Priorities
There's an old mental exercise that gets floated around in times of boredom or desperation. It begins with the question: "What would you do with a million Dollars?"
An individual's response to the question is supposed to provide insight into that person's values and priorities.
While I can't tell you what YOU should do with a million Dollars, I can tell you what I'd do with it.
The assumption is that there is a million Dollars of actual working money. Taxes if any are paid, and $1,000,000 is what one has to work with.
1) Pay off any debt. I have none at this point, but if I had any, I'd get rid of it. Part of this would be, if I didn't already have a house and car, buy a house and car outright. This works out to $0 for me... yourmileage may vary.
2) I would create a non-profit corporation whose sole function is to keep my websites on the air. I'd provide it with a starting endowment, which should provide for hosting expenses in perpetuity, provided those costs don't go haywire compared to inflation. This would probably cost around $50,000.
3) I'd do a little math and figure out what it costs for me to live comfortably... come up with an annual budget, and figure out how much I have to invest at what rate to live off the interest and maintain that standard of living, tracking inflation. My best guess right now is that would be somewhere in the range of $500,000 to $750,000, given current inflation and interest rates.
4) I'd take the rest and cut it in half. Each half would be invested in some safe interes-bearing product, and the annual proceeds of these investments would be donated to honorable non-profits. the proceeeds from the first half would be split evenly between NPR and my local NPR member station. The proceeds from the seond half would be split evenly between Software in The Public Interest (the parent organization of the Debian GNU/Linux distribution) and The GNU Project.
There I'm out of money, but I never have to work another day in my life if I don't want to.
What does this say about my priorities? Probably not for me to say, as I'm biased.
What would you do with a million Dollars?
Comments
Now I have the Barenaked Ladies song running through my head...
A million dollars ain't what it used to be... :)
Here's my list:
1) Pay off all my debts. At the moment, that amounts to a bit less than a quarter of a million dollars. 99% of this debt is from my mortgage. (My vanished-equity, underwater-and-plunging-into-the-abyssal-depths mortgage. I love the current housing market.) The rest is for my car (which is about two months from being paid off anyway).
2) Invest the rest. Carefully. To say I don't trust the stock market is an understatement.
3) Continue to work for at least the next ten years. Let the value of my investments appreciate. Use only the income from my job to live. Save/invest what I don't use. (Much easier to do without a mortgage hanging over my head...)
4) At around age 50, blow it all on beer and hookers. I mean, retire. ;) Live comfortably, help the kids with their college debt (okay, they won't really be "kids" anymore), take the occasional trip to Hawaii with Willi, donate to charity periodically (favorite charities are the Red Cross and the American Cancer Society) and generally enjoy life.
Ten million dollars would be similar, except that I'd retire at age 41, buy a modest house in Hawaii (no mansions, please), pay off all debts owed by everybody in my family (mom, sister, girlfriend, kids), and donate a whole lot more to charity. ;)
*sigh* And now, back to reality...
--- Scott
Excellent
Hi, Scott...
Nice list.
Your "paying off the debts of others" item was very nice, although that can quickly get out of hand, both from the standpoint of depleting any and all monies, and from an "altering the dynamics of your relationship" standpoint.
One thing I neglected to mention in my original piece was that, since I'd be living off the interest earned on the amount saved/invested, it would still be around when I keel over... meaning that there would be a nice little pile of cash to either donate to existing charity/non-profits, or establish some kind of trust to do so in perpetuity.
Another thing I failed to mention, is that, while I wouldn't *have* to work, that doesn't necessarily mean I *wouldn't* work... The point is that, for virtually all of my adult life, I have felt "at the mercy" of employers. Debts and bills and ongoing obligations make it really hard to tell a douchebag employer to go fsck himself, and deep down, they know it, and count on it. I would use the "live comfortably" money as a safety net, as coverage, and to allow me to take low-paying, but worthwhile work, or do volunteer work... to basically pursue basically any field of endeavor I choose without worrying about whether I can heat the house next winter.
... BTW.. beer and hookers sounds a little out of character for you... but then... you have lived in Texas... on purpose... twice. ;)
And, thus, Edmund spoke, "Santa, you are badly crazy."