What Would You Do With $300 Million Dollars? Let’s Pretend.

$300 Million Dollars. Ooooh, Let’s Play Pretend.

Have you ever dreamed about it? What you would do with $300 Million dollars? As I’m writing this, Powerball is currently at $307 Million and Mega Millions is at $350 Million. We religiously buy a ticket each week. Somebody has to win, right? But when it gets this high we always start to dream a little, and inevitably at some point before the drawing we end up playing our Let’s Pretend game.

Well instead of just dreaming about it, go get yourself a calculator and a couple notepads, some snacks and a drink, and let’s get serious.

You don’t have to wait until the stakes are this high to play. If it’s Date Night and you don’t want to go out, get cozy with a glass of wine and play….Or when you’re on the road with nothing but boring scenery. Oddly enough, when money is tight and I’ve just paid bills with a particularly skimpy paycheck, this game can take me out of my head and pull me out of my bitchy mood.

Warning: This little activity does have the potential to ruffle some feathers. I know my hubby and I definitely don’t see eye-to-eye on several of each other’s spending choices and reasoning. As if this were real. Gaaah, I wish!

The likelihood of needing instructions should this situation arise is not as certain as say…making sure you have a Will prepared? But just in case, if you should find yourselves running in circles screaming like a banshee with fistfuls of cash and your eyes all bugged out, it would be awfully handy to have a blueprint to refer to that had been drawn up when the both of you had been in your right minds.

How Do You Play?

RULES: There are really no rules to this little game… except one. You have to be specific. You can’t just say “I’d give it away” (yeah, right), or “I’d quit work”. YOU HAVE TO PRETEND LIKE YOU REALLY HAVE THAT MONEY.  You JUST received it, and you need to come up with a plan for it – ALL of it, right away. TODAY. You’re going to map this all out on paper. And here’s the kicker – if you’re planning with someone else, you both have to agree.

SUPPLIES: Calculator. Paper. Internet Access(for checking your bill balances, prices of items for purchase, airfare costs, etc.) Whatever you use for charting and planning. A few hours of uninterrupted time.

HOW TO PLAY: Put yourself in the mindset above. Pretend that $300 Million is YOURS. Start with the day you learned you had it or would be receiving it. What’s the first thing you’d do when you had that cash or check in your hand or in your bank account? This is where you start the game – Planning out your entire first day.

• Would you tell anybody? Who? Your kids? How would you tell them? Would you tell them separately or gather them together?
• Would you celebrate? How? Go Someplace? Buy Something?
• How exactly, from morning to bedtime would you spend that FIRST day?

Okay, now you’ve got your “HOLY SHIT, I’M RICH!” day planned and out of the way. Now you’ve got some major planning to do…

Some Prompts To Help You Along

I’ve included some questions below to help you with your planning, but this is YOUR game. Remember, you have to account for every bit of that $300 Million dollars.

By the time you’re finished, you’ll be prepared if this situation should arise. Good grief, it would be a shame to be caught with your pants down when this lump of money landed in your lap. You could end up mindlessly blowing through that whole chunk of change if you didn’t have a strategy in place. Okay…GO!

Some Food For Thought

• Would you share it with someone? Who? Would you give portions of it away? How much and to whom? Why?
• If you have kids or grandkids, would you give some to them? How much? Or would you just re-write your will and leave them a portion. Would you set up a trust account?
• Would you pay off bills? Your house? Your cars?
• Would you go on vacation? Where would you go? For how long? With who? How would you get there? How long would you stay?
• Would you use some for health/self-improvement? Weight loss surgery? Hip replacement? Nose job? New boobs? Teeth implants?
• Would having money make you feel courageous enough to take on something you’ve always wanted to do?  Sky diving lessons, Flying lessons? Bungee jumping? Hang gliding?
• Would you memorialize the occasion? How? Plant a tree? Buy a ’63 split-window Corvette? Get a Tattoo? Buy a beach home in Tahiti?
• Would you give some to charity? Which one? Why?
• Would you just take off with no particular destination in mind, spend money willy nilly doing crazy, nonscensical, randomly quirky things that you find along the way? What direction would you go? What would you travel in? Would you need to buy it?
• Would you anonymously hand out money? To what type of people or what organization? Would you sit at a restaurant and randomly buy people’s meals? Hand it out on the street? How much would you give? How often would you do this? Once a week? Every day? What other ideas do you have for random gifting? Anonymous deposits in bank accounts?
• Would you quit your job? Finally tell your boss what you think of him/her? Go part-time? Work from home?
• Would you buy the company you work for? Buy a different company? Start a new business? What kind of business?
• What timeframe would you work in? Would you take a month to complete all your plans, or will you space it out over several years?
• Would you invest your money? In what? Stocks? Real Estate? How much?
• Would you hire a financial planner and leave your wealth completely in his/her hands?
• Would you head to Vegas and attempt to double your windfall? How much would you set aside for gambling?

So what did you come up with? Do all those deniros have a place? Don’t you just feel so much better now that you have a plan in place?

Plan a Do-Overs Night.

On those evenings when you’re mindlessly channel surfing, turn off the tv and spend some time dreaming. It’s amazing how important and real this game becomes once you begin subtracting and adding, allocating for this and that, him or her.

Playing pretend for a few hours forces you to do some serious researching that you probably wouldn’t have bothered doing before. Maybe you’ll be pleasantly surprised after actually researching it, that the world cruise you dismissed as an impossible dream may actually be within your reach…even without the $300 Million.

Remember…

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Until next time…peace out!

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