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200 comments
  • Not tell anyone and just quietly retire. Spend as much time as possible with my kids as they grow.

  • Talk to a major law firm about accepting the prize as anonymously as possible. Take the lump sum -payment to the lawyer team and divide it into thirds. One third goes into a trust that I can direct friends and family to with instructions to offer assistance for major life events, weddings, funerals, education and the like. That way I never have to be the bad guy who says yeah, no.

    The second third will get invested into low risk bonds so I have a stable income forever

    The final third will become what people normally do with lottery winnings, new home, that kind of stuff

  • I'd keep it a secret except from the closest people to me. I'd be incredibly boring about what I'd do with it.

    First I would pay off my mortgage and invest a chunk in "safe" investments - so shares in utility companies, funeral business - boring reliable investments - and property and land, across borders. All to try and guarentee I would stay financially secure long term for the rest of my life, and weather financial storms.

    I'd help my immediate family financially (siblings and parents, and closest friends) but would not go over board - I'd make their lives better but not ruin them, and would aim to keep most of the money ready to keep helping for years to come rather than splurge out. And I wouldn't tell them how much I had so as not to ruin relationships.

    For what I do for me I would think very hard. I'd probably not quit work immediately and I'd try not to ruin my life.

    I'd probably look to travel but in bursts - either nice holidays and keep working (I like my job) or quit work and live 3 months at a time in places I've always wanted to be for a bit before settling down again.

    Anything I do or buy I would do as someone "middle class". So I'd travel economy plus, I'd stay in decent hotal but not the most flashy, I'd buy a decent home but not a mansion (I don't need a 10 bed home, I'd just get a nicer version of what I have now - 3 beds but maybe detached and in a nicer area).

    Basically I'd upgrade my life a little but I wouldn't go wild. I don't see the value in the conspicuously wealthy lifestyle - I'd see money as buying freedom but I wouldn't want to be wasteful, and I wouldn't want to be a target for criminals or leeches.

    And the rest i'd start puting to good causes. That would probably be conservation charities, green charities, social projects I believe in. Id want to use it to create some kind of legacy even if anonymous - for me that would be something that meaningfully improved the world in some small but realistic way.

    Basically I'd be very boring, stay anonymous and try and make relatively small but meaningful changes to my life and those I love.

    • You think you would get to live in the same place with no one knowing you won the $1B lottery? Interesting.

      Me, I would go to a top law firm and see a senior partner about getting out of being publicized. Have them set up sale of property and disconnect my phone lines and internet accounts after creating new unknown ones. I would have the lawyers present the ticket for me through various layers of holding companies and trusts, but I would be a ghost for awhile. The legal team would make sure all family members got some money with a nice non disclosure agreement. Immediate family would have my contact information with a request to never disclose. All money Would be dispersed between several low fee brokerages where I would invest in a combination of treasury backed securities, short term CDs, total stock market ETFs, and cash would be dispersed between several high interest savings accounts. I would be unreachable for 6 months while News died down.

  • Pay off my mortgage, invest it and live off the interest, and spend the rest of my life traveling with my wife

  • As one stand up comedian once said: the biggest issue is not what to do with the money, but how to keep it secret from the people around you

  • I'd ditch it for a million dollars

    But really, that'd easily put me in the top 0.1% of my country. I'd probably never manage to spend it all. I'd definitely set aside some millions for ReactOS and other open source projects that I like.

  • I would spent a lot on lobbyists to promote tax on rich people. Then, pay lobbyists to promote taxes on financial transactions. Once it is done, gov will have enough money to provide social security, house for homeless, gods education, heath system,… Better that charity, a social state.

  • There is a comment on "that other site" that goes in detail about what to do. It starts with "You're fucked" and shows that you really have to be careful who to trust and what to do to not be bankrupt in a few years. I'm on mobile and short on time, but it's worth reposting here.

  • Pay off my house, pay off close friends and family houses, buy a bunch of land, buy cool cars, travel.

  • Make sure my mom's in home health care is paid for for the rest of her life, so that she can continue to live in her house as she wishes while she is still with us, retire from my paid career early, do volunteer work instead, and travel often.

  • Give my uncles, aunts and cousins a cool mil each, give my mom and my sister 10 mil each, buy some real estate on the coasts, and most likely fund some Democrats in Florida and Texas, do some traveling

  • no importa lo que hagas ni pienses, vas a morir igualmente

    no matter what you do or think, you will die anyway

  • Pay off mine friends and my student loans, pay for moving costs to a European country for me and my friends, pay for US citizenship denouncing for me and my friends, set aside an amount of money for myself and my friends for savings to live comfortably, pay for first month's rent for me and my friends, pay for food for a month for me and my friends, and then if there happens to be anything left, donate it to charities.

  • I already live where I want to live. I would probably buy up all the open land in my county. Get my friends to move out and live on one of my properties. Fix up this 120 year old farm house. Install a pond and more water features to hold onto rain water. Probably run some electric fencing get solar power go off grid. Pretend to be a cattle rancher. Try to turn this homestead into my very own paradise. But i’ll probably employ a-lot of people create some jobs do more charity work.

  • Pay debts and medical treatment for self/family/friends, pursue hobbies, volunteer, donate, travel... Find a place to live and settle down.

200 comments