(but not a real fur coat that’s cruel)
I’m going to pretend I’m the only person on the Internet to allude to ’90s Canadian rock music in conjunction with the Powerball reaching 1.3 billion dollars. (I am too original, shut up.) The song is dated, of course, because how far would a mere million dollars go? A billion, though, that could get you somewhere.
So, in honor of this momentous Powerballian occasion, and because I believe I can actually finish this blog post before the drawing on Wednesday, meaning this post will still be current, huzzah, I present
What I’d Do If I Had a Billion Dollars
- Stick 50% of it in savings to deal with taxes.
- Hire a financial consultant and/or lawyer to help me figure out how to manage at least that 50%.
- Management likely to involve some sort of investment strategy where ideally interest earned per annum would be enough to cover living expenses.
- Except “investment strategy” sounds really dull and boring so let’s say the meeting is at Disney World. (Shut up.)
- Pay off my townhouse mortgage.
- Remodel townhouse. Updates to include:
- New kitchen appliances and flooring, maybe new cabinetry if I decided I hate the existing cabinetry. Which I probably would decide, because I am a billionaire.
- If as a billionaire I’ve replaced the kitchen cabinetry, it seems like it’d only make sense to replace the bathroom cabinetry (is it still called cabinetry?) as well.
- Eh, or maybe not, because how exciting is remodeling a bathroom? Not exciting enough for a billionaire, I don’t think.
- New carpet throughout.
- New gas fireplace, maybe? Especially if there’s a special design nowadays that prevents miller moths from flying in through the flue and committing suicide in the beautiful blue glow of the pilot. (Which there’s probably not, but since I’m a billionaire I could probably invest in some aspiring inventor to design one.)
- Seekrit tunnels, because they’d be fun.
- Except putting in the seekrit tunnels means I’d probably have to buy out the adjoining townhouses, which I could do because billionaire, but really I think it’d be better to just flip the townhouse after I’ve remodeled it and find a different house more amenable to building seekrit tunnels.
- TBD: Flip townhouse for new house that has seekrit tunnels or in which I can build them easily.
- Buy a Tesla S.
- If I discover I hate it, angry-tweet at The Oatmeal for making this comic which made me think a Tesla would be cool.
- If he angry-tweets back at me, still-angry tweet that I am a billionaire at least before taxes! and maybe convince Twitter to rise up in arms against him?
- That probably wouldn’t work because I think people are more likely to hate newly minted billionaires than web cartoonists, and really I like The Oatmeal (at least the persona I’ve built up in my mind based on his comics) so I’d want to be his friend.
- If he angry-tweets back at me, still-angry tweet that I am a billionaire at least before taxes! and maybe convince Twitter to rise up in arms against him?
- Alternative plan: If I discover I hate it, sad-tweet at The Oatmeal for making me want one, sell it, and get a Prius instead.
- If I discover I hate it, angry-tweet at The Oatmeal for making this comic which made me think a Tesla would be cool.
- Enable my parents to retire. (Well, my dad’s the only one working, but either way, I owe them.)
- Oh yeah at some point I’d quit my day job. When is questionable since I wouldn’t want to leave them in a lurch or anything, but yes there’d be quitting.
- Then I’d make a new daily schedule where I write in the morning, when my brain is freshest.
- And I’d stop my old-person schedule of eating dinner at 5 (because I like the longer block of time after dinner to write) and stretch it all the way to, like, 6.
- Become a philanthropist. Philanthropic activities to include:
- Donations
- To bunches of spec fic magazines, such as Fireside Fiction (which could use donations now!) and Strange Horizons. Art is awesome, y’all.
- To those programs that let you sponsor children.
- To those programs that let you sponsor kittens and puppies.
- Not to those programs that let you sponsor dolphins, because the love of dolphins experienced by my 12-year-old self has been forever destroyed by those articles that talk about how male dolphins often employ “sexual coercion,” to use the preferred scientific term, on females.
- To some faith-based organizations.
- To Heifer International.
Take on a secret identity and dispense vigilante justiceDonate to still more things. It worked for Bill Gates.- Maybe start up a pro-paying speculative fiction magazine of my own, to provide another market for writers.
- Except this really sounds like a lot of work, and would require time to think of a good name (Billionaire-Funded Stories for You lacks a certain something) and to find a decent editor whose tastes more or less align with mine and whom I trust not to publish stuff I’d hate to have my billionaire name attached to, and that makes me wonder what my “vision” or whatever even is and how I’d communicate it to this hypothetical editor for a hypothetical magazine funded by my hypothetical billionaire dollars.
- Let’s file this under TBD, also.
- Except this really sounds like a lot of work, and would require time to think of a good name (Billionaire-Funded Stories for You lacks a certain something) and to find a decent editor whose tastes more or less align with mine and whom I trust not to publish stuff I’d hate to have my billionaire name attached to, and that makes me wonder what my “vision” or whatever even is and how I’d communicate it to this hypothetical editor for a hypothetical magazine funded by my hypothetical billionaire dollars.
- Support renewable energy initiatives.
- But if that looks like it’s still not enough to save the planet, maybe help out with the whole trying to get us off the planet thing.
- Donations
- Travel more.
- To the Wizarding World of Harry Potter! (Shut up, Disney World is already covered by my investment strategy meeting, remember.)
- To Peru
- To Australia
- To New Zealand
- To various cons because even though I am a billionaire, I am still pursuing my writing career.
- How much money do I have left? Gah, being a pretend billionaire is so hard.
- Become irritated with people who keep asking me for money.
- Become selfish and greedy and lose out on the best years of my life, losing everything and everyone I ever loved until I have a touching, but at times harrowing, Christmastime encounter with four spirits who cause me to reexamine my life choices and show me the error of my–
You know what? 12 sounds utterly exhausting. I don’t want to do that. It’s clear to me now why the Bare-Naked Ladies sang about a mere million dollars. It’s easy to figure out what you’d do: eat more Kraft dinner even though you don’t have to, buy someone’s love, whatever. A billion is so much more work.
…but I’m still probably going to buy some lottery tickets.
2 responses to “If I had a billion dollars I’d buy you a fur coat”
Great post 🙂
The seekrit tunnels and Tesla S both strongly appeal to me . . . as well as some of the more high-minded goals 😉
I guess you’ll just have to stay normal, grounded, and well-adjusted for now.
Maybe the lotto will mess up your life another time!
I lolled at #12. And wondered at the lack of another generational 90s reference–Dr. Evil’s stumble in Austin Powers between One Million and One Billion Dollars. Otherwise, I support seekrit tunnels as an investment in our future and would like special consideration for Billionare-Funded Stories for You acceptance. Or, y’know, the generation ship if it comes to that.