What would you do with $1.5 million? (spinoff)

[Planogirl]

Donate about a fourth, take a bit for some home upgrades and save the rest.

 

[prairie_girl]

Um...yes you do if you live in the US. You may not have to pay any state taxes (we don't in Florida), but you would certainly have to pay US income tax.

Ummm, you should know by now who the Canadians are around here.

We do not pay taxes on winnings.

 

[mefordis]

I'm not debt-free, nor is attaining it {{gasp }} my highest priority. I don't really care what others think about that though, nor do I begrudge anybody managing their money differently. I don't ask internet strangers for financial advice nor do I give it, unsolicited. Oh, and we lease our cars - try admitting that in a DIS discussion about finances.

We actually thought about leasing a car this year, but we put too many miles on our cars. I have changed my mind about leasing cars recently. I live driving a new car after having driven an 18 year old car up until recently.

 

[mefordis]

Invest it.

That amount would push us well past the "financial independent" line. I would probably roll back to 3 days a week (need to check where the line is that keeps health insurance) which would be enough to pay the bills. Along with that I would apply for permanent remote work status. Convince my wife to quit her job and we would travel way more than we do now spending a month or so in each place.

Where are some places you'd go?

 

[ronandannette]

We actually thought about leasing a car this year, but we put too many miles on our cars. I have changed my mind about leasing cars recently. I live driving a new car after having driven an 18 year old car up until recently.

You can write any number of miles per year you want into the contract; they'll just increase the monthly payments based on a lower lease-end value due to the additional miles. Most lease payments you see advertised are based on about 12,000/miles (20,000 km) a year. What you want to avoid is being over the contracted mileage at the end of the term; that they charge you for by the mile and it's steep. We've encountered it a time or two and in those cases we've just leased another vehicle from the same dealer and they've agreed to eat them (it was only a few 1,000 km - not a whole ton).

 

[TCRAIG]

Ummm, you should know by now who the Canadians are around here.

We do not pay taxes on winnings.

Maybe the first thing to do is move to Canada!

 

[ronandannette]

Maybe the first thing to do is move to Canada!

Also notice how none of us had health-insurance premiums calculated into our long-term financial plans.

 

[MillauFr]

$1.5m? Please. I liked the unlimited money thread a few days back. For $1.5m I would buy 2 square feet of property in Seattle and hope it appreciates.

 

[Starport Seven-Five]

Where are some places you'd go?

I can't think of anywhere in particular to be honest. Probably just slow travel the US and see what fits our lifestyle the best. Really would like to spend a couple months in Hawaii.

If I never had to live through a cold winter again, I would be happy.

 

[PrincessBelle39]

Ummm, you should know by now who the Canadians are around here.

We do not pay taxes on winnings.

We are in Australia and we don't pay tax on winnings either. So it's a flat $1.5million for us. I'd pay off our mortgage which is relatively small and dh would retire. I would have to continue to work as we have 1 dd in University and 1 in highschool.

 

[indimom]

1. Pay off the last of the mortgage and student loans for myself and DD.
2. Set aside an equal amount for DS who may or may not go to college that he can use for whatever will help him out in life.
3. Get DH the truck of his dreams. Whenever we looked at vehicles, we could never quite find a reason to pay more just to have a truck. I'd love to treat him to that.
4. Finish renovating our house. That one is for me. lol
5. Take a nice vacation with the kids. It's been quite a few years since we've had a vacation as a family.
6. Invest the rest.

 

[Wendy1985]

Build shelters for the homeless

 

[dvcgirl67]

Actually, the windfall might be tax-free, if it were inherited stocks (there's a step-up basis, basically you receive them at the value on the day the person died). Also, insurance payouts are typically not taxed.

A $1.5M investment can be assumed to throw off $60k/ year in income, in perpetuity, base on the common 4% withdrawal rate. Given that there might be inflation, it would be a nice sum, for sure, but you wouldn't be able to quit your job and live high.

What would I do? Fund the kids' college, maybe fix up the house some. Basically, though, I don't see major lifestyle changes.

Right...this is how I think of money, just what it's going to throw off for us when we begin to draw on our funds in retirement. I was thinking 32-36K per year (netting 800-900K) in going along with the OP's suggestion that we had to pay taxes. Like you said, it's a sum that we'd use to pad our retirement for sure, but it's not going to provide a huge upgrade in lifestyle.

 

[Moliphino]

Pay off my mortgage, set some aside for renos and vacations, invest the rest for an early retirement.

 

[dvcgirl67]

We actually thought about leasing a car this year, but we put too many miles on our cars. I have changed my mind about leasing cars recently. I live driving a new car after having driven an 18 year old car up until recently.

I'm with you. We hadn't leased a car in many years until recently. We could afford to buy it...yada yada, but since it was our first EV, we wanted to lease to see how we liked the car. Reliability was huge too as we went down to one car. We're about 11 months in to our 24 month lease and we're excited to be getting a new Tesla Y next year. For sure it's not the most cost effective way to drive, but I see us leasing for awhile now. We went with a 15K per year mileage allowance and will come in way under.

 

[JimMIA]

Ummm, you should know by now who the Canadians are around here.

We do not pay taxes on winnings.

I don't. Everybody here is just good people to me.

But if your government is anything like ours, they'll get the money from you some other way, lol.

 

[BlueStarryHat]

I would refuse it if it was "above board" because I'd lose my disability benefits and health insurance. $900,000 after taxes isn't enough to gamble with that. Now, if I somehow got my hands on 1.5 mil and it was mine to do with as I pleased without the danger of losing my benefits and insurance? I would give some to my Aunt and sister. Then I would take a two-week trip to WDW and do whatever I pleased without having to worry about the budget. When I got home, I would put the rest away for unexpected expenses and fun.

 

[CallieMar]

Put a down payment on a modest house and invest the rest. Possibly use some of the earnings for the vacation fund.

 

[Julie's Haircut]

I could give the tired old "spend 95% of it on booze and broads, and waste the rest," but I'd probably buy another condo/house near the beach.

 

[Sinder]

I'd purchase a modest home in the south for when dh retires. Gift some to the kids and invest the rest.