Let me ask you a question. A purely hypothetical question.
If you had, say, $20,000 to spend, what would you do with it?
$20,000, free and clear, with no obligation. What would you do? Would you buy a car? Go on vacation? Put it towards buying property? Give it away? Take classes? Quit your job? Buy yourself a hot tub? What would you do?
My only stipulation in this hypothetical question is that you CANNOT use this $20,000 to pay debt. It’s money to spend, not money already spent. It’s yours. What would you do with it?
It’s okay if you want to go to Vegas and blow it all in a night. Or if you squirrel it away to save for something bigger. But if that is the case, what are you saving for?
I appreciate your thoughts.
Buy Apple stock.
I’ve been following this blog for awhile and I thought I would actually chime in on the comments. If I had $20,000 free and clear I would without question quit my job. That cash would afford me the time to find a job I actually care about and doesn’t cause actual migraine headaches!
I would stick it savings so that I could take my time to spend it consciously and deliberately.
There’s nothing I want but don’t have, so I would probably use some of it to visit my son in Japan next summer after he does an exchange to Sapporo.
And I’d take my friend Heather out for lunch.
Katy
I’d convert it all to silver and sit on it for at least a year. By then it’d buy a lot more.
Then I’d use it to buy a farm.
go to baking & pastry school
nope-scratch the culinary school. I’d quit my job in San Diego and move back to Portland (used to live there 12 years ago and miss it).
These are all awesome ideas. I’d quit my job and learn to bake and buy a farm and take friends out for lunch. I’d love to do all those things!
I’d buy property/house, maybe a class…
Quit your job? For $20,000? Buy a farm? Where can you buy a farm for $20,000?
The only place I know of that you can buy a house for $20k is Detroit. Not sure I would want to invest there.
Me? I’d use to remodel the house. We need to get new windows, and that should do it.
It’s true, $20,000 isn’t a lot. But it could be the start of something (a down payment on property), or it could be the end of something (a cushion to quit a job). $20,000 could be life changing depending on how you might use it.
I’d take half of it and go sailing, and spend the other half on a publicist.
Hm, this is hard. I know what I’d do if I suddenly got $4,000,000 or more, because I play the thought game “What Would I Do If I Won The Powerball?” fairly frequently.
$20k, though? That’s not enough for me to quit my job, or buy my dream property.
I’d probably buy the delux version of this to store my comics, which they were saying was going to retail for about $10k.
Then I’d spend the rest on beer and comics. Because I like beer and comics.
I would use half to fix up my house and use the other half to finance my move after selling said house.
I would take my family to China for a homeland tour. (my kids are from China) That would finish it up in one fell swoop. But we wouldn’t go into debt to finance it like we’re planning on doing at the moment.
I’m already hoping to travel-school through California next year, but with the extra money I’d make it more into a planes-trains-automobiles kind of trip versus a looooooooong road trip. And I’d take a month to travel versus what we can ‘afford’ — which is two weeks.
so is there a $20,000 reward for the best “what would you do?” story? ;)
Work on my house for sure!
These are all great ideas. $20,000 is tough because it’s not like winning the lottery, but it’s also nothing to sneeze at.
When I become the Oprah of blogging, everyone will get $20 grand. It’s better than getting everyone a Chevy, or whatever.
Hrm…. probably pay this term’s worth of school (a measly $700), and pay off all the rest of the wedding bills (which are affordable, just would be done sooner), then put the rest in a high-yielding short-term something-something (6 months at 5% at least), just to sit and pay for a damned good travel… and hopefully have enough left over for more travel! Peter and I are attempting to get on board with a habitat for humanity group from pdx to go to japan early next year for our “honeymoon”…. that’s what things like this could go to… just getting the plane tickets over there, with maybe some carhartt’s. ^_^
I would have a baby. We know we want to have kids, but we’re not as financially stable as we want to be yet. “You’ll never be totally ready!” is the well-meaning advice, but in this case, I know we have to wait still.
Hookers and blow.
Since this is just fantasy…. I would quit my stint in hell, otherwise know as my job, and take at least a month west coast / Alaska tour starting in Southern California, spending a couple of weeks with your wonderful mother and sister. Then I would rent a couple of motorcycles and head north for another week, stopping to see all the west coast offerings. That brings me to a fun filled week visiting with you and getting to know Dave, can’t wait to meet him! Then some time in Alaska, and not a tour, just wandering around, doing some salmon fishing and camping!!! AHHH, Thanks for the 20 Gs Ther, I enjoyed, that was fun!
Ok Heather…. I thought about it long & hard. What would I really do with it? If I had that 20K I would call a lawyer and move forward with adopting a baby. Sigh.
Kate and Nyssa: Ah, babies. Yes. It’s that season. I think my ovaries just groaned. It’s too bad they don’t just grow on trees.
Steve, I knew someone would say something to that effect. Either that or “two chicks at one time.” But, there goes your entire $20k.
Aunt Laurie, I said the same thing to Uncle Jamie, come on out! Ride up the coast. The PCH and the Oregon coast is unbelievable.
We are asking ourselves that question as we bid on a project that will net us $20K. We’ll be drying in our house and drilling a well. But 2.5 years ago, we quit our jobs, cashed in our retirement and added a big check from my grandpa into it and changed our lives totally. We sold nearly everything we had, moved into a tiny apartment (you’re already there!), found a piece of owner-financed raw land we fell in love with and started our own business. Now we’re building our own house WITHOUT a mortgage, just building it as we have the money, and working our own business. We haven’t gotten up to “go to work” since November 2008. $20,000 can go MUCH farther than you think, if you figure out what your priorities are.
BTW, when we get a windfall, we list all the ways we could spend money, then rate them: by responsibility level, fun level, and quality of life levels. For instance, paying off debt is very responsible and improves the quality of life (less stress), but going to Italy isn’t very responsible use of money, but it sure is fun! Once we rate them on a scale of 1-10 (paying off debt: 10 on responsibility, quality of life 5, fun ZERO) and then look at them objectively. It helps you sort your priorities. And yes, the decision we made to sell everything and buy land and become debt free ranked 10 on all three scales. :)
can’t pay off debt, huh? that’s good, i like that.
i’d build that glass shack in the back yard. for sure. and hire someone to make my yard pretty while consuming as little water as possible.
i think i would DIY my kitchen. that’s about $8k, right there.
take some kind of trip. oh, i know, buy that little coleman pop up, microchip the kids and hit the road. tour the western-sih states. idaho, montana, wyoming. learn to ride a horse. get a tempurpedic mattress with a sweet ass base.
that should use most of it up. any left over, its hot tub time. that has lowest priority cuz it is getting warmer now. if this was december, hot tub would top the list. or maybe just a soaking tub.
Wow! Thanks for your stories, guys! Janet, that is some inspiration, right there. Thanks for sharing!
Depends how much you have in your “emergency savings” already. For me, I translate the dollar amount into time => how many months of our basic bills does this equal? I want a year of money in the emergency savings because that gives us the freedom to quit a job we don’t like, try a new venture out of curiosity, take a class, etc.
If you read “The millionaire next door” you might notice one of the things they found: millionaires by and large don’t spend money on things that go down in value, or, when they have to (i.e., a car) they spend as little on those things as possible – not a new car, but a used American affordable car. So, one answer is, spend it on something that will go up in value (appreciate) – land, skill-development, investing in your business, etc.
Getting out of debt is “off limits” by your requirements, but since debt is the antithesis of freedom, I’d suggest putting it back on the list as “buy myself some freedom by reducing my debt”, if one had any debt.
Hmm, I guess that’s about £10k so I think I would need to put that straight into the house renovations we have planned this summer! But if I had a completely free hand, I would quit my job this instant and look for something part-time and local in the autumn. I would take this summer off to manage the renovations and look after my GF (who will be very stressed this summer!) and the dog.
And I would take us on holiday.