What to Do with a Million Dollars
We all have dreamt at one point or another about winning the lottery. What are the usual thoughts that come to us in those cases? I would travel the world, I would help one family member, I would buy a nice house. Most of us don’t usually buy a lottery ticket, but we think about winning the big pot! Because the changes of gaining a million dollar are slim, few people do the things that would increase the chances of being a millionaire.
There is an article by NASDAQ with the following title: 1 in 15 Americans Is Now a Millionaire: 9 Ways To Become One of Them. I know a lot more than 15 people and not one of them have that much money. So what are they talking about? Well, there are apparently 22 billions Americans who are millionaires in the USA. Either I am too poor or those people are good at hiding their wealth. For those interested in actively increasing their chances, the article tells us about the hard truth: “…becoming a millionaire is not about luck or overnight success, but rather daily choices to live below your means, invest early and often, take calculated risks and continually educate yourself on how to master your money.”
But let’s go back to the fantasy exercises in which we already have our first million. I would tell myself that if I had that kind of money at first I wouldn’t do anything to change my life; nor would a spend a lot. So hard to believe, my own ego is rolling his eyes. Out of the 9 ways described in the NASDAQ article, the first one is the only one I would follow, it is probably the only realistic way of making it anyway, so it is also probably the only realistic way of keeping it.
I won’t talk about all the points raised to get rich, but I have to mention that I disagree considerably about investing in real state. Most people will say it is a safe bet; yes, I agree. But at what cost? Now this is touching on society as a whole. Obviously we all need a place to live, but parking money in housing-just for the sake of speculation-while millions of people can’t afford a place to call home is tragic and unnecessary.
Most of all (and I am a perfect example) never thought about starting a business. And so others take advantage by paying wages. That’s another rabbit whole. The so called “work market” keep people from thinking about their work as a business. This is on purpose. What we produce is what should be sold, and not our time.
So if I had a million dollar I would be starting my own business. In fact, I should be thinking about starting a business to get there. I used to think that only certain people have the courage or attitude to run their own business. The attitude can be acquired relatively easy. The know-how is more difficult. There will be a lot of things to be learned. Every business sector has an infinitely amount of details and most of the time the information is not easily found. Furthermore, a lot of people are not very helpful. And there are probably many other road blocks and difficulties I don’t even know about.
A million dollar would yield about $100,000 a year in the stock market. Pretty good retirement plan, but there is something about the stock market that smells fishy, or Should I say rotten? But that’s a different story. I like the idea of making a change in the world. Now, having capital available to start a business open up a lot of possibilities, so a whole different kind of fantasy would start over. Instead of doing that, I would take the advice of soonnow given in a reddit post: “I would start trying to make a $1 company. And go from there."