Definitely a million to my family and step-son, a good chunk to our favorite charities and plenty to friends who need whatever help. Then I’d give some to the people on my Meals on Wheels route too. That would still leave more than I can imagine ever needing.
We’d share with family, maybe set up a scholarship foundation, get out of debt, and invest the rest so we could have fun in retirement. I expect my husband would start looking at those boats he only sees in magazines…
I’d share with my friends and family in a way that wasn’t obvious that i had a massive windfall. So nothing big like lambos for everyone, but if anyone was in trouble i would be there to help them.
1 million each to mom and dad, my sister and my brother. For me, a home somewhere warm, and a nice big sail boat. The rest I would stash.
I’d like to know who is paying 5% interest in this economy.
I’d divide up $1m or so amongst my family, and give maybe $100k to a good friend of mine who has had bad luck and struggled with saving money all his life.
Then I’d start up a fully kitted out production studio for all my movie-making friends to use for free for all their projects. I’d also employ a couple of them to manage it. That’s the best way for me to share my good fortune with them without resorting to giving them cash, I think.
The rest is investments, charity, and living a good life.
$1M to my parents. $10,000 each to every friend and relative, so they can all do what they will with it and it’s all the same and no one can ever say I never gave them anything. $2M to the shelter I work for, since I won’t need to work there any more, and they’re trying to raise funds to build a new shelter. With that donation, the building will have my name on it!
Buy a house for myself, furnish it luxuriously, and invest the rest to live off the income.
Make my parents debt-free and, if they want, fund the building of a new house or the complete renovation of the one they have. Also a full-time housekeeper.
One hundred thousand dollars for my grandmother unless she wants a house. In which case, a house and then a hundred thousand dollars. 
She’s pretty well off and I doubt she’d accept it, so I’d have to snag her checkbook and transfer the money to her sneakylike.
Some nice gifts for friends. Sadly most of my friends are bad with money and it wouldn’t help much.
Then, a nice upper-middle class house for me (small but in a cool part of town, maybe Tarrytown or Hyde Park or maybe South Congress over by the yarn store, three bedrooms – one for guests, one for me, one study/computer room/craft room) and my car paid off. My car is nice and I don’t need anything else until the Tesla Model S is available. I too get a housekeeper – just a once-weekly visit.
Then, I make myself entirely debt-free.
All the above will take, on the super-liberal side, two million dollars. I’ll invest five million for the interest, one million for charities, and use the last two million dollars for expenses for a very, very long time. I’ll take the summer to go to Europe and hop from museum to museum, then take a train down the Mississippi River to get home.
Family members and friends who ask for money will be given the option: they can have twenty thousand dollars to do anything they want, but they can never contact me for anything ever again. If what they want is money, then they aren’t interested in me. Luckily, most of my friends already know someone richer than I’ll ever be and they’re aware that asking for money is a major no-no outside of normal “can you spot me for a drink” circumstances.
I play the lottery frequently. I play it for entertainment purposes only. I know exactly what I’m buying, a fantasy; I am not bad at math. I know that I would split half with my family: my dad, my mom (they divorced when I was five-ish, so they get separate shares), my sister, and my brother. They all get an equal one-eighth of the total. I keep the other half, although some would end up with charities, I don’t know which ones or how much.
45-50% for me.
10% to step-brother #1, 10% to step-brother #2, 10% to mother, 10% to father/step-mother, 10-15% to assorted friends, possibly more distant family.
That’s pretty much my standard fantasy lottery win breakdown, modified by how much I might win. I try to buy a ticket for fun once every other year or so :).
My husband works for a company that is 100% employee-owned, and they got about 35% return on their shares this year. Just sayin’. 
This would be my thinking too - if I won that much money, I’d like to buy a nicer house, and have me and my wife stop working so that we can spend more time with our kids (like volunteer in their classrooms, participate in the school activities), go on nice exotic vacations every year, have the children’s college funds set up, etc. The ten million seems like it would just about cover that!
Even totally non-invested, 10mil would be 200k a year from now until the day I died presuming I live to a very optimistic 76. I think I could live **very **comfortably on $547.94 a day for the rest of my life.
Oh, share it?? Screw those guys.
$500K to my mom.
$500K to my dad.
Help grandparents with expenses.
But that’d be it. At 27 I’ve probably got 50 years of retirement to fund and can’t afford to give away too much. Inflation and health care costs are going to end up taking a serious chunk out of it. I’m not sure what kind of investment opportunities are available for that much money.
Actually, I’d probably give $20K or so to my sister for a down payment too, though honestly, I can’t see my parents (especially my dad) accepting a dime from me.
Definitely clear off family mortgages. Then secure my own financial future. I’ll buy a house near my brother and get a Nissan GTR and a more sensible 4WD. I’d discuss with my brother, who is very successful, how best to help him beyond clearing his mortgage.
After paying off the debt, set up a trust fund for the lot of us ( 4)
Set up scholarships.
Donate to the local food bank that has helped out so many of the locals in times of minor to great need.
Make an investment into our local community for the library. Our library is simply awesome and I use them so much.
My church gets $1M
My wife gets $1M
My daughter’s college fund gets 1M
.5M buys a mitral valve replacement for a friend of ours
$.5M goes down on a nice house with a not-too-big mortgage
Still got $6M.
$3M gets invested
I cut 80 cashier’s checks for $37.5K
My dad gets 10
Each sibling gets 2
Each sibling-in-law gets 2 (this covers both my siblings and my wife’s siblings, and all spouses)
Each nephew/niece gets 1
Each spouse of a nephew/niece gets 1
I still have six left over for future wedding presents.
Why yes, I have given this quite a bit of thought. Usually with amounts that allow the cashier’s checks to hit at least $200K
A NYSE composite index would have earned 9% in 2010 so it’s not impossible. Not to mention with that kind of money I could afford to average out a couple of bad years as long as I didn’t dig too deep into the principle.
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