If I were Filthy Rich
By Resident_Bet_8551+183 Unnecessarily Detailed Breakdown of my Powerball Plans
The Powerball drawing tonight is for $905 million dollars. If lightning strikes and I win (and my great-grandfather did die of a lightning strike, so hey), these are my plans.
Given my state of residence, I would be netting about 27% of the lump sum to start with - i.e., $244M and change after de-annuitization and taxes. Of that, I would commit about $40M to outlays up front:
- $4M in trusts and annuities for my mom (my dad passed this year);
- $4M to friends and family (most of whom are getting "briefcases" of $300K - not fortunes, but enough to pay off debts and puff up nest eggs);
- $5M for a house (which would, I hope, actually come out to much less, but that won't buy a palace anymore);
- $2M for "all the fun stuff" (various and sundry indulgences like a top-line car and collectables);
- The remainder to endow various faculty chairs and an addition to my favorite museum.
I intend to invest the remaining balance in SRI securities. Given a conservative estimate of 6.2% annual return, that should generate about $12.7M a year in pre-tax income, allowing me to donate 60% ($7.6M) to non-profits before taxes. I reckon about 10% of that will provide ten scholarships of about $68K apiece every year for graduates of my old high school. I've got a wish list of 50+ donees that I'd be funding from the rest at various levels, ranging from $15K for Wikipedia to $900K for Planned Parenthood and $600K each for NPR and PBS. Yes, I think about this far too much.
After paying capital gains tax on the remainder, that leaves me about $10,000 per day. And that, ladies and gentlemen, will buy a lot of hookers and blow. (Also an admin whom I'm planning on paying about $160K/year. That should buy a top-flight professional.)
Please note: if you follow this through and the math isn't quite mathing, it's because I've been rounding decimals here and there. I'm an inveterate Excel nerd; I've got an unnecessarily-detailed Excel doc for all this.
Recent responses
+47 @Orcus424 I suggest you create your own non profit compared to just donating millions to others. Many skim way too much off the top. There was this one charity that helped the working poor with food. It turned out a lot of the money was going to crazy high salaries to family members that kicked back a lot to the President of the charity. They could have helped so much more people but greed got in the way.
+31 @navislut Good luck 🍀
+21 @Content-Two-9834 Hello friend 🙂 if you win, would you share $4 million with me? 😀
+14 @barlos08 You forgot about my cut dude
+12 @PirateKilt >$5M for a house (which would, I hope, actually come out to much less, but that won't buy a palace anymore) Just to toss out one piece from my plan for consideration: Instead of just throwing down $5M on someone's leftover, figure out where you want to have that awesome new forever house, buy the land you will need, then buy a "moderate" house nearby, then hire an Architect and custom home builder. Work with your new team to plan the perfect dream house to code, spec AND all your "cool feature" dreams. Then, have it built while you are out traveling that first year. Be sure to hire a guy who is a "builder's agent" who knows all about construction to be on site daily to cross check all materials used, all processes, etc. Be sure to leave him with a limited POA to hire extra specialists when the in-house stuff is being worked on... electricians, plumbers, etc. Then, in the meantime, in case this lottery isn't yours, you can start building an online folder (Pinterest works well) of all the cool "House things" you'll want in yours... makes the dreaming extra fun. Don't forget to add the switch you can flip in your garage to turn on the driveway heater if you chose anywhere with snow...
+11 @Laundry0615 Are you currently working? If so, you left out something. You should also plan on renting a small plane with a banner on the back that says something meaningful to you. I always envisioned my plane's banner to say "Take This Job and Shove It", flown around my old workplace at noon when folks are out and about. Think about it.