By: Revanche

Daydreaming about spending oodles of money

February 18, 2019

Daydreaming about spending oodles of money How would you spend…

The dogs and I were walking enjoying a rare spot of sunshine while my mind wandered over to J. Money’s post on what you’d do with a windfall of $50,000. He reminded us of a movie I hadn’t seen before, Brewster’s Millions, where the main character had to spend $30M in 30 days and wasn’t allowed to buy anything that was an asset that could be sold later.

I could do that easily! I have these daydreams a lot about random things I care about.

This time, I started thinking of what I’d do with free millions. The answer: outfit rural libraries!

Coordinate with the librarian of a rural area like one that my friend Andrea lives in to gather the reading wish lists of everyone in the county.

Buy

– $1M worth of physical and ebooks,
– $0.5M in electronic equipment: computers for the library itself, e-readers and laptops for checkout.
– 3 electric vans
– A lot of comfortable chairs for reading in at the library.

Hire three drivers (paying a real living wage) to drive those vans as mobile libraries, delivering and picking up books for kids, people who aren’t mobile, or can’t get to the library for any reason. Ensure the librarian is paid a living wage and that the place is adequately staffed with people to service the mobile libraries. Network all the rural libraries together for an interlibrary loan system.

Invest $3M in a trust for the library to throw off operating income. Move on to the next area to rinse and repeat. Oh, before you leave, install decent internet connections for everyone in the area. THEN move on to the next rural county.

Make sure that there is a little overlap between all the counties to ensure no one accidentally gets overlooked or left out of access or coverage.

Am I missing anything?

This is my other if I were a billionaire (or could figure out how to pay for this sustainably) daydream:

Set up a large ranch for a suitable set of animals to cohabitate, indoors or outdoors as they prefer. Have good living quarters for all the animals and the humans who tend to them. Have the animal care be tended to by veterinary students in training under the supervision of five veterinarians and ten vet techs in residence. Have a volunteer program for locals to spend time with the animals for cuddles or vocational training (grooming, vet techs) with an actual coordinator and educational program set up. Have a small fleet of electric vehicles to bring the mellow pets for visits to seniors who can’t travel. Have a wing for elder humans who can live on site and are mobile enough to spend time with the animals safely, as well as a wing for younger humans who need a safe place to live and want to learn how to take good care of animals. Have a decent medical, dental, vision, and psych unit on site for the humans’ care. Hire supervisory adults who can manage the place and teach life skills to the younger humans who need it.

Of course the place has a huge library and great internet connection.

This daydream is an amalgam of my rescuing dogs and wanting to help foster kids in the system and as they age out.

***

Obviously we aren’t at this level but we give what we can. Tanja has a nice succinct list of ways to give that are more in line with our financial means.

:: What would you do if you had more money than you could spend on yourself?

18 Responses to “Daydreaming about spending oodles of money”

  1. But.. isn’t the farm and the vehicles all assets that could be sold later?

    I feel like I am missing something

    THAT SAID

    I’d probably spend a good chunk of it just fixing the potholes here if that’s the case (that assets were not allowed)
    sherry @ save. spend. splurge. recently posted…What is the average non-mortgage debt of Canadians?My Profile

    • Revanche says:

      Not MY assets because I’d turn it all over to the foundation that was in charge of generating more income for running the place.

  2. I feel like I’d be super inclined to start a global empire if I came into a ton of money. But if I had to not have any assets by the end of it… probably reforestation project?
    Yet Another PF Blog recently posted…Squeaky Wheel Gets The GreaseMy Profile

  3. Bethany D. says:

    My dream organization would be named “Bootstrap” because difficult as it is to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, you have to HAVE a bootstrap to even be able to try! This organization would focus on giving people the chance to stabilize their housing, food security, psych care, and/or job situations. A lot of people get stuck in motels (shelters & couch surfing too) because they can’t afford the deposit, 1st/last month, & application fees for an apartment. Yet the weekly rent for a motel unit is as much (or even more!) than monthly rent for an apartment would cost. So “Bootstrap” would pay a headhunting fee to motels for referring good tenants to them and let 9+ months of good history at the motel suffice for their deposit. It would also work with the city to set up daily job opportunities so homeless people, day laborers, etc, could have vetted, safe work options – with enough supervision that they could start (re) building work history with a manager’s reference to vouch for them. Food is cheaper per unit in bulk, but if you’re just scraping by you can’t afford the Costco sizes. You also can’t afford the time & effort of taking buses all over town to shop for deals, to say nothing of being stuck in food deserts. So the org would buy mega quantities of basic foods & TP, and a mix of volunteers & some of those day laborers would split them into household boxes to be delivered on a weekly schedule, and you can use food stamps to pay for all the edible items. (Similar to ‘Angel Boxes’ but with consistent items of good enough quality that fixed-income seniors and busy SAHPs might also consider it worth paying full price for.) Psych care is tricky because even if a homeless person is able to admit they need help, there are significant barriers to finding a counselor & a pharmacy and paying for both or accessing the correct aid program to get that help free – all of which you have to navigate while coping with the undiagnosed/untreated mental illness. So, we would set up mobile psych clinics to go to the homeless camps, shelters, and the food bank on distribution days – with mini-pharmacies in armored trucks. Take the help to the people that need it! Use biometrics for ID because managing paperwork is hard when you’re living on the streets. Especially when a person already knows they have depression, anxiety, bipolarism, etc, and WANTS the stability of their effective medication – it’s a shame that it’s so hard to get.

    So, uh, maybe I’ve spent a little too much time thinking about this subject. But it’s more fun for me than figuring out what color I’d paint my yacht! šŸ˜›

  4. Joe says:

    I love it. We are super lucky to live in a good size city with a great library system. I don’t know if I could live anywhere with a small library anymore. It is so great to have so many books to read. Reading is my favorite hobby, by the way.
    That’s a nice dream. šŸ™‚
    Joe recently posted…What if You Always Maxed Out Your 401(k)?My Profile

  5. Hmmmm does it count as an asset if it’s not in our name? I assume no. So I’d buy an apartment building and set up a trust so that women escaping abusive relationships (ones with few to no job skills) could get cheap rent while they went back to school for career training. Obviously you have to pay for a resident manager and allocate for repairs, but that’s what the trust would be for. This is actually my mom’s if-I-won-the-lottery dream, but I liked it so much that I’m appropriating it!

    • Revanche says:

      I say it doesn’t count because mine is predicated on the same notion of turning it over to a trust!

      I love this too.

    • Revanche says:

      Ah ha, your post has a lot more details on the original parameters! I’d have taken the $10M too and done some of my favorite things here.

  6. Kris says:

    That is a great idea!! Living a city my whole life, I can’t imagine living in rural area where you can’t find something like a library. It’s necessary to have a one everywhere and providing a mobile one is pretty neat. I would say mobile library would be in the small town like twice a week where they have books available for people to check out, have it reserved and just to read.

    • Revanche says:

      I’ve always lived in suburbia and didn’t realize how much luxury we were privileged to have in our amazing local library – I want everyone to have that!

  7. Alice says:

    Oh…

    If I had more money than I knew what to do with, I think I’d channel it into:

    * Postpartum help for mothers. That period with a newborn is /hard/, especially if you don’t have a support system.

    * Excellent free daycare for everyone who lives in economically depressed areas, whether they happen to meet a particular income level or not. With healthy meals included. I see this as potentially doing huge things for a community– it gives all the kids who attend a good start in life, both academically, emotionally, and physically. And it gives the families more stability, so that parents/guardians can hold down jobs, study, or deal with severe health problems.

    * Have a small medical staff (not sure how big it would need to be or what credentials) at the free daycare who provide the standard health checks, vaccinations, and look after kids who are too sick to be in their regular classrooms. Because on the one hand, a kid who is vomiting or has a high fever is too sick to be with the other kids. But on the other hand, the parents may not be in a position to take the time off at the drop of a hat to take care of their child.

    * Have paid dental as part of the daycare– maybe relationships with some nearby dentists where all of the kids get their teeth taken care of at the right intervals.

  8. OFG says:

    I love this library dream of yours! I don’t know if you happened to read my post about providing books to underserved children, but on a small scale I am spending a few dollars a month to try to get books into the hands of kids who need them. When you get your millions I will be happy to help you build those libraries and ensure everyone has access to them!
    OFG recently posted…Failing to Achieve the Highest ReturnsMy Profile

    • Revanche says:

      Thank you – I think I missed that one but I need to go find it now.

      I would love having a partner in this quest. <3

  9. […] If you want more wishful spending, Revanche (my v. good friend) talks about how she would spend millions. […]

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