re: What would you do with a billion dollars?

Id become a serious philanthropist, focusing on LA and the coastal South. A billion is a staggering number....think about this: there are something like 500 billionaires in the US alone, and chanritable contributions in the US probably topped $325 billion last year. So that means huge contributions came from mere millionaires...

A stadium skybox and a single scholarship is petty change.

With a billion, you could do some serious, sweeping, innovative things. Solar panels on the roof of every suitable public building in LA, massive tree planting on public lands across the state (esp south of I-10, and in second growth, once logged cypress swamps), buying as much riverine back swamp as available to improve habitat, improvements to support smaller scale local farming like four or five regional USDA inspected coop slaughterhouses which would allow farmers to sell direct to consumers, microlending in every parish with fewer than 65k people to support small entrepreneurs, universal pre-k, invest in nonprofit trade/tech schools focused on skilled crafts, give a big chunk to improve state park facilities...

Oh, I would have lots of fun spending the money...digitize all of the amazing historic documents in LSUs Hill Library....get LSU press publishing at full speed rather than its current glacial limp, create a series of prizes for innovation in problems facing LA. create a nonprofit devoted to increasing transparency in LA govt......

Hell, I'd also pull a Georges and buy myself a newspaper. But it would be a muck raking, crusading paper.....

Give almost every bit of it away to spread Gods word, help find cures for things like cancer, bring clean drinking water to places that don't have it, ect...........

The first thing I'd do is try to figure out how to not cut a tax check for 333 mil

Eta
It really pisses me off just thinking of the taxes I'd pay on that

fun to speculate but I doubt anyone has a clue what they would actually do

the first thing I would do when I knew it was coming would be to move to an income tax free state simply to keep it out of the hands of as many bureaucrats as possible.

I wouldn't buy anything---I would rent and lease so I wouldn't have to keep it up.

First of all, I don't even know how to go about investing a billion dollars, but I know that'd be my first thought. I mean, at just a 2.5% dividend, you'd be pulling $25 mil a year. That's just mind boggling to think about. And people wonder why the rich get richer, it's called compound interest.

Nevertheless, I'd probably put 2/3 of it directly into various investments. The rest I'd use in a plethora of ways, including but not limited to:

1. Take 10 of my closest friends on a month long "around the world" trip.

2. Buy a few homes, one in the mountains, one on a beach, and a few others.

3. Buy my parents a home and new cars.

4. Buy my siblings new cars, and set them up with a trust.

5. Live like baller for the rest of my life.

That's Senator Jag_Warrior to you, my friend.

Now, what to do with the other $500 million??????

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Two chicks

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I've done 2 chicks at the same time and I'm only a thousandaire

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buy about 1000 acres of prime hardwoods. new truck. new tractor. build an awesome log home. build a 10 acre pond. bowhunt only.

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why so small?

I did that except with a 40 acre lake with about 5 million.


He said 1 billion. I'm buying 1/5 of Montana.

Well, obviously, most of it would be used for investments in companies so I can turn that billion into billions, an empire for my children.

As for frivolous spending, I'd purchase vacation properties (houses or condos) in several locations all over the world.
There would be a ski cabin in Colorado.
A home in New Orleans on St. Charles near Audubon Park.
A small villa in Tuscany or Santorini
A fishing camp somewhere in South Louisiana
Beach home in San Diego
Condo in Chicago (not sure if I want it near Wicker Park or in the Gold Coast area)
If I'm really feeling crazy, I'll get a castle in Scotland or Ireland.

In my "permanent" home, I'd have a fully functional professional music recording studio.

Sailing yacht with boathouse for it at my properties in South Louisiana, Europe, Chicago, and San Diego.

I would buy my dad an air-conditioned tractor with all of the attachments as well as a 67 Camaro, identical to the one he crashed in his youth, as a retirement present to him.
For myself to drive, one of these:


I'd get one of these and a pilots license to fly it.


As for charities, I would spend a significant portion of my estate donating to St. Jude as well as Catholic charities like St. Vincent de Paul.

I would then spend the majority of my leisure time traveling the world with my SO in my sailboat or terrafugia, tasting all of the best cuisine in every exotic local, studying history and archaeology, and just enjoying life and everything the world has to offer.