What would you do if you had a billion dollars?

Change your identity? Disappear? Buy a White Castle franchise so you could have the tastiest burgers on the planet whenever you wanted?

The possibilities are endless!

Folks on AskReddit talked about what they’d do first if they ever became billionaires.

Let’s take a look.

1. Coming for you!

“I worked for years for a man who cheated on his taxes and embezzled money from the business he ran.

He openly admitted “No, I don’t pay for my cars, the business leases them all for me and my family.” He admitted to not claiming all his income, buying his wife jewelry as a gift from the business. Sending steaks to his buddies “from the business”.

The first thing I would do is use my power, money and influence to ensure a pair of the best trained, most competent, most knowledgeable IRS auditors get his address and shut his a** all the way down.”

2. Important work.

“Create a missing and m**dered indigenous initiative to give legal services and domestic violence resources to reservations across the country.

Tribes do little for their laws to combat these crimes, most domestic violence incidences are misdemeanors or nothing at all and there needs to be a better due process for victims, as well as a safe place for them to go.

If we want to end these vicious cycles, us natives need to look at our law and order codes and see what needs to be added and revised. Stop protecting those who seek to hurt our members through acts of violence, in and outside our membership.”

3. Got it all figured out.

“Buy land to build a house.

Then build that house.

Buy my husband a truck.

Buy an suv.

Buy a reliable car for my MIL.

Pay off our debts.

Pay off my in-laws house.

Find someone with good social work ideas and fund them.”

4. I’d probably do this, too.

“Order every single item on the Chinese menu.

I just wanna try all of it and see what I like without worrying about wasting the money if I dont like it.”

5. Do what you want.

“Buy an expensive condo overlooking Central Park in NYC, quit my job and live the rest of my life doing whatever I feel like doing on the day.”

6. The plan.

“Give everyone in my immediate family a million dollars and tell them to never ask me for money again. Pay off my home and any debt me and my wife have, set up trust funds for any children I have.

Then hire an accountant and lawyer (or maybe do that first) and invest a large amount into the stock market/real estate/ local businesses so I don’t have to worry about working ever again. Then donate most of what is left over to charity because I can’t realistically spend it all in my life. Then live my life like normal.”

7. Sounds intense.

“Buy myself a compound in the woods of Oregon.

Put barbed wire, a moat with punji sticks, land mines, trip wire activated explosives, around the perimeter. Guard towers on each corner. Machine g** nests.

I will refuse any and all visitors.”

8. Making changes.

“Help my family and extended family, then spend the rest of my life tackling charitable endeavors and hopefully making systemic changes to make peoples lives better.”

9. Let’s get real.

“So for a realistic answer, probably not much.

Unless you get there via the lottery (which there has never been a lotto jackpot big enough to get you to billionaire status after taxes) you were already mega-rich (i.e. hundreds of millions of dollars) prior to hitting the billion mark.

There is basically nothing new you can afford at 1B that you couldn’t also get at 900M.

In the event that you one day magically wake up and have 1B legitimately in your account (and all the logistics like legal/financial professionals lined up) my answer is I’d buy time.

I’m never doing yard work, cleaning, cooking (unless I want to) again. At 1B in the bank, you can guestimate about 50-100M in passive income (the market tends to grow at about 10% annually).

That means you could hire a staff of 10 people making 100k each to handle everything you don’t want to do and still have 49-99M of “profit” leftover

Don’t feel like driving? Hire a driver. Don’t want to cook? Hire a chef. Don’t feel like maintaining your house? Hire a maintenance person.

There are the other, one-time, expenses of course like buying a bigger/nicer house but that would honestly be lower on the priority list for me personally.”

10. Today’s your lucky day!

“Besides the usual things, like getting a lawyer and managing my finances privately…

I’ve always wanted to find someone like me on the internet and just pay off their debts.

It would be pennies to me, an unnoticeable drop in the bucket, but would literally change their entire life.

If I had my loans paid off, cars paid off, house paid off… I would be able to invest and make myself a self-made millionaire. It’s a sad fact that you need to have money to make money.”

11. Step by step.

“0 Quit current job

1 Invest so all the other steps are achievable without reducing my capital

2 Help the least fortunate. E.g. orphans in developing countries.

3 Fund my kids for the rest of their life and a good education.

4 Build the ultimate man cave.

5 Collect big boy toys.”

12. You’ve put a lot of thought into this…

“For this hypothetical, let’s say I sold a software company I had started. I have $2,000,000,000.00 after taxes.

STEP 1: Buy some stuff

The wife and I would get two homes for our family. One would be in Austin, TX and the other would be in Lake Tahoe. They’d be big and beautiful.

We’d have a secret room built in both. I’ve always wanted a secret room.

We’d fill the homes with fancy electronics and nice furniture. We’d get killer appliances, and one heck of a coffee setup. My wife would upgrade her wardrobe. I’d update my wardrobe.

My children would each have their own room, and there would be an awesome play room. I’d update the kids’ wardrobe too:) Both homes would have great pools and hot-tubs. We’d get a few vehicles (Suburban, Mercedes, Lamborghini, etc.). We’d get wake-boats for both homes, and some jet-skis too. I’d have a bada** man-cave and coding room.

My wife would have a bada** woman-cave. We’d have a cool little lounge and bar room for parties. Home theatre, complete with popcorn machine? Check.

The wife and I would strongly consider getting a yacht. It’d be great to be able to go out on the ocean and visit exotic locations in ultimate luxury. Let’s say we get a $50M yacht.

At this point, let’s say I’ve spent $100,000,000.00. I think that’s grossly overestimating costs, but I’ll go with it. That leaves me with $1,900,000,000.00.

STEP 2: Put money in the bank

I could put the entire $1.9B in bank accounts, mutual funds, and investments for myself, but I wouldn’t. I think $200,000,000.00 would be perfect.

With safe investing, I’ll underestimate and say we get at most 3–7% back on our money. That’s $6–14M per year in the beginning, and more as the account grows and we don’t spend too much of the interest.

I don’t think we could spend more than $250,000 per year on taxes, utilities, food, shopping, and vacations. I think that’s overestimating by quite a bit, but that’s the number I’ll use.

So, the rest of the money goes back into the bank. The wife and I live well, and can give everything to our children. When we’re gone, we get to leave our kids hundreds of millions.

So, now there is $1,700,000,000.00 left to work with.

STEP 3: Share the wealth, spread the love

We’d give $20,000,000.00 or so to close family members and friends

We’d give $1,000,000.00-$15,000,000.00 to other friends, old acquaintances, old work colleagues, past teachers and professors, and old classmates (for most, we’d give anonymously)

We’d donate tens of millions to our old schools, as well as the schools our families attended, giving in honor of family (e.g. giving money to Cork in honor of my father), but doing so anonymously for our schools

We’d donate hundreds of millions to charities, research foundations, and other philanthropic endeavors, giving anonymously

STEP 4: Enjoy the spoils

We’d pursue knowledge, experiences, and time with each other. We’d learn new languages, travel all over, and probably get personal trainers. We’d fill our days with learning and pleasure.

We’d go out to eat a lot more often. We’d also go crazy at Whole Foods or Central Market every now and then- really load up the kitchen.

We’d take the kids to Disneyland till they were sick of it. We’d travel to Europe regularly to see family and tour. We’d visit Thailand, India, Japan, South Africa, Brazil, Iceland…all over!

Conclusion:

I’d get some nice things. I’d keep a good amount for my family and me (and future generations). However, I’d give 85% of my wealth away. Why? Adding more millions to my bank account wouldn’t change my life much. At $200,000,000.00, you can live like a sultan and never want for anything.

Having $400,000,000.00 or $1,000,000,000.00 wouldn’t improve your lifestyle much. I’d d**, having lived in luxury and enjoyed all I could ever desire, whether I had kept two-hundred or kept it all. You can’t take it with you, so why die hoarding the cash when you could change thousands of lives?

I’d give a lot away, and celebrate seeing families be able to retire early and spend more time together, research foundations be able to use the money to save lives, and family and friends pursue their dreams.

RE-THINKING THE MATH:

Come to think of it, at 3–7%, the $1.7B I’d have after keeping my bit would build that $1.7B to $3-4B or more over 30 years. So, I’d actually keep the $1.7B in a separate set of accounts and funds and, over the course of 30 years give away upwards of $4B or more.”

Now we’d like to hear from you.

In the comments, let us know what you’d do first if you became a billionaire.

Please and thank you!