What will you do when you win a billion dollars? (Before cash out and taxes.)

[Carrie12345]

We’ve done this before when it’s been super big, but who wants to update?

Family, charity, all that stuff, blah, blah, blah.
Today I decided I’ll by an existing home on the beach. (To vacation, not to live.) When the ocean finally inevitably comes close to take it, I’ll pay for the demo/clean up and just move on with my life.

Keeping an apartment near Broadway would be awesome.

I am still determined to own my own Tilt-A-Whirl. I haven’t found anything in my zoning that says I can’t.

[Melissa Louise]

Buy a house. 

Invest $ for a house deposit for each of my kids + my niece.

Buy and run as a non-profit a block of units for older women at risk of homelessness.

Buy a really good mattress.

Get a dress maker to make me a wardrobe of clothes that are the fit, style and colour I love.

Go to Japan. 

Go back to Scotland.

 

 

 

[Grace Hopper]

For each of my immediate nuclear family members:

Pay off all debt, including mortgages. 

Pay for/ pay off a reliable automobile and cover the taxes. 

Gift each an amount that will let them have a dream vacation or something they want to do with it. 
 

Gift each an amount to give to causes of their choice. 

For myself, throw out every stitch of clothes in my closet and start over. Do all the personal care sort of stuff I’ve neglected and scrimped on the past three decades. Yes, buy a new house. 

After that, start a foundation for things like improvements in elder care, refugee support, homelessness, and anonymously meeting needs for individuals in the community. 
 

Gosh, I could go on and on. I would definitely make some big life changes but I’m not an overly extravagant person. I think I would have great fun giving it away. 
 

One thing is for sure for sure. I will never scrub another toilet!

[Grace Hopper]

14 minutes ago, Melissa Louise said:

Buy a house. 

Invest $ for a house deposit for each of my kids + my niece.

Buy and run as a non-profit a block of units for older women at risk of homelessness.

Buy a really good mattress.

Get a dress maker to make me a wardrobe of clothes that are the fit, style and colour I love.

Go to Japan. 

Go back to Scotland.

 

 

 

Oh my goodness I am adding “really good mattress” to my list!😂

Also, I want a personal stretcher. Like a personal trainer except they won’t yell at me to exercise, they’ll just come bend and tug and stretch my muscles whenever I feel the need. 

[Terabith]

Hire a lawyer and accept winnings anonymously while wearing a scream mask. 

[gardenmom5]

Having two accountants (and another finance type) - first off, it would be invested.  Only spend interest, never touch capital. 

[Carol in Cal.]

Big house right on a particular lake or another particular river.

Big house near my sister.

Big house northwest of where I live now.

Big house on Lake Tahoe.

Staff for all.  Private transportation with staff between them.  Mini orchards at two of them.

(I’m sensing a trend.)

Priority on health and on hospitality.  Maybe a dude ranch type trip through the High Sierra Trail or the John Muir Trail.

Purchase a small apartment building in Silicon Valley and fill it with Ukrainian refugee families to stay there for free.

Help struggling organic farmers directly and through Beetcoin.

Endow the hunger nonprofit I’m on the board of.  Link it up with my favorite CSAs.  (Best synergy I can think of.)

Try every fiber, expensive or not.  No more wondering whether vicuña is really worth it.

See my bucket list places, including but not limited to, Denmark, East Germany, Peru, New Zealand, the Lakes District, Banff, Egypt, Ukraine.

Start a string of ‘the other Rosa’ schools.  Fund a parochial school at my church.  Big, targetted endowment for my church body.

Rebuild a small town in Ukraine like it was before.

College for various family members.  Houses, too, maybe.

Serious philanthropy, pursued like a profession.

But always enough investments to continue all of this.  I’d have to give some serious thought to where my houses would go after I was gone, too.  Fortunately I like planning things like that.

 

 

Edited July 29, 2022 by Carol in Cal.

[Annie G]

Our small county of 30,000 is struggling. Our tiny town needs water treatment upgrade and affordable housing. Dh and I laid out a plan today to partner w the city to upgrade the treatment facility and to build a couple of nice, affordable apartment complexes in our town. Single people, young families, and seniors are desperate for affordable places to live, and our town has zero apartments. City council is  against them, wanting to only allow new single family homes and only on lots of at least an acre. All I need is that billion dollars…

[Elizabeth86]

Hmmm 

1. Pay all debts

2. Buy lots of land, lots of forest land to explore, build some hiking trails

3.  build a house slightly bigger than what I have with a nice pool

4. Get a newer van or suv (anything would be an upgrade to my 18 year old Kia van with 213,000 miles with no air conditioning. 🤣

5. Take a vacation Maybe a lengthy road trip out west to see National parks. Got to get to Alaska too.

6. Save the rest

 

Oh and if I were to buy one frivolous just for me thing I’d like a 1970 Dodge Challenger painted Plum Crazy Purple. 

Edited July 30, 2022 by Elizabeth86

[historically accurate]

Hire a money management firm to set up trusts.

Dance around the room singing "I am a billionaire"

Buy a house on a lake or ocean. 

Hire a designer to do the house.

Gift my current house to my next door neighbor.

Giggle like mad.

Find a stylist to do a makeover: new wardrobe and new haircut and teach me how to do makeup.

Giggle some more.

Set up family trusts to close family members.

Set up education funds for all family members who are minors.

More giggling.

Quit my 2 library jobs, but set up endowments for both libraries.

Figure out a family foundation that will do charity funding.

If it weren't covid time, we'd do a Mediterranean or Antarctic cruise, but with covid still doing its thing, maybe a new 5th wheel and truck. Then, I'd disappear for at least several months.

Move into our new furnished house, and hire a staff.

[gstharr]

I am going to put it all in something safe like bitcoin.

[whitestavern]

Travel, buy a vacation house, share a lot with family and charities, start my own business, relax and destress. 

[Jean in Newcastle]

Dh could finally retire. 

[Rosie_0801]

Buy a property with suitable accomodation for Daughter, Brother and I.

Plant food trees.

Sort out a few friends' housing expenses.

Invest a goodly sum because my pension would go bye-bye.

Eat out a lot.

Figure out if I can learn to be a hemp farmer. Probably I'd have enough to pay people who knew how.

[whitestavern]

Also, thanks for the reminder. We’re heading out to buy tix (which we never do) 

[Selkie]

Divide it up between my favorite animal sanctuaries.

[bookbard]

It changes. During the floods, I wanted to buy a big piece of land and build tiny houses on it for all those who have lost houses (or will lose houses for the next flood coming along - they say September). Especially as people are really struggling to find rental homes now, the local area group has constant pleas for some place to rent.

And then sometimes I think it'd be better spent decreasing the problem (climate catastrophe) by planting heaps of trees, buying up land so it can't be logged, developing efficient carbon capture (if it works?) or shielding the sun (just read an article saying not a good idea either . . .)

Actually I have no idea what a billion dollar buys nowadays anyway, probably less than I think. Maybe found an awesome covid-safe inclusive school which could be a model for other schools? Or a foundation providing air purification for schools and hospitals? 

Pretty sure they don't have billion dollar lotteries in Australia, though! 

[BlsdMama]

Fund a cure for ALS? Or at least buy Nurown's way through the FDA (said tongue firmly in cheek.)

No idea.  DH does this - "If I won..."  I'm sure I'm wrong but I'd keep my house, buy the land around it, build a stable.
I'd successfully grow blueberries in Iowa.  I'd buy a second home in Oregon to visit friends often.

[Guest]

1. Buy a nice house on the Chesapeake. This house would have either an in-law house or a totally private in-law wing, so my parents could move in there. Hire FT nurses for them. 
2. Buy a Mini-Cooper Countryman, because that is the car I want but it hasn’t been practical. 
3. Assist various friends and family members. 
 

I have not bought a ticket though. 

[Elizabeth86]

57 minutes ago, Rosie_0801 said:

Buy a property with suitable accomodation for Daughter, Brother and I.

Plant food trees.

Sort out a few friends' housing expenses.

Invest a goodly sum because my pension would go bye-bye.

Eat out a lot.

Figure out if I can learn to be a hemp farmer. Probably I'd have enough to pay people who knew how.

Eat out a lot!! Me too!! I’m first trimester pregnant so cooking makes me sick and we have no a/c and cooking makes me feel like melting! Yes! Dinner out every dang night. 🤣

[Carrie12345]

11 minutes ago, Elizabeth86 said:

Eat out a lot!! Me too!! I’m first trimester pregnant so cooking makes me sick and we have no a/c and cooking makes me feel like melting! Yes! Dinner out every dang night. 🤣

I’m thinking personal chef 3x/wk, cook as a family one night, leftover/whatever night, then eat out or order in 2x. 
 I don’t have a whole lot of great restaurants near me.

Also decided to hire a private teacher for our homeschool. My rules, my curriculum, but whining can be his or her problem. 

[Garga]

Buy a gothic castle-y house in England on a stormy cliff by the sea. Convince my best friend and her husband to come and live in it with me. They can have the west wing. Read books by the fireplace of my library each evening. Wander around in the hedge maze on the grounds each afternoon for exercise. On the stormy days, I could wander through the secret passageways for my exercise. 

Have a cook. 

There would be lots of cats and some sort of huge dog that is quiet and pads through the house following me around. 

Pay for all my American friends to come visit me whenever they like, so we can still hang out together even though I’d be over the pond.

Try out some hobbies until I find one that sticks. I’d start with seeing if I like gardening, since I’d have plenty of grounds for gardens and it’s not as muggy and buggy in England as it is here.

I would wear a lot of sweaters with thick, mid-calf-length skirts and sensible boots. 

 

ETA: And I’d have a ridiculously expensive modern sports car. I’d buy a new model every year. I don’t really like speeding, but I think it would be fun to have a snazzy, modern car.

Edited July 30, 2022 by Garga

[Elizabeth86]

1 minute ago, Carrie12345 said:

I’m thinking personal chef 3x/wk, cook as a family one night, leftover/whatever night, then eat out or order in 2x. 
 I don’t have a whole lot of great restaurants near me.

Also decided to hire a private teacher for our homeschool. My rules, my curriculum, but whining can be his or her problem. 

Oh a personal chef! A million times better idea. 🤣

[Innisfree]

Buy some gorgeous but hopelessly decrepit old house, preferably eighteenth or early nineteenth century: the kind of place that I feel sorry for whenever I see it, but could never afford to fix up now, and is doomed to slow collapse without immediate help.

Fix it up properly. If it has land, manage it for the greatest possible ecological benefit. Use it as a vacation house or full time, whichever seems better.

If I had fun with the first property, repeat as often as I want. Create a trust to maintain them, and let people rent them like Airbnb. (Landmark Trust in the United Kingdom kinda does this, minus the ecological bit).

(All the obvious stuff too, trusts for family members, donations to charities. I might want to anonymously adopt the local schools, and tell them to let me know if kids needed particular things, sponsor days to let kids pick out coats, backpacks, shoes, etc. Fund good libraries and a pantry with food and necessities in each school. Stuff like that, and ditto for the animal shelter. Invested wisely, that kind of money would just keep increasing, so there’d be plenty.)

[prairiewindmomma]

A billion is a thousand million dollars. That’s a lot of money. Assuming I use 10 million of that for setting up family and another 10 for all of my wants and need, I would still have a lot of money to work with.

I have a lot of things I have contemplated tackling: affordable housing, fighting desertification in my state through land plantings, solar power on school buildings, access to healthcare, and grants to support farmer’s markets and healthy produce going to families in need…..including gardens at schools. I love the idea of kick starting healthy change.

[Lady Marmalade]

It's going to go into the beautiful people I work with.  All the kids of school age will get college paid for.  All the amazing kitchen staff working SO hard to make America their new home will get financial help to bring their families here to live with them.   A thousand millions could go a long way.

I would totally still work.  I love my job. 

[rebcoola]

Debts

New motorcycle  and Sailboat.

DH quit his job and we will move.  

Open a small winery with BFFs

College accounts

Charity

Breast Reduction 

Lots more tattoos 

 

[HS Mom in NC]

The self-indulgent stuff:
1. Put a duck pond in my backyard.
2. Buy more ornamental and fruit trees.
3. Put in a walipini.
4. Put in more planting beds.
5. Replace the kitchen cabinets to a classic white kitchen and convert the downstairs powder room to a wet room with shower. Replace the flooring with hard wood.
6. Replace the mini blinds with shades.
7. Covert the house to off grid.
8. Do a tour of gardens in England in early spring/summer.
9. Build a tiny bathroom out near my ornamental garden (the farthest part of the property and where I entertain) and organize and decorate my shed with pretty containers and lighting.
10. Buy more ornamental plants.
11. Get more solar lighting for my ornamental garden.
12. Have beach vacation and a mountain vacation each year.
13. Buy closing cabinets for the garage instead of open shelving made of wire.
14. Buy a small electric truck.

Charity:
Set up an organization that buys up inner city apartment housing from slum lords, repair/update it, pay for skilled labor training for people who live there to maintain it and pay them well to do so. Put in a daycare center, private school, food forest, and clinic, and train and pay locals to staff it all.  Provide scholarships and transportation for job training and college for locals.

Fund food banks well and regularly.

Pay off debts for all family members and friends. Pay for education and skills training for their kids. Pay for all my family members to move out of AZ and go to any state they choose that isn't dying like states out west. They can go together or to different locations.

Buy land and build off grid  for 1,000 sq. foot small homes (3 beds, 2 baths, front and back porches) furnish them and provide them to single mothers/refugees/others  in need along with transportation, scholarships, community garden space, a private school/daycare center, neighborhood pool, and community center. Fund healthcare for them too.

 

[Clarita]

1. Talk to my CPA and pay the taxes.

2. My house would be more like 5000 sq ft. Which may just be adding a second story on to my current house or a new house altogether when the market settles down.

3. Invest probably split someway between commercial or apartment property and stocks.

4. After I decide what to do about the house I'd get the yard finally done and someone to come in and completely organize my house.

5. DH would probably want to have a cabin somewhere. 

In terms of generosity, there isn't really an amount of money that would make me more generous than I am now. We tithe 10% of our income before taxes which would be a bigger absolute value if we won the lottery. (Hopefully in this case we would be able to get an annual sum as oppose to a lump sum.) Beyond that we do already as well as we see the need. 

Definitely though not pay off *all* my family and friend's debts and stuff. In my case the friends and family who would ask and/or accept the money, the money is not what they need. (Been there done that and yes they would just give it to the "Nigerian Prince".)  

[Drama Llama]

4 hours ago, Carrie12345 said:

We’ve done this before when it’s been super big,

I read this and thought, if you've already won when it's super big, isn't a little greedy to be playing again?

Then I realized what you meant, sorry you didn't already win.

[Drama Llama]

4 hours ago, Terabith said:

Hire a lawyer and accept winnings anonymously while wearing a scream mask. 

That was you, wasn't it?

 

[SHP]

4 hours ago, gardenmom5 said:

 it would be invested.  Only spend interest, never touch capital. 

This. Even a very modest interest rate is more than enough to live on.

I doubt I would make any huge life changes. I would pay someone else to finish the house projects, like painting, that we have been actively working on throughout the pandemic. I would install a G scale garden train, because I can. I would probably buy the adult kids their own houses in a maintenance provided community. 

The only luxury item I can think of of off the top of my head, I would pay to have a pair of sneakers custom made. I HATE shoe shopping and they are never comfortable.

 

[Shoeless]

I'd buy 100+ acres in upstate NY. And then I'd buy a few properties that I am sentimental about, like my grandparents's houses and the apartment we lived in when DS was a baby. I don't know that I'd keep those properties forever, but I'd want to keep them for a little while and visit. 

I'd hire someone to cook and clean, but otherwise wouldn't change much about my life. 

I would pay off mortgages for relatives and make sure their medical bills were paid, and that anyone elderly had good, appropriate care. I'd set up a college fund for my niblings and DH's grandkids, but I would make it crystal clear that my checkbook has only one check in it, so forget about hitting me up for money all the time.  Basically, I'd make sure everyone had peace of mind about their financial future but I would not be bankrolling their lives so they can lay around. People need purpose in life.

[Carrie12345]

6 hours ago, MissLemon said:

Basically, I'd make sure everyone had peace of mind about their financial future but I would not be bankrolling their lives so they can lay around. People need purpose in life.

My life has been bankrolled by someone else for over 20 years and I still find myself taking on more “purposes” than I should.

There’s only one person in my life with whom I’d worry about their ability to cope with financial freedom, and that’s due to some deep rooted issues. Lots of legal stuff would have to be involved.

But most of the people I love? I wouldn’t be concerned, and I wouldn’t declare myself the person who knows best what they need for their lives.
Heck, maybe one of *them won, lol. It’d be lovely if I made their list of people to set up without judgment!

[elegantlion]

We didn't win 😞

• buy a house big enough for all of our books
• help ds & other family
• get a dog
• travel - spend time champing around England
• find or have made the perfect desk
• hire a personal masseuse
• donate to a wild animal rescue I've been following on facebook for a while. 
• buy a Jeep

Indulge in many of those things I've always wanted but never had because of money. 

[historically accurate]

DH told me this morning that we didn't win on our ticket, but he hasn't checked his work pool tickets. So there's still hope (although not to be a billionaire). He also told me he'd buy the mobile home park we live in and improve it and lower the rent.

As for how much to give to friends/family, DH and I have sort of decided on (pending actually winning and learning all of the ins and outs of large $$ management) a large amount the first year (to cover mortgage, new car, any debts), then have the trust fund set up to tie to the median household income. The trust fund would kick off maybe 150% - 200% of the median income annually (currently $100K-$135K), meaning the recipient and the significant other wouldn't need to work for money if you didn't want to, but there wouldn't have enough to become like the Kardashians or Paris Hilton. 

[Danae]

10 hours ago, MissLemon said:

 

I would pay off mortgages for relatives and make sure their medical bills were paid, and that anyone elderly had good, appropriate care. I'd set up a college fund for my niblings and DH's grandkids, but I would make it crystal clear that my checkbook has only one check in it, so forget about hitting me up for money all the time.  Basically, I'd make sure everyone had peace of mind about their financial future but I would not be bankrolling their lives so they can lay around. People need purpose in life.

 

If a relative gave me an extremely generous gift but it came along with a statement about how they wouldn’t give me any more because people need purpose and they’d just won a billion dollars . . . well out of gratitude for the extremely generous gift I’d try not to laugh behind their back but it would be hard.  How noble of you to bear the moral hazard of unearned wealth to spare others from it!  



 

 

[Clarita]

Reading other posts I probably thought too seriously about this. I don't judge people's use of the financial gifts I give them. I really just hate to see them financially worse off after my gift than before. 

[Danae]

3 minutes ago, Clarita said:

Reading other posts I probably thought too seriously about this. I don't judge people's use of the financial gifts I give them. I really just hate to see them financially worse off after my gift than before. 

Nah, “If I won a billion dollars” is a game with no rules.  If you like to do detailed planning of how you would manage it that’s just as valid as listing vacation sites or researching private rail cars or whatever else people imagine.  

[Carrie12345]

5 minutes ago, Danae said:

Nah, “If I won a billion dollars” is a game with no rules.  If you like to do detailed planning of how you would manage it that’s just as valid as listing vacation sites or researching private rail cars or whatever else people imagine.  

Exactly. 
I actually sit down and work out taxes, investment returns, inflation, percentages to various categories, annual income, salaries to the people I’d hire… because I find it fun.

I did discover that the typical guideline of “take 10% for fun spending” impossible to spend in this case, so thank goodness I didn’t win. 😉 

[SKL]

Honestly, I don't want that kind of money.  Money stresses me out.  I would spend the rest of my life worrying about whether I'm doing the right things with the money.

But if I had to, I think I'd keep a small chunk, pay off my family's bills, and donate the rest to charities to which I have personal connections.  The sooner the better, so I could stop worrying about that money!  😛

[Indigo Blue]

Among other things such as to help family, there are a few people on this board who would never have to worry again.

[DawnM]

I would get a 2 bedroom place for my dad with 24 hour care so he doesn't have to be in a group type home.  I would get a lake house with enough property that my kids could also build there if they wanted to.

I have always thought it would be cool to charter a yacht and have my closest friends come along for a week or so.

And I have several charities I would like to help with funds for specific things, like a new dorm for an orphanage overseas with our mission, funding for several mission projects.

 

[Shoeless]

4 hours ago, Danae said:

If a relative gave me an extremely generous gift but it came along with a statement about how they wouldn’t give me any more because people need purpose and they’d just won a billion dollars . . . well out of gratitude for the extremely generous gift I’d try not to laugh behind their back but it would be hard.  How noble of you to bear the moral hazard of unearned wealth to spare others from it!  



 

 

 

8 hours ago, Carrie12345 said:

My life has been bankrolled by someone else for over 20 years and I still find myself taking on more “purposes” than I should.

There’s only one person in my life with whom I’d worry about their ability to cope with financial freedom, and that’s due to some deep rooted issues. Lots of legal stuff would have to be involved.

But most of the people I love? I wouldn’t be concerned, and I wouldn’t declare myself the person who knows best what they need for their lives.
Heck, maybe one of *them won, lol. It’d be lovely if I made their list of people to set up without judgment!

🙄

[BlsdMama]

21 hours ago, Quill said:

 

I have not bought a ticket though. 

Lol, I don’t buy them  either. I think I have twice ever? But I did tell DH to buy two, one on my behalf. 😉 

[Katy]

I have a few family members who have agreed to split any prize over 100k. And we just agreed to take the annuity in the event of a billion dollar prize because 30 years of 5-10 million would be more fun than a billion, which would come with all sorts of security risks none of us want to think about. I realize we’d get less money than investing in a down market, but it seems safer to me.

I’d buy a big boat and spend 3 years circumnavigating the world. Probably a 60’ sailing Catamaran. 

I’d buy citizenship in New Zealand and Portugal. And some properties there.

I’d probably eventually buy a château in France and spend 10 years renovating it before deciding rural France is just as redneck as rural America, it just sounds more refined in France. 

Then I’d move back to Florida and buy a house on a canal deep enough for a big boat.  Big enough to reach the Exumas fast. 

I might get a few horses again, since I could afford to hire someone else to do the hours of work for them. 

[mommyoffive]

The winning ticket was sold in IL.   I always get so sad when the jackpots are this big and only one person wins.  I wish lots of people would win.

[pitterpatter]

Aside from the obvious, prudent things, hire care givers for my mom, so I can get a big chunk of my life back. Then, travel the world...living here and there.

[Bootsie]

I would buy a home in Europe, fund a business venture for my children, and sail around the Greek Isles.  As far as everyday pleasures:  I would pay for someone to put fresh linens on my bed every day.  I would fund hunger and children's charities and well as educational endeavors.  

On a similar note, my mom (who is in her 80s) called yesterday concerned that she had mail she had to go to the post office to sign for.  She went today and it was a big envelope from an attorney's office--she panicked.  The envelope contained the will of one of her childhood friends who recently died; the woman is giving $10,000 to each of the 30 people she went to high school with (in the 1950s) who are still alive.  My mom feels like she won a lottery!

[alisoncooks]

So, so many things. 

Tear down this money pit house and just build a quality one. In it I’d include:
1. a huge professional greenhouse (or sunroom) for oldest DD’s plant collection. 
2. an art studio with all the top notch digital art stuff for youngest dd. 
3. a music room and whatever DH wants for that. 
4. a proper gym for me. 

And I’d never do yard work again…unless it was the fun stuff like planting flowers. But someone else could mow in this awful heat.