Fuck you money is more than almost any lottery I've ever entered. If I got a 20-50 million lottery, I'd go to a more comfortable version of my current life and only work 2 or 3 days a week as an IT consultant. My goal in life is to get fuck you money from being awesome with computers and that number is somewhere between 100 million and half a billion. I'm not sure where exactly - but if it ever gets within dreaming range, I'll put the effort in to figure it out exactly. If I won that kind of lottery (hitting the pre-ipo money bucket in IT is really just another kind of lottery)? It'd take a year or two I suspect to get my family and obligations set up the way I'd want, and to put myself through fat camp and a few other bits of health related stuff. After that, I'd burn through passports. At the very core of my fantasies for a life unconstrained, I basically want to be Doctor Who. Not the fighting daleks and aliens thing. But moving through all the time I have available to me, with companions (either friends or lovers) to experience all the interesting moments I can find. Joy, beauty, adventure, excitement, learning. I'd spend the next decade or two seeing how many places I could explore. I'd probably end up based out of London - with very regular visits to Melbourne, Osaka, San Fran and New York. I might get bored with travel and settle one place or another for long enough to learn a new language or pick up some other skill. But I don't think I'd ever run out of places I wanted to explore, events I wanted to be part of, or experiences I wanted to try. Moving from party to festival to new city to safari to adrenaline sport. I'd probably get pretty serious about photography and maybe publish some pure vanity coffee table books to give myself something to do with a goal and progression. And maybe write a blog or something. I doubt I'd ever make it as a writer or photographer - but for something that feels like purpose and to keep my mind busy when I feel like sitting still. When I got too old to enjoy that kind of travel - I'd settle somewhere with a great culture scene and a top university near by. I'd build a vanity gallery for my photos to enjoy the memories myself and let other people come in to check them out in the unlikely event that they give a fuck, and then spend as much time as possible at concerts, live theater events, and listening to interesting people talk at the university. I highly doubt that I'll ever have that kind of wealth. But that's the dream.
I've raised my kids that they need to make their own way in life - they don't get to ride my coattails, they don't get to depend on me for a job/future/security. They're going to be adults who need to take on the world. And, if they want a good life, they need to earn it. Just because I was lucky in a lottery draw doesn't mean they're entitled to any of that. Yes, I am that parent.
First things first, I change my phone number. Like, on my way to turn in the ticket, I'm calling my service provider to have my number altered. If you win Fuck You money in the lottery, you know how many people from your past are gonna crawl out of the woodwork? Second, hire a lawyer and an accountant. I'm sure there are people that specialize in this sort of thing. Third, get started on building the dream house. Pools (I like the idea of a pool that connects both inside and outside), giant entertainment room, one room that's just trampoline and padded walls, a bathroom with a tub big enough for five and a huge flatscreen on the wall (picture Biff with the ladies in his jacuzzi, BTTF2). A nice big kitchen with multiple islands, and my own gym. Fireplaces and vaulted ceilings, hardwood and tile everywhere but the bedrooms. My own personal arcade/roller rink. Anyway, purchase land for that and get plans worked up, get the process started. Then I'd find a short term (3-5 year) spectrum of low risk investments that would hopefully keep up with inflation, just as a place to store my money while I get going on the next step. Go to school and learn how to invest. Not neccessarily just college. Find people that have been very successful doing this kind of thing and learn from them. Learn how to have my money make money for me, for the rest of my life. Then, after all those bases are covered, travel, travel, travel. Learn to play guitar better, learn other instruments, learn some more languages. Learn to fly, learn to sail. Learn to produce movies, maybe. Open nice restaurants and bars, subsidize libraries in towns where I've lived. But all of that waits for laying in the financial base.
Hire everyone to reshoot all the movies that I didn't like the endings to, or didn't think were done correctly, then watch them endlessly.
You're going to win the lottery and study investing? Give me a break, that's a lame-ass answer. You can pay people to do that shit for you now, you're rich as fuck! I'm hiring an experienced crew and going sailing. Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Have fun buying treasuries, dude!
That was the amusing divergence in this thread. The prompt basically said you had fuck you money and were set for life, and most people answered like you had $5 million or something similar so there was a need to protect it.
Yeah, that mentality has never ended poorly for professional athletes or anything. This is of course assuming the 7-8 figure pay day, but like Jwags said if the assumption is something huge like Bill Gates rich even the prince of Brunei would have a hard time fucking that up.
For me, it's actually more like: I don't want to become a shittier person because being rich allows me to do so. I don't want to become a lazy, boring sack of shit because I can afford to be that and still drive a Bentley.
OK, so you want me to respond seriously? You can hire a professional money manager to invest for you. Banks even have separate divisions they call "wealth management," so you, newly rich person, don't have to smell some pleb as he drones on about how much he should put into his 401k. You don't have to spend a significant chunk of your day shifting funds between accounts, picking stocks, sourcing ventures, and generally wasting time you could spend doing vastly more interesting things now that you are mega-rich. Yeah, your money manager probably won't do anything impressive with your funds, but they'll likely grow with the rest of the market. You'll be free to spend your days golfing, sleeping with models, turning your nose up at the less fortunate, voting Republican, traveling to the same five-star hotel brand in different cities around the world, and all those other fun things people with giant piles of money do.
First, I would finish law school and take the Wyoming bar exam. I would purchase a large ranch near Jackson, Wyoming near the Snake River and never use my law degree. On said ranch I would build a bad ass log house with a large garage, barn, and tack room. I would purchase a few horses and hire someone to take care of them when I'm not there. Because of the ranch's location on the river, this would make for awesome hunting land come moose and elk season. I would also build an outdoor ice arena on my property. In the winter I would ski my ass off and travel around the world in the summer. When I wasn't busy skiing in the winter, I would see as many Montreal Canadiens games as I could. I would collect guitars and play guitar a hell of a lot more than I get to right now. Making sure my parents are set would be a priority. Purchasing them a house and providing them with a travelling fund would be awesome. Every celebrity or ultra-rich fuck has their own charity now so I guess I might as well have one of those too.
I trust others way less than I trust myself. I also enjoy learning. Maybe it's a control issue, but you always hear stories about people's money managers skimming, or fucking them over. I'd rather have a firm handle at least on how that shit works, a little oversight.
That's what you have lawyers and accountants for. You money manager isn't the guy who is going to file your tax return. Your going to have cpas and tax attorneys and in doing so will provide the oversight. And if you're paranoid about collusion between them, bring in another firm with a surprise audit. But if you're that paranoid, it's probably not worth having the money because then its ruling your life rather than enhancing it. I have to admit, before doing all the altruistic stuff I mentioned previously, I'd go do some seriously fun car shopping for me the wife and the kids and pay at least 1 visit to West Coast Customs or similar shop.
I would do two things. First I would buy 3 cars. One super fucking expensive (think Veyron), a really fucking nice one (Audi R8), then a mildly nice car like a BMW 6 Series, you know for grocery shopping. I would take 18 months to go to Ireland, Scotland, Dubai, Rome, Venice, Beijing, Honk Kong, Paris, London, Madrid, with a quick stop in Egypt and that's it for international travel that isn't a tropical Island. Then I would work at Best Buy part-time in Lincoln Park, Chicago because that shit is fun. After getting bored with that probably go and become a professional psychologist / relationship counseler. I like helping people, giving out advice.
I try to observe TiB etiquette, and not revive old threads. But then I saw this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eclipse_(yacht) I guess what I'm saying is, THIS. This is what i would buy. This huge freaking boat with a full crew, and loaded with the finest comestibles and finest alcohols. I'd spend inordinate amounts of time here: consuming the aforementioned comestibles and alcohols, while watching the ocean glide by and chuckling softly to myself over my great good fortune. Global warming and rising sea levels can go screw themselves. With any luck, one day I'd be able to sail right into goddamn Iowa, load some corn for my biscuits, and sail away. Still chuckling. Pirates? HAH! This sweet vessel has a bulletproof hull, armor plating, and a goddamn missile defense system. It's got helicopter pads, so I could add a sweet 'copter, and fly over a volcano, should the opportunity arise. And did I mention the submarine? Yes, it has a friggin' submarine! The waves to rock me to sleep, great views of every sunrise AND sunset, the whole World as my port of call.
Easy. Hire a sadistic hit man to hunt you all down one by one. And I'd by a villa with significant acerage in Tuscany.
Travel. Travel, travel, travel, travel. Don't ask where. Just, everywhere. Then come home and open a "bar" that's really just a place where I give out cheap booze at no profit and tell stories until the day I die.
I'd open a craft brewery east of the city and brew the best damn IPA this country has ever let dance in their mouths.