My income doesn’t allow me to do a number of things. I can’t fly business or first class anywhere, nor can I afford fancy hairdressers. Just ordinary things really.
But if I won a gazillion dollars in the lottery, first thing I’d do is buy a piece of wagyu beef and chuck it on my bbq. I’d buy the BEST wagyu available in Australia, maybe even go meet the meat before it is slaughtered.
Then I’d go get a decent haircut before I book my business class ticket to I don’t care where.
What are the relatively ‘ordinary’ things you miss out on now that a mega lottery win would allow?
I’d buy a far better laptop or desktop for my computer gaming. Splurge tens of thousands of dollars on it. But still play the games I like now, just with reliable hardware this time. My current computer can’t do it well.
I would hire a cleaning lady, buy a salt-water aquarium with a maintenance agreement, get a pedicure, download all of Dorothy Sayers Peter Wimsey novels & short stories (plus the sequels) onto my kindle, and go somewhere by the ocean to plan how to spend the rest.
Oh, and I toss all of the imitation vanilla and get some real stuff.
You cannot spend 10k on a computer without it being a disgusting waste of money. Even if you’re buying off the shelf, anything beyond like 5k is insane - for 5k, you can get a top-end business-class CAD workstation or laptop, or literally the most expensive available alienware laptop.
Like, you can buy an off-the-shelf $10k computer, but it’s got the kind of power you won’t need for a solid decade, and by the time the parts are even remotely relevant, they’ll probably have broken down or be made obsolete - by the time you’ll actually need 128GB of RAM, it’s going to be way cheaper to go to a computer shop and tell them you need an upgrade. There’s only so far onto the bleeding edge you can really go before it stops making any sense. And if you do homebrew (which I can heartily recommend)… If you homebrew, how do you even spend $10k on parts?! I built my current computer 6 years ago. I spent about $1.5k on parts (including the OS). Since then, I’ve replaced the GPU (cost: $120) and the case (cost: $100), and it still runs incredibly fast and smooth, and can handle modern AAA games. I feel like anything beyond that is just massive overkill.
As to the answer… I’d probably move closer to my job. Or at least into a home that isn’t quite so tiny. Maybe fix up my furniture. I’m currently sitting on quite a bit of savings with no real outlet for them, and making more than I spend each month, so I don’t really know what I’d do if I had more money than I know what to do with, because… well, I kinda already do. Maybe do more weekend trips out to Britain to visit friends?
This may not sound even slightly challenging to many of you, but for the life I’ve lived it’s always been out of reach.
World travel. I don’t mean fancy hotels and private jets, I mean throwing a tent in the back of a 4WD SUV and going off-road into the semi-wilderness. It’s a dream that I’ve had, but have always thought too risky, too expensive, and potentially something I’d get antsy and homesick over. But if I had enough money, I would be comfortable in a secure safe vehicle, have wi-fi or phone access in 80% of places, and with any luck a companion to keep me interested and energised.
That depends upon what you want to do. 8K monitors will eat up your $10K really quick. They’re $4K apiece, and Nvidia’s Quadro M video cards are more than that. Two 8K monitors and a pair of GPUs easily exceeds $10K.
Even on a home PC two RTX 2080 Tis will account for $3K, a 120 Hz 4k monitor for your games another $3K, and you’ll want an ordinary 8K monitor for non-gaming work, a high end CPU another $1.5K, and so on. It’s easy to exceed $10K.
On that note, 4 thousand dollars for a fucking computer monitor?! :eek: I mean, sure, if you absolutely need 8K resolution (I cannot imagine a single legitimate use for that much resolution; I already struggle to imagine what good 4K is supposed to be). And if you need that, you need a GPU/SLI setup that can run simulations of Rotterdam to make it worthwhile and the CPU to match.
I just can’t imagine that being a good use of money in any circumstance. What, exactly, are you running on this thing that needs two RTX 2080 Tis? What are you running that needs a CPU beefier than an i9 9900k (or for that matter an i7 9700k)? I was working with people who do 3D modeling for massive automatons, where the IT is busting our ass to get the time from “computer on” to “working on a machine” down by 30 seconds, and we’re working with PCs that don’t have anywhere near that kind of hardware, because it makes no sense. I mean, sure, I could build an intel Platinum Xeon in, and then I’m already at $25k. But if I’m not running a fucking server farm, what’s the point?
There is a Faberge egg style bong out there somewhere, last sold for just over a hundred thousand dollars. I have a spot on the coffee table where that would look lovely next to my thrift shop ash tray in the shape of a ship’s wheel.
Get a house, nothing big, maybe 3 bedroom, preferably off-grid in a quiet area, with a bit of land where I could potter around growing vegetables and keeping chickens and bees.
I’d like to travel as well, so I’d have to find someone reliable to care for the place while I’m not there.
