If you had $1 Million...

[InformationGeek]

Let's say you get one million dollars and you have to get rid of it in a month.  If you get rid if it all in one month, you get an additional $2 million as a bonus to keep for good.  If you can't spend it all, the remaining money is taken from you and you got no chance at the additonal money.  Money can be given away to people, but you can't give it away to friends, family or people you know.  You also can't donate it to major charities either or buy things for other people.  So, my question is, what would you do with the money?

I personally buy all the things I want first and I would then start donating the money to random people at homeless shelthers in my area.  Whatever is left, I would buy things I do not want, but would cost a lot of money.  Then, when I got the two million, I return everything I didn't want back to the stores to get that money back.

Anyways, the whole idea of this is based off a choose your own adventure novel I read back in the 7th grade in which the same situation I presented to you accord in the story.  The idea came back to me recently and I got to thinking about what would others and myself do if we were ever in this situation.

So, what would you do?

[SPazzo]

That is pretty tough.  There is this little old lady in my town, she hangs out at one of our major malls.  It looks like she spends all of her time there.  She seems to have some sort of mental condition (don't ask what, I don't know), but I've seen her trying to buy stuff at the stores with just random bits of paper instead of money.  I have no idea where she lives, but it looks like shes on the street.  I think I would put the million in a duffel bag and give it to her.

My hope would be that she ends up like Edith Massey's character in Polyester.

Good topic Informationgeek.

[El Misfit]

A SSC Ultimate Areo TT ($760k), the rest on crap

[Derf]

If I had a million dollars
(If I had a million dollars)
Well, I'd buy you a green dress
(But not a real green dress, that's cruel)
And if I had a million dollars
(If I had a million dollars)
Well, I'd buy you some art
(A Picasso or a Garfunkel)
If I had a million dollars
(If I had a million dollars)
Well, I'd buy you a monkey
(Haven't you always wanted a monkey)

If I had a million dollars
I’d buy your love 

[retrorussell]

I'd buy a mansion.  Build my own personal arcade of about 20 machines.  New giant TVs, stereo systems, just totally ritz the place up.  Buy some coastal property and rent it out.  Buy a helicopter and learn to fly it.  Anything left, buy stocks with it. 

For the extra 2 million I'd donate at least half to charity and give some to my family.

[Trevor]

 

Hmmm....$1 million is about 8 million South African rand.

Dat be a heck of a lot of undies............

[paula]

pay off credit cards, student loan.
buy new car for hubby, one for me.
go to bora bora for a week, platinum package.
take care of both inlaws bills.
set up college trusts for all 3 kids.
buy house with enough bedrooms for the 3 kids and my niece.
get hubby all the die cast robots he wants.
donate a s***load of $$ to Children's hospital in Boston.
believe me, it would get spent.

[Jack]

Could I just buy shares in various mutual funds?  I dunno, to get rid of that kind of money I guess I'd have to buy some houses, though this is a lousy time to do that.  I'd like to give a bunch to my folks, but I guess that's against the rules.  There would probably be a variety of exotic sports cars in my driveway.  I'd also donate a good bit to the local animal shelter.  And I would have one mega home theater system.

[The Burgomaster]

* I'd pay off my mortgage and credit cards.  

* I'd build a game room in my attic, and furnish it with a pool table, a couple of dart boards, a bar, and a game table.

* I'd build 3 rooms in my basement: one for exercise equipment, one for "hanging around" (maybe a reading room), and one for storage.

* I'd buy a top-notch high-def TV for the family room.

* I'd buy a top-notch blu-ray player for the high-def TV.

* I'd buy about 100 blu-ray movies I don't really need.

* I'd buy a U-Haul truck full of Christmas gifts and drive them around to needy people.  (Selfishly, this is the final item on my list).

* Then I'd invest the $2 million, quit my job, and get a "fun" part-time job.

 

[Rev. Powell]

Two words: gin and hookers.

[Cthulhu]

Buy myself a house..or maybe two. I'd buy everything that I need for Warhammer 40k, buy a new computer, some games, a ton of movies, some gym equipment, a karambit (that's so cool, I want to learn how to use it), and a bunch of other stuff that escapes me at the moment.
UPDATE: Oh, and a guitar. And an electric guitar. And maybe a saxophone. I mean, why not? I have 1 million friggin dollars. I can buy anyhing I want.

[Jim H]

This is actually very similar to the plot of Brewster's Millions.  I'd hazard a guess and say the choose-your-own adventure book stole the idea - or it may even be an adaptation, since the original novel is in the public domain.

The big, VERY IMPORTANT difference between the idea here and Brewster's Millions was that the money spent had to not benefit the lead character.  In other words, he couldn't spend it on himself or in a way that would leave him financially better off AT ALL.  100% had to be given away.

I'd buy a couple hundred thousand dollars worth of video/audio/computer equipment to start.  Want to get better stuff to use to make my own films.

I'd buy a new car, something nice that gets great gas mileage.  I could really use that.  I'd buy a house in the 200-250k range.  I'd spend several thousand on a large variety of classic video game systems and games I'm interested in.  That's about half the money. 

I'd put about $3000 into airsoft gear.  Another $7000ish into DVDs/BluRays.  I'd set up a great home theatre in my new house, probably in the $30k range.  I'd put about $20,000 into real guns (that'd give me pretty much every gun I want). 

Several thousand dollars I'd spend personally on two things close to my heart: gin and hookers.

The rest of the money I'd funnel into an organization to combat the ongoing genocides against tribal peoples in South America and Africa.  Seed money, that's all it'd be, as it's not enough to make a huge difference.

[ER]

A million dollars might just about pay off the taxes on a million dollars these days.

[Mr. DS]

A nice house far away from everyone and the rest would be to pay the taxes on it for as long as I could. 

[Paquita]

I'd fix my current house and buy another house and have a ballroom put in.. and by ballroom, i mean a room with a giant swimming pool filled with those fun ball-pit balls like from ChuckECheese. And I'd get toilet that weighed it's contents.  After rapidly spending my $1 million dollars, I'd use the $2 million I get after to give to family and donate to major charities.