/733113/52 "2015-10-02T17:22:39Z")
Pretty solid advice from a post I saw on Reddit. So the first part of the post talks about how bad off you are, statistically, when accounting for other winners. Increased odds for kidnapping, alcoholism, car accidents, and yes, bankruptcy. Because most people who play the lottery have absolutely no clue what to do with so much money, and therefore have no preparation for utilizing it wisely. But I’ll skip all that and go to the second part. It is long, but well worth the read: From here:[Reddit - Dive into anything](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/24vzgl/you_just_won_a_656_million_dollar_lottery_what_do/) > [@](#): > > So, what the hell DO you do if you are unlucky enough to win the lottery? > > This is the absolutely most important thing you can do right away: NOTHING. > > Yes. Nothing. > > DO NOT DECLARE YOURSELF THE WINNER yet. > > Do NOT tell anyone. The urge is going to be nearly irresistible. Resist it. Trust me. > > / 1. IMMEDIATELY retain an attorney. > Get a partner from a larger, NATIONAL firm. Don’t let them pawn off junior partners or associates on you. They might try, all law firms might, but insist instead that your lead be a partner who has been with the firm for awhile. Do NOT use your local attorney. Yes, I mean your long-standing family attorney who did your mother’s will. Do not use the guy who fought your dry-cleaner bill. Do not use the guy you have trusted your entire life because of his long and faithful service to your family. In fact, do not use any firm that has any connection to family or friends or community. TRUST me. This is bad. You want someone who has never heard of you, any of your friends, or any member of your family. Go the closest big city and walk into one of the national firms asking for one of the “Trust and Estates” partners you have previously looked up on [http://www.martindale.com](http://www.martindale.com)[1] from one of the largest 50 firms in the United States which has an office near you. You can look up attorneys by practice area and firm on Martindale. > > / 2. Decide to take the lump sum. > Most lotteries pay a really pathetic rate for the annuity. It usually hovers around 4.5% annual return or less, depending. It doesn’t take much to do better than this, and if you have the money already in cash, rather than leaving it in the hands of the state, you can pull from the capital whenever you like. If you take the annuity you won’t have access to that cash. That could be good. It could be bad. It’s probably bad unless you have a very addictive personality. If you need an allowance managed by the state, it is because you didn’t listen to point #1 above. > Why not let the state just handle it for you and give you your allowance? > Many state lotteries pay you your “allowance” (the annuity option) by buying U.S. treasury instruments and running the interest payments through their bureaucracy before sending it to you along with a hunk of the principal every month. You will not be beating inflation by much, if at all. There is no reason you couldn’t do this yourself, if a low single-digit return is acceptable to you. > > You aren’t going to get even remotely the amount of the actual jackpot. Take our old friend Mr. Whittaker. Using Whittaker is a good model both because of the reminder of his ignominious decline, and the fact that his winning ticket was one of the larger ones on record. If his situation looks less than stellar to you, you might have a better perspective on how “large” your winnings aren’t. Whittaker’s “jackpot” was $315 million. He selected the lump-sum cash up-front option, which knocked off $145 million (or 46% of the total) leaving him with $170 million. That was then subject to withholding for taxes of $56 million (33%) leaving him with $114 million. > In general, you should expect to get about half of the original jackpot if you elect a lump sum (maybe better, it depends). After that, you should expect to lose around 33% of your already pruned figure to state and federal taxes. (Your mileage may vary, particularly if you live in a state with aggressive taxation schemes). > > / 3. Decide right now, how much you plan to give to family and friends. > This really shouldn’t be more than 20% or so. Figure it out right now. Pick your number. Tell your lawyer. That’s it. Don’t change it. 20% of $114 million is $22.8 million. That leaves you with $91.2 million. DO NOT CONSULT WITH FAMILY when deciding how much to give to family. You are going to get advice that is badly tainted by conflict of interest, and if other family members find out that Aunt Flo was consulted and they weren’t you will never hear the end of it. Neither will Aunt Flo. This might later form the basis for an allegation that Aunt Flo unduly influenced you and a lawsuit might magically appear on this basis. No, I’m not kidding. I know of one circumstance (related to a business windfall, not a lottery) where the plaintiffs WON this case. > > Do NOT give anyone cash. Ever. Period. Just don’t. Do not buy them houses. Do not buy them cars. Tell your attorney that you want to provide for your family, and that you want to set up a series of trusts for them that will total 20% of your after tax winnings. Tell him you want the trust empowered to fund higher education, some help (not a total) purchase of their first home, some provision for weddings and the like, whatever. Do NOT put yourself in the position of handing out cash. Once you do, if you stop, you will be accused of being a heartless bastard (or bitch). Trust me. It won’t go well. > > It will be easy to lose perspective. It is now the duty of your friends, family, relatives, hangers-on and their inner circle to skew your perspective, and they take this job quite seriously. Setting up a trust, a managed fund for your family that is in the double digit millions is AMAZINGLY generous. You need never have trouble sleeping because you didn’t lend Uncle Jerry $20,000 in small denomination unmarked bills to start his chain of deep-fried peanut butter pancake restaurants. (“Deep’n 'nutter Restaurants”) Your attorney will have a number of good ideas how to parse this wealth out without turning your siblings/spouse/children/grandchildren/cousins/waitresses into the latest Paris Hilton. > > / 4. You will be encouraged to hire an investment manager. Considerable pressure will be applied. Don’t. > > Investment managers charge fees, usually a percentage of assets. Consider this: If they charge 1% (which is low, I doubt you could find this deal, actually) they have to beat the market by 1% every year just to break even with a general market index fund. It is not worth it, and you don’t need the extra return or the extra risk. Go for the index fund instead if you must invest in stocks. This is a hard rule to follow. They will come recommended by friends. They will come recommended by family. They will be your second cousin on your mother’s side. Investment managers will sound smart. They will have lots of cool acronyms. They will have nice PowerPoint presentations. They might (MIGHT) pay for your shrimp cocktail lunch at TGI Friday’s while reminding you how poor their side of the family is. They live for this stuff. > > You should smile, thank them for their time, and then tell them you will get back to them next week. Don’t sign ANYTHING. Don’t write it on a cocktail napkin (lottery lawsuit cases have been won and lost over drunkenly scrawled cocktail napkin addition and subtraction figures with lots of zeros on them). Never call them back. Trust me. You will thank me later. This tactic, smiling, thanking people for their time, and promising to get back to people, is going to have to become familiar. You will have to learn to say no gently, without saying the word “no.” It sounds underhanded. Sneaky. It is. And its part of your new survival strategy. I mean the word “survival” quite literally. > > Get all this figured out BEFORE you claim your winnings. They aren’t going anywhere. Just relax. > > / 5. If you elect to be more global about your paranoia, use between 20.00% and 33.00% of what you have not decided to commit to a family fund IMMEDIATELY to purchase a combination of longer term U.S. treasuries (5 or 10 year are a good idea) and perhaps even another G7 treasury instrument. This is your safety net. You will be protected… from yourself. > > You are going to be really tempted to starting being a big investor. You are going to be convinced that you can double your money in Vegas with your awesome Roulette system/by funding your friend’s amazing idea to sell Lemming dung/buying land for oil drilling/by shorting the North Pole Ice market (global warming, you know). This all sounds tempting because “Even if I lose it all I still have $XX million left! Anyone could live on that comfortably for the rest of their life.” Yeah, except for 33% of everyone who won the lottery. > > You’re not going to double your money, so cool it. Let me say that again. You’re not going to double your money, so cool it. Right now, you’ll get around 3.5% on the 10 year U.S. treasury. With $18.2 million (20% of $91.2 mil after your absurdly generous family gift) invested in those you will pull down $638,400 per year. If everything else blows up, you still have that, and you will be in the top 1% of income in the United States. So how about you not fuck with it. Eh? And that’s income that is damn safe. If we get to the point where the United States defaults on those instruments, we are in far worse shape than worrying about money. > > If you are really paranoid, you might consider picking another G7 or otherwise mainstream country other than the U.S. according to where you want to live if the United States dissolves into anarchy or Britney Spears is elected to the United States Senate. Put some fraction in something like Swiss Government Bonds at 3%. If the Swiss stop paying on their government debt, well, then you know money really means nothing anywhere on the globe anymore. I’d study small field sustainable agriculture if you think this is a possibility. You might have to start feeding yourself. > > / 6. That leaves, say, 80% of $91.2 million or $72.9 million. > Here is where things start to get less clear. Personally, I think you should dump half of this, or $36.4 million, into a boring S&P 500 index fund. Find something with low fees. You are going to be constantly tempted to retain “sophisticated” advisers who charge “nominal fees.” Don’t. Period. Even if you lose every other dime, you have $638,400 per year you didn’t have before that will keep coming in until the United States falls into chaos. Fuck advisers and their fees. Instead, drop your $36.4 million in the market in a low fee vehicle. Unless we have an unprecedented downturn the likes of which the United States has never seen, should return around 7.00% or so over the next 10 years. You should expect to touch not even a dime of this money for 10 or 15 or even 20 years. In 20 years $36.4 million could easily become $115 million. > > / 7. So you have put a safety net in place. > You have provided for your family beyond your wildest dreams. And you still have $36.4 million in “cash.” You know you will be getting $638,400 per year unless the capital building is burning, you don’t ever need to give anyone you care about cash, since they are provided for generously and responsibly (and can’t blow it in Vegas) and you have a HUGE nest egg that is growing at market rates. (Given the recent dip, you’ll be buying in at great prices for the market). What now? Whatever you want. Go ahead and burn through $36.4 million in hookers and blow if you want. You’ve got more security than 99% of the country. A lot of it is in trusts so even if you are sued your family will live well, and progress across generations. If your lawyer is worth his salt (I bet he is) then you will be insulated from most lawsuits anyhow. Buy a nice house or two, make sure they aren’t stupid investments though. Go ahead and be an angel investor and fund some startups, but REFUSE to do it for anyone you know. (Friends and money, oil and water - Michael Corleone) Play. Have fun. You earned it by putting together the shoe sizes of your whole family on one ticket and winning the jackpot. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-just-won-the-powerball-jackpot-lets-say-its-600-million-what-do-you-do-with-it/733113/53 "2015-10-02T18:31:25Z")
I’m too old for most of the above. I would sell my (paid-off) house and buy a fancy penthouse in Manhattan for $20M and maybe another in the same building for my daughter’s family, save enough so that I can fly in a chartered jet when I travel and put most of the rest into trust funds for my six grandchildren. I would also sell my car and use limousine services whenever I went somewhere the subway wouldn’t take me fast. Also put enough aside for any medical care my wife and I would need. ---
**Author:** ![Lowdown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c57346/32.png) [@Lowdown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lowdown)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-just-won-the-powerball-jackpot-lets-say-its-600-million-what-do-you-do-with-it/733113/54 "2015-10-02T19:01:00Z")
Pay off our debt. Get a nice house, but under 3000 square feet, on a bunch of land somewhere. Stop going to work. Exercise more. Practice drums. Get a 911 Turbo. And for my completely ridiculous thing to do when you have too much money, build a sweet go-kart track. ---
**Author:** ![GrumpyBunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bc8723/32.png) [@GrumpyBunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrumpyBunny)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-just-won-the-powerball-jackpot-lets-say-its-600-million-what-do-you-do-with-it/733113/55 "2015-10-02T19:24:36Z")
1. Call accountant pal, get name of a good financial planner. Also retain an attorney. 2. Have appointment with financial planner to: Pay off house of parental units; Pay off cars of parental units; Set up education funds for nephew, cousin’s kid, and best friend’s kid; Buy house for idiot brother so he doesn’t have to live with my parents again; Buy nephew a used car when my dad says the kiddo is ready for one (a car is a necessity in FL); Give a set amount yearly to the shelters from where I adopted my cats. Set up trust fund/whatever for self and family members. 3. Put chunk of change into bank and set up auto-payments of car loan and utilities. Pay outstanding bills. 4. Start looking at houses. 5. Buy house in small, quaint, expensive town in New England, near riding facilities. Buy or build “MIL” space in case my mom wants to move up here. 6. Buy horsie(s). 7. In spring, buy convertible (Charcoal grey, probably a Mustang, since I drove one in college and have great memories of them.). 8. Buy “cabin” in Maine. 9. Buy sailboat. Just a little one. With a potty, whoops, I mean “head”. 10. Contemplate continuing to work part-time. ---
**Author:** ![GrumpyBunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bc8723/32.png) [@GrumpyBunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrumpyBunny)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-just-won-the-powerball-jackpot-lets-say-its-600-million-what-do-you-do-with-it/733113/56 "2015-10-02T19:31:30Z")
> [@Rushgeekgirl](#): > > new glasses With $200 million, you might be able to get new eyes. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Mnemnosyne](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mnemnosyne/32/3347_2.png) [@Mnemnosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mnemnosyne)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-just-won-the-powerball-jackpot-lets-say-its-600-million-what-do-you-do-with-it/733113/57 "2015-10-02T20:34:35Z")
Assuming I end up with an actual 600 million in my proverbial pocket, a quick calculation tells me that assuming I expect to live to 100 years old I can spend about $24,000 a day for the rest of my life and run out when I’m 100. That’s…kind of a lot. I’ll take 10% of it and set it aside for the paying of financial advisors and/or lawyers which I will need to properly handle the rest, leaving me with 540 million. The 540 mil, I will split into three. One third of it will go into solid investments like government bonds and such, purely for the purpose of making sure I have plenty of fallback money should anything happen to the rest. ‘Overflow’ from this, basically, any profits, will go into the next third: One third will go into ‘cool’ investments; I’ll basically set aside that 180 million to invest in things I think would be awesome, even if they’re not the greatest investments. This is the funds I would use to buy things like IP that I like and then hire people to make sure it goes well. The final third gets put into something that will retain value. It doesn’t need to increase in value, it just needs to not lose any. From this third I allow myself to withdraw no more than about $7000 a day, and on this I can easily live the rest of my life. If I want anything that costs more than $7000, I force myself to wait whatever number of days until I have that much cash on hand. This money I spend very liberally, doing whatever I want with it because I actively plan to spend the $7000 daily. After buying things for myself and making sure I have a comfortable place to live with every amenity I want, which would probably involve having a house designed and built exclusively for me and things of that nature, I would throw this money anywhere I want. If I see an artist whose work I like, I might throw money at them, commissioning them for whatever. A game designer has some fun ideas (but doesn’t seem workable enough to buy under ‘cool investment’), throw some money at them. Basically, within my allotted $7000/day budget, I feel free to ‘waste’ my money by purchasing anything I fancy, giving it away to whoever I happen to like, and so on. This is separate from the ‘cool’ investments in that those I still expect to be successful; this spending I don’t care if it’s successful or results in anything, so I’m free to throw it at literally anything I want. Frankly, even halving those numbers if we’re assuming the $600,000,000 isn’t the final ‘take-home’ amount and would still require taxes and whatnot to be paid on it, would still leave me spending $3500/day, which is way more than comfortable enough, and even halving them _again_ would still be $1750/day, so the basic strategy would remain in place even if the daily amount goes way down. ---
**Author:** ![dzeiger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/46a35a/32.png) [@dzeiger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dzeiger)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-just-won-the-powerball-jackpot-lets-say-its-600-million-what-do-you-do-with-it/733113/58 "2015-10-02T20:43:20Z")
You know all those iOS/Android games that advertise themselves as “free,” but are all player-vs-player and end up with anyone not paying constantly getting stomped by people spending tons of money? I go and make it very publicly clear I will create an army of accounts, go full pay-to-win, and stomp a mudhole in everyone–so unless you think you can outspend my $600 million, there’s no point in you playing. And then maybe, just maybe, I can kill off the entire crappy pay-to-win free app business model. OK, that probably wouldn’t actually work. But hey, it’s a fantasy thread, and it’s a lot more fun to think of things like that than “Buy a house and a nicer car.” ---
**Author:** ![LH75](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lh75/32/4438_2.png) [@LH75](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LH75)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-just-won-the-powerball-jackpot-lets-say-its-600-million-what-do-you-do-with-it/733113/59 "2015-10-02T21:04:05Z")
I would give my longtime employer thirty days notice and then quietly retire without telling anyone about my win. ---
**Author:** ![Idle\_Thoughts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/838e76/32.png) [@Idle\_Thoughts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Idle_Thoughts)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2015, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-just-won-the-powerball-jackpot-lets-say-its-600-million-what-do-you-do-with-it/733113/60 "2015-10-02T21:18:26Z")
It’s kinda funny, I actually meant you get 600 million as a lump sum itself (no taxes on it…or the taxes were already taken out leaving you with 600 million), but no biggie. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-just-won-the-powerball-jackpot-lets-say-its-600-million-what-do-you-do-with-it/733113.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-just-won-the-powerball-jackpot-lets-say-its-600-million-what-do-you-do-with-it/733113.md?page=4)