I would guess that each of you, when presented with the amount of the current prize of a lottery, usually think "What would I do with that if I won?" Especially when that prize reaches the current level of the Mega Millions, $275M US.
What is Mega Millions? From their website:
Mega Millions is now, hands down, the biggest jackpot game in the country! With millions of people playing (more than any other multi-state, mega-jackpot game in the U.S.), jackpots can roll to even higher levels at a faster rate. You choose six numbers and there are nine exciting ways to win in the game.
Each play costs just $1.00.
You can play Mega Millions in California, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Texas, Virginia and Washington.
So a few of us (five, to be exact) got in on the action. Some quick, bad math means that the $275M, is really about $164M with the cash option. Reduce it by 50% for taxes (remember, this is fuzzy math), and you are left with $82M US. Divide that by five and each of us, would walk away with $16.4M US.
What to do with that kind of life changing money?
I'd not tell a soul (well. except for my wife) and run to the lawyer, accountant, and financial advisor. Once I had all of that straightened away, then I would:
1) Do boring things, like pay off the cars and house, fund the kids college accounts, and prepare for an early retirement.
2) Assist the immediate family.
3) Buy a new car, earlier than anticipated.
4) Start some sort of trust account, to help . . . I am not sure. But I'd like to help the less fortunate get into the information age or create a scholarship, something along those lines.
Some sort of extravagance? I am not that kind of person, and neither are any members of my family (at least that I know of). So, I can't for the life of me think of somthing really outlandish to do with the money. Well, maybe purchase a vacation home, either in the Carolinas or, and this is not what you would expect, on one of the Lake Erie islands.
Let's see how that money would be spent:
1) Boring things - $2M. After you get done paying off some stuff and fund the kids' college, I would imagine that the remainder of the $2M should suffice.
2) Immediate family - $1M, and that is probably being generous (or I am being naive)
3) New car - $.03M
4) Help others - $3M (I have no idea what it takes to do this, but I would think that $3M would be a good start).
I have $10M left. Make it work and take time to decide what to do with it? Spend a day at some electronics stores buying Macs for people that thought they wanted PCs? Vacation on some warm island in the Caribbean for a month? Sponsor ILUG for the next 10-20 years so that it remains free?Place a poll on the blog asking for suggestions? I have no idea.
You have $16.4M US. What would you do with it?
And if I did this right, I would expect that you (and I) would spend the entire $16.4M US. Not the way I did it, with some generalities.
Technorati tag: Mega Millions lottery
* - Barenaked Ladies, "If I Had a Million Dollars"
Comment posted by Sean Burgess03/05/2007 08:41:18 AM
Homepage: http://www.phigsaidwhat.com/
A couple of years back, I was on a Disaster Recovery test trip to our DR site. This site hosted servers for a large number of companies. Since this was my first time there, I was given a tour. One of the floors was for the IBM mainframes and I was struck by love at first site when I oogled the Z-Series with the big Copper front. If I had the money, I would build a house around one, with it sitting in a glass room in the center for the shear "shock and awe" it would convey. Bring a T1 into the house and partition it with Domino running on Linux. Schweet!
Sean---
Comment posted by Gregg Eldred03/06/2007 07:06:29 PM
Homepage: http://www.ns-tech.com/blog/geldred.nsf
@Sean, how would that conversation go? "Honey, I bought something today, but we need to change some things around . . ." I have to admit, having your own mainframe isn't something you see every day. Very cool!
Comment posted by Nathan T. Freeman03/07/2007 04:24:03 PM
Homepage: http://nathan.lotus911.com
The interesting thing is that cash like that can very easily be turned into it's own multiplier. For instance, I'd start a small venture cap fund with it, and fund OpenNTF.org projects into actual companies.
Comment posted by Gregg Eldred03/08/2007 11:55:05 AM
Homepage: http://www.ns-tech.com/blog/geldred.nsf
@Nathan - I suppose that was kind of what I was alluding to with my comment to "Help others." I wouldn't expect to spend all of the money on myself for my family. Something like you and I proposed would allow us to 'live forever.' Wouldn't that be cool?
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