For the month of January, I’m participating in Bloganuary, a daily blogging challenge.
Today’s Bloganuary prompt:
If you had a billion US dollars, how would you spend it?
When I try to comprehend how much a billion truly is, my mind breaks. I read something online once that explained that one million seconds is 12 days, and one billion seconds is 31 years. Thirty. One. Years. Seriously???
I just celebrated by 42nd birthday. If I were to set my sights high, let’s say I want to live to be 100 years old. That leaves me with 58 years left on Earth, just shy of 2 billion seconds. So, that means I would need to spend one dollar every 2 seconds to spend $1,000,000,000 by the time I turn 100.
Given that there are 86,400 seconds in a day, split that in half and I would have $43,200 to spend every single day for the next 58 years. How would I spend that?
(Side note: the prompt asks me how I would spend the money, so I’m intentionally calculating all this without even considering investing any of it. Oh, I suppose I’m also assuming that none of this money will be taxed.)
I would spend the first week or so paying off the mortgage on the house. Once that was done, I would hire a general contractor to do the home renovations Amy and I have been daydreaming about. Those would eat up a few days’ worth of dollars.
The remaining amount? Since I have a strong suspicion I would find it nearly impossible to spend a billion dollars in my lifetime, I would donate 11 months’ worth of money – $14,472,000 – every Giving Tuesday, leaving me with about $1.3 million for myself each year. Here are some ideas of what I’d likely spend that money on:
- I’d get myself a royal blue Toyota Tacoma.
- I’d pay for a family trip to Europe and stay in the most luxurious hotels and eat at fancy, vegan restaurants.
- I would hire a personal trainer for all my workouts.
- I’d book a stay at an upscale lodge in the Grand Canyon.
- I’d take a trip on the Rocky Mountaineer.
- I’d pay for friends and family member to go back to school.
- I’d travel a lot.
- I’d dine out more often.
And that’s all I can think of. I honestly believe I’d have SOOOO much money left over; it’s way too much for any one human to spend in their lifetime. At this point I’m really left dumbfounded, as I think about ultra-rich people, like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. I suppose when someone has that much money, the only way to spend it is to literally attempt to go to Mars.
Nope. That’s not me.
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