I have asked this question to countless people (mostly in hair salons) as an alternative to small talk, and it always yields interesting results.
Rules:
- You get the money right now, right where you are. If it’s 10pm and you’re in the middle of nowhere, your money will still go poof at 11pm.
- As a result of the above, tell us what time it is and roughly where you are (big city, desert, small town, …)
- You must spend the money. You cannot give it to someone to hold on to it for you for a while.
- Normal world rules apply, e.g. you cannot buy a $250k car at a dealership in 1h in cash, and you cannot buy a house in 1h either.
- Remember that getting from where you are to the place you need to go takes time. Factor that in!
Edit: I’m glad you guys had fun with this one. Feel free to post similar hypothetical questions. I kinda like these.
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A monkey. I’ve always wanted a monkey.
Hey this guy’s cheating.
1 million in index funds which I will reinvest later.
The post specified cash. How would you purchase $1m in index funds with cash in an hour?
Bring it to my bank, deposit, then purchase online.
Though I’d leave it in my index fund, on average they perform better than actively managed accounts
I think getting to a bank, explaining where 1M in cash came from, getting them to accept the deposit, getting them to count it, then spending it in less than an hour is not feasible.
Because, depositing it in a bank is not enough.
It has to be spent.
So, if you don’t spend it then the bank is left without however much disappears… If that makes sense.And, given that, I don’t think investing is a suitable application.
Otherwise, just invest it directly at the bank.
Maybe you don’t get inflation-beating interest (ie, if it was your 1M you would be losing money), but after whatever-term you get 1M of clean money to spend.
Probably the best idea in this thread unless you have other more immediate needs like paying off high interest debts.
But is the market open at 10pm?
Quito Ecuador at 8:30pm on a Sunday night. Nothing other than small cornerstores and liquor shops are open. So I guess I’ll buy as much liquor as I can to resell later.
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If you (or a banker or anyone you’re paying) needed to count that money, you’d need to count just over 11 bills every 4 seconds, just to count all the bills within an hour, let alone have time to actually spend the money. This is assuming $100 bills, of which you’d need 10,000 of. This many bills also weighs 22 pounds or 10 kilograms, plus whatever the weight of the container you’re carrying it is… IDK man I think I’d not even try to spend most of it, grab maybe $500-1000 in cash, and go on a quick shopping spree at Target or something, which is like a 10 minute walk from where I live. I could buy groceries, clothing, electronics, household items, etc. If I still had time I would go back and try to buy gift cards in large denominations, but I know cashiers are supposed to give people a hard time with that because of scammers, so I wouldn’t want to deal with that during the initial transaction.
Transport in my area is so shit it would take me an hour just to get to a place I could spend cash; I would buy nothing.
Except maybe a therapist out of my own pocket to deal with something dangling financial stability in front of me.
I would buy four tickets on a mini-sub tour of the Titanic and give them to 4 billionaires.
First I would bang on a neighbor’s door and pay them to follow me with a camera then run into the fairly nearby motorbike shop and yell ‘quick I’m doing a Mr Beast challenge I need to spend a million dollars in the next half hour!’ all four guys working would jump at it especially if I said ‘give yourself 10% commission on each one’
The only other shop near that isn’t just groceries is a wedding dress shop so I guess while they’re getting the paperwork ready I’d run in and buy their most expensive white gowns so that we could ride in style - though the train might get caught in the chain…
Oh and I’d run into the pub and tell them to ring up as much as possible before the time runs out so we can all go there after to relax.
I think that’s the most creative one I’ve ever heard. Well done.
Go to the nearest jewelry store and buy everything in it. Wait an hour, return it as per the refund policy. If there is no refund policy then I would sell it off. Even if I lost 50% on the sell back, that’s still half a mil in cash.
Most popular jewelers have at least a 30 day refund policy.
This has been my go to answer if the hair stylist asked what I’d do. I’d go to different jewlery stores, because they’d still call the cops if you wanna buy stuff for a million.
(I forgot to add the “no returning items” rule; but since you added the “selling it off” part I think it’s fine, hehe)
I’d buy a good FPV drone, a Hurdy Gurdy and a nice office chair. My current one sucks.
Yeah, that’s it.
8pm here. I’d buy a house using some house buying mobile app. I’d probably sell it afterwards when the time is right and add the money to my investments.
Buying some type of investment property was my first idea too, but this raises a good point. If the original question was that you had one hour for the funds to actually clear before they are taken away then I don’t think buying a house would be an option.
Can you pay in cash on “some house buying mobile app”?
Probably a crap load of music studio gear then donate to one or more schools in my neighborhood
I would prepare myself to take a BIG loss.
I think I would go on Amazon or eBay and order a bunch of new or slightly-used laptops. Then I would spend the next few months selling them at bargain prices. I would never get the whole million back, but I’d make some damn good money.
Somebody smarter than me might buy something that will gain value over time instead of losing it, but hey, I only have an hour so this is the best plan I could come up with!
You can’t use cash to buy stuff on Amazon or eBay…
Ah shit, only cash. Well, either gold or new laptops. Or just electronics generally for later bargain resale.
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Whelp, It’s still just barely afternoon for me, so I’d gotta get to the bank as fast as possible to get my card straightened out so I can go online and order a bunch of things like art commissions from digital artists I like and then go onto other sites like Etsy or eBay to get things like a couple different knock-off pokemon plushies (looking at you, grafaiai).
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Then find DVD/Blu-ray sets for the cartoons I really like. Shows like Ahhh! Real Monsters or Code Lyoko. Whatever I could think of in the moment because I’d be too busy freaking out in excitement.
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Probably go to some place like a thrift store and buy some clothes for my stuffed rabbit and bear since I think they would look lovely in some nice clothes (even if they are baby clothes).
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After all that is purchased, I wouldn’t know what to do, so probably just spend it on games on Steam or donating to groups like the people behind LibreOffice or Krita. Just giving a little towards the development of open source products I like in order to thank them for their product.
Edit:
I would only deposit a small amount into the bank so that way I would be able to use my card to buy all of these items online. I’d assume the money isn’t directly deposited into my bank account, so I’d need to manually do it.
Thankfully I live close enough it’d only take less than 10 minutes to get in. Getting an appointment, might be an issue, so I might have to scrap all of the online shopping plans and just go to the game store I like and just buy a ton of old games and a pro controller for my switch and if they have it, another switch and a copy of pokemon scarlet so I can complete the pokedex on my violet save by either modding the switch or starting 2 new saves and doing LAN trading.
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Cheap Answer: Go to my nearest Walmart/Grocery Store (10 minutes away from me)and max out all of the vanilla visa debit cards with the $1 million but after fees it won’t be $1 million but I would still spend the million.
Actual Answer: Luckily I’m in a prime spot where I live that I’m 20 minutes away from Lamborghini, Aston Martin, and other luxury car dealerships. So I’d go there and purchase how many cars I can with the million. After I sign, sell them back to the dealership or sell them privately.
Do you really think they are not going to call the cops if a dude shows up with $1 million in cash to buy cars, asking to speed up the transaction? No way are they not gonna.
You need to stop and buy a nice tailored suit beforehand.
Frequently the real rich people dress really casually because they have nothing to prove.
They dress casually, but it still looks freaking fancy.
