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How long could you stretch 1 million dollars? How many years?

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If you were handed 1 million cash right now, what would you do? Its a lot of money, but not as much as you think. I once remember blowing through 88 thousand dollars in 8 months.

What would you do? Move to a place where you could get more bang for your buck?
How many years could you make it last?


My parents gave me a condo. I sold the condo for a $200,000 profit. I gave my mom 100k and I deposited about $88,000 after costs into my savings and checking account.

I then quit my job and proceeded to spend it all over the next 8 months. Like I said having worked every day of my life since the age of 16. It was the best 8 months of my life.

Living in a nice place, women, clothes, vacations. But I was very stupid and careless.

Example: I bought that stupid Samsung Matrix phone off ebay for $1,000 dollars. Why?

Because I wanted it. It was a garbage phone anyways. I bought a $2,200 dollar HD TV CRT 52 inch. One of the first of its kind. Dumb stuff like that.
 
If you were handed 1 million cash right now, what would you do? Its a lot of money, but not as much as you think. I once remember blowing through 88 thousand dollars in 8 months.

What would you do? Move to a place where you could get more bang for your buck?
How many years could you make it last?

Yeah its not that much money when you spend over $10k a month.
What did you buy?
 
Take about half and Buy a 350,000 dollarish house and sit on interest payments for a while. Essentially I could very easily separate it out in my mind that it didn't belong to me and I wasn't allowed to touch it past this.

Eventually I might quit my job and do something I was super passionate about, but I could hang for a while just to make more off of it. I imagine I could make it work in my favor until I died.
 
I would spend it all in a day on a political campaign to get Richard Pryor elected to political office posthumously.
 
  • use a third of it for a down payment on a 3 bedroom house. Rent out two of the rooms to pay the mortgage. Anywhere but San Francisco or Manhattan.
  • go back to school and get a decent job
  • put the rest into a savings account with high interest. perhaps mutual funds. or some other financial crap I would hire a financial advisor to advise me on
  • buy a 80" tv and play video games all day long
 
I guess you are kind of implying "while not working" right?

I would probably look for the best interest rate for fixed savings and find where I can live with whatever that much is. And maybe every 5 years reevaluate my options.
 
I would create a snowball system on the stockmarket and invest everything.
Then bail out with $100 million and move to Fiji.





joke...
I would spend it on my own house and life 10 years havin fun and much free time
 
Until I die. I wouldn't change my lifestyle too much (since it's really not a lot of money in the grand scheme of things), but it would allow me to have true financial freedom, which is priceless /rollcredits

Oh, I would also keep working.
 
I can live off of around 1300 a month, so 64 years if I had to. Of course interest on a high interest savings account would mean I could stretch it a bit more.
 
If my wife keeps her job, and I get a job like the one I had, plus a million dollars:

-We could erase all our debt(house, car, etc)
-remodel the parts of the house(and buy furniture) that needs it
-invest heavily in retirement
-buy another property and build there
-retire in two years(we are 31 and 33)
-save for every expense for our unborn childs
-give some money to our family to help them a little
-I would still have cash left to burn

A million dollars goes a looooooong way in mexico
 
Yeah its not that much money when you spend over $10k a month.
What did you buy?

I was stupid. I didn't work, I rented out a expensive place, I leased a Jaguar, and i spent my days working out and shopping.

It was the best 8 months of my life, but money went fast. When i got down to 15k, I decided I need to go back to work. Mind you I was young and stupid. I would handle it very different today.

I was interested to know if you would continue working, or just try to live off the million.
 
I'd buy a condo in LA/San Diego first off. Then pay off all of my wife & I's debt. The rest (half-ish?) I'd probably leave in a bank account and use the interest to supplement our income.

Oh and I'd buy a copy of Gimmick!
 
I could grow that 8-10% annually, easy, so basically forever.

Is there a investment that could give you $5,000 in interest a month?

Also for those who say they could live off it for the rest of your life, can you handle having that in the bank., or do you need someone to annuitize it and pay you monthly? Like an accountant.
 
I was stupid. I didn't work, I rented out a expensive place, I leased a Jaguar, and i spent my days working out and shopping.

It was the best 8 months of my life, but money went fast. When i got down to 15k, I decided I need to go back to work. Mind you I was young and stupid. I would handle it very different today.

This insanity reminded me of that girl that used to post in the show off your purchases thread. Remember the one? Just like Snake here. Whatever happened to her?
 
Retire outside the US. I would spend a 1/4 of the money buying a beach house. Invest 2/3rds of it in the market. Use the remainder to cover unexpected living expenses or emergencies that might arise. Basically I would live off the investment income.
 
Invest in dividend yielding stocks, live off dividends.

Sure ill only be making about 30k a year but that's a lot for no work.
 
1 mil can go very far if you dont need to live in Manhattan.

I'd buy a fixer upper in some areas of queens, dump some funds into remodeling it, flip it, and rinse and repeat until that 1 mil turns to 5-10 mil.

THEN, I'd retire.
 
I could live off a million the rest of my life easily. Especially if you live outside the US like someone else mentioned.
 
I'm not sure how much health care costs since I get it through my employer. Without factoring that in, I can live very comfortably on roughly $17K a year.
 
Is there a investment that could give you $5,000 in interest a month?

Also for those who say they could live off it for the rest of your life, can you handle having that in the bank., or do you need someone to annuitize it and pay you monthly? Like an accountant.

I have incredible impulse control. so yes, If interest is not included I would put 1300 a month in my checking account every month and 200 into a savings account for whatever bonus stuff I wanted to buy. Right now that should get me to the end of my life. If I could invest it properly and use it to grow my finances then I would live off of that.
 
Invest in dividend yielding stocks, live off dividends.

Sure ill only be making about 30k a year but that's a lot for no work.

Do you live in the US? How high are the taxes on the profits from the stock market?
Here in Germany it is 25%

I think it could be hard live off dividends with only 1 million.
 
I wouldn't spend it, I'd try to invest it well or use it to finance a business. I don't like spending money so I don't think I'd be tempted to.
 
I could live in reasonable comfort for the rest of my life, but I suppose that doesn't matter, seeing as I'd rather do that living business with someone else. I'd live in moderate luxury for a few decades, but I'd also probably get a job anyway, just to do something productive.
 
Is there a investment that could give you $5,000 in interest a month?

Also for those who say they could live off it for the rest of your life, can you handle having that in the bank., or do you need someone to annuitize it and pay you monthly? Like an accountant.

I would put it in an investment(well, after paying debts and all that) that lets me get money anually or something like that, i might be tempted to "blow it" if I had it(meaning buying more properties and stuff like that)
 
I was stupid. I didn't work, I rented out a expensive place, I leased a Jaguar, and i spent my days working out and shopping.

It was the best 8 months of my life, but money went fast. When i got down to 15k, I decided I need to go back to work. Mind you I was young and stupid. I would handle it very different today.

I was interested to know if you would continue working, or just try to live off the million.

Screw your OP question. Your story is way more interesting lol.
Did you get an inheritance, quit your job and just live it up?
 
I would be so tempted to spend it that I would have my financial planner put all of it in an account that would not be easy for me to pull from, but if I needed it, I could.

Then I'd give myself a monthly wage and make it last the rest of my life (and I would still work, obviously).
 
Without working? Dividends and interests can give you at least 20k/year. I can live with this money, if necessary.

A much better alternative would be not to stop with working. Then you've got enough money for paying the bills and still have fun in your life.
 
I live in a small city in Florida where you could buy a very nice house for $100k. Invest 700k wisely into stocks/rental property etc. The rest of the money would be put into a savings and/or CD and I would donate the interest it generates monthly.
 
I'd buy a house for my parents and one for myself and start a family, then I'd invest whatever is left and use that to fund my children's education. Then they'd get whatever is left.

So basically, however long that ^ takes.
 
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