Here it is, the million dollar question (thanks to NaBloPoMo):

If you found one million dollars in the morning and had to spend it by nightfall, what would you do with the money?

Well…..I asked my husband this and he responded, “what time do I wake up?” Also, he asks if we can go to a casino and double it and keep the earnings. Smart man.

This reminds me of Bruster’s Millions except no one is saying I can’t just give the money away. And I assume that since I have to spend it I can’t just put it in a savings account or invest it. So what to do, what to do……..

I would pay off all our debts 
Yep. I’m going to be responsible and pay all our creditors, pay my hubbie’s student loans, pay off my credit card, and call Dave Ramsey to do my debt free scream :). Gosh I wish this exercise was actually happening, but I guess considering that this is my first thought that means that the debt is something that is in the forefront of my mind. It is, it causes me stress, and I would looooove to just kill it all at once. I would sit down with my computer and the telephone and spend a couple hours making calls and transferring money.

Can I buy a car and a house in one day?
I would peel off $40k from a huge stack of hundreds (hey, it’s my fantasy so I am picturing a huge bag of $100 dollar bills in a bag with a $ sign on it. Too cliche?) and give it to my husband to get himself a new car because he really wants one and his car is old. He said he wants $100k for a car but I objected that we can’t insure a Beamer since we won’t have the money the next day. So, can I buy a house in the same day? Not likely. Nothing is going to close that fast and I wouldn’t want to rush it anyway.

Selfish vs. Altruistic
Maybe I can sit down with a lawyer and create a trust that I can put a lot of the money into so I can get around the daylight parameters and keep it all to myself so I can buy that house and set myself and my family up financially?

Uh, I don’t think that’s the point of this exercise.

Really, I think I would spend a (relatively) small amount on myself to pay debts and buy a car, then I would give it to charities that mean a lot to me like animal rescue associations, cancer research, food pantries, world health charities, sustainable fuels research, water sustainability, and climate change research.

I would drive around town and give $10,000 to each homeless person I see. $10,000 can be a fresh start for someone and allow them to get an apartment, new clothes, food, and set them on their feet. But, it’s not enough to live off of for a long time so people would have to get a job and get their lives in order to maintain their new lifestyle. I would hope that I would be able to make some kind of lasting change in someone’s life by doing that. Maybe it would pay for them to go to rehab, pay their legal bills to regain custody of their kids, pay for a medical procedure they need, or allow them a second chance to show up for life.

Oh, and I would grocery shop like a crazy person; buy some deep freezers and stock up. There’s nothing like the feeling of having enough food in your house to outlast the zombie apocalypse. And my husband would stock up on firearms (for the zombie apocalypse). Maybe a gold AK-47, purely for opulence and because it’s a great conversation piece. Plus, AK-47s don’t break, like ever.

What would you do with $1 million you had to spend in a day?