If I gave you $1 million in cash to spend in 1 hour, after which the money will disappear, what would you buy?
If I gave you $1 million in cash to spend in 1 hour, after which the money will disappear, what would you buy?
I have asked this question to countless people (mostly in hair salons) as an alternative to small talk, and it always yields interesting results.
Rules:
- You get the money right now, right where you are. If it's 10pm and you're in the middle of nowhere, your money will still go poof at 11pm.
- As a result of the above, tell us what time it is and roughly where you are (big city, desert, small town, ...)
- You must spend the money. You cannot give it to someone to hold on to it for you for a while.
- Normal world rules apply, e.g. you cannot buy a $250k car at a dealership in 1h in cash, and you cannot buy a house in 1h either.
- Remember that getting from where you are to the place you need to go takes time. Factor that in!
Edit: I'm glad you guys had fun with this one. Feel free to post similar hypothetical questions. I kinda like these.
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I would buy four tickets on a mini-sub tour of the Titanic and give them to 4 billionaires.
First I would bang on a neighbor's door and pay them to follow me with a camera then run into the fairly nearby motorbike shop and yell 'quick I'm doing a Mr Beast challenge I need to spend a million dollars in the next half hour!' all four guys working would jump at it especially if I said 'give yourself 10% commission on each one'
The only other shop near that isn't just groceries is a wedding dress shop so I guess while they're getting the paperwork ready I'd run in and buy their most expensive white gowns so that we could ride in style - though the train might get caught in the chain...
Oh and I'd run into the pub and tell them to ring up as much as possible before the time runs out so we can all go there after to relax.
Why do these always exist before the internet? We can order bullion online now. It's almost midnight in a fairly rural area
But yeah, I know a guy that will sell certain things for cash that normally require legal hurdles. But if you show up, cash in hand, he'll backdate things on his end. One phone call, I could buy out his stock in fifteen minutes because I'm a regular customer he trusts. He's usually got a few hundred thousand of goods in place.
Barring that, I'm kinda screwed at this time of night.
I know a couple of farmers that would let me buy livestock in cash like this, but that's only going to be a few thousand bucks.
I know a weed dealer that would be able to give me a few pounds if he's got it in, but I would have to call and ask how much he has.
Do services count? If so, I've got an idea for a cheat lol. Hire my wife for a back rub.
So, I just took a second and sent a text to an acquaintance and explained the scenario. Turns out you can buy a car in an hour or less. It's just a matter of paperwork to make the sale official. So, if you know a car dealer, and they have enough on their lot, you could easily get rid of most of that million in time. Most of the time wasted isn't really necessary. If the dealer and the buyer are already on the same page with the price, you could get as many cars as you have time to sign for.
I'm screwed.
It's 8pm on a Sunday and I'm stuck in hospital temporarily unable to walk, so I can't really buy anything in the next hr :(
Guess I may as well share it with the nurses. If I can't give it away, then maybe buy a hug from each one, or a massage, or ... no let's not go there!
Anyway, better to share it than let it lapse :)
I would immediately pay off all of my debts in my online banking/credit cards/student loan/utility accounts, send my Landlord my rent early via Zelle, login to my parent's mortgage and credit card accounts and pay them all off, pay off all of my wife's student loans and credit cards and business loans via her online accounts, and spend the rest on ebay gift cards.
Everything is closed.
Plan A: I could try to stuff an atm full of cash, but I'd be investigated for fraud, counterfitting or something. I would record myself holding the cash, wave it in front of all the security cameras I could to show that I legitimately have it, then insert it as much into the ATM as I could and acquire reciepts. In $100 bills I can put 50 at a time so $5000.If it stops accepting any money, I could try a crypto ATM too. Countersue the bank for stealing my money if they claim I'm responsible for the disappearance.
Plan B: I can reach the airport in under a half hour, I could convert it to USD as much they let me before leaving. They might accept 10k that way.
The trouble is, I will be asked about the origin of the money, "It just appeared in front of me/A genie gave it to me/I dug it out of the ground" are reasons that might not hold up well in court.
Depending on timing, as long as there's a bank branch near me when this deal starts (which, there is one ~10 minutes drive from me); I would head there first, 100%. I'd pay off every debt I have with the bank, Credit Cards, lines of credit, etc. Should take 20 minutes or so, it's not a large number of debts, but it's not a trivial amount.
I'd then drive across the city to the bank that holds my mortgage, and give them whatever is left.... either as pre-payment towards my mortgage, or simply to buy out the mortgage and pay it off.
I wouldn't have much left after that; but I'm hoping I can get all that done in an hour. If, at that point, I have enough time remaining to buy anything, I'd probably see if I could hit up the nearest hardware store and buy all the power tool batteries I can find. Just the batteries, because damn that shit is expensive.
Buy a bunch of prepaid debit cards and use it to buy a bunch of random bullshit from ebay and Amazon. Won't be able to get anywhere near $1M worth of prepaid cards but whatever. When all the pointless shit shows up in my doorstep, resell for like 75% of its original value.
Gold
Quito Ecuador at 8:30pm on a Sunday night. Nothing other than small cornerstores and liquor shops are open. So I guess I'll buy as much liquor as I can to resell later.
Cheap Answer: Go to my nearest Walmart/Grocery Store (10 minutes away from me)and max out all of the vanilla visa debit cards with the $1 million but after fees it won’t be $1 million but I would still spend the million.
Actual Answer: Luckily I’m in a prime spot where I live that I’m 20 minutes away from Lamborghini, Aston Martin, and other luxury car dealerships. So I’d go there and purchase how many cars I can with the million. After I sign, sell them back to the dealership or sell them privately.
I'm in Vegas, 22:22, so.. $1 million dollars of food, water, and sun screen for the un housed.
Transport in my area is so shit it would take me an hour just to get to a place I could spend cash; I would buy nothing.
Except maybe a therapist out of my own pocket to deal with something dangling financial stability in front of me.
I'll just call everyone to distribute the money to. Spread the information about. When the money disappears people think I'm a magician
Industry town, 1pm
Well i am not going to respond to this post until I am in the bank....Ahh crap.
Well Sunday afternoon.... Ummm
I would probably look for a local gold/ prescious metals shop. But i don't know if they have that much on hand.
An alternative would be Costco. I should be able to get there in 15 minutes and then maybe that is enough time for me to explain the situation and give me a bar code scanner and access to that locked room with all of the expenses stuff is. And I will just start scanning like mad.
Along the way to Costco i can call family and friends and they can meet me there to help coordinate.
After that it is just a matter of reselling everything. Or i guess it is Costco i could just return it all. Although that doesn't feel right lol.
I would "buy" an agreement with my parents that from then on they will purchase for me whatever i ask them to—up to a total of a million dollars.
It's 9:30pm in the middle of nowhere.
I'd put everything in my save for later in my Amazon cart and buy it. I'd buy a bunch of crafting supplies online, I'd buy the sports things for my husband online. Probably buy a new monitor or 3, new desk chair, and all the parts I can order online for the racecar. Probably spend my remaining time scrolling Etsy and Amazon for every impulse purchase I can think of, then I'd be out of time lol
expired
almost 3 am in my room nothing is open so i guess uh air if its sent to my bank account id start ordering everything i could online
Too many answers trying to game the system. Have fun with it!
If this was earlier in the day, I would drive to a pinball arcade that is maybe 40 minutes away, and offer them the entire million for every pinball machine they had. Hopefully the owner could be contacted and close the deal within the remaining 20 minutes.
I wish there would be time to buy a boat. I know nothing about sailing or maintaining a boat, but I would love to just drive to a marina and just get a 50 foot sailing boat.
It is possible to buy a car in less than an hour, though I agree that you can't buy real estate that quickly. New Yorkers might be able to pull off stocks, if the money comes to them while the NYSE is open, but I'm not in New York (or Chicago, for the Mercantile Exchange, or...)
It's kind of a bizarre question, though. I have several small business owner friends. Could I get them to mark up a croissant to $1M, with the understanding they'll cut me in on the revenue?
If not, then what really are the terms of the question? Arms length transactions only? How will that be adjudicated?
If you (or a banker or anyone you're paying) needed to count that money, you'd need to count just over 11 bills every 4 seconds, just to count all the bills within an hour, let alone have time to actually spend the money. This is assuming $100 bills, of which you'd need 10,000 of. This many bills also weighs 22 pounds or 10 kilograms, plus whatever the weight of the container you're carrying it is... IDK man I think I'd not even try to spend most of it, grab maybe $500-1000 in cash, and go on a quick shopping spree at Target or something, which is like a 10 minute walk from where I live. I could buy groceries, clothing, electronics, household items, etc. If I still had time I would go back and try to buy gift cards in large denominations, but I know cashiers are supposed to give people a hard time with that because of scammers, so I wouldn't want to deal with that during the initial transaction.
High roller casino chips. May be hard to cash them out eventually but should be doable.
What does it mean for the money to disappear? Can I just not spend anymore or would it disappear from whoever I bought from. If the latter, I couldn't in good conscience buy anything. I wouldn't mind if say Walmart lost some profit, but thousands of dollars worth of cash suddenly going missing would cause people to lose their jobs.
If the former, I'd buy as much electronics as I could from Walmart and then buy a bunch of scratch offs and lottery tickets. Those are the only two placed open around here at 11pm.
It's 7:30pm in a city with several 24-hour stores. I'd go on a shopping spree and spend 90% on things for myself and family, then visit as many restaurants + bars as possible while tipping thousands of dollars until the million is all gone.
Alberta Canada. 2 pm.
I'd buy a house. Normally that's takes a lot of time but as long as I hand off the money to the realtor I should be good. I don't actually want a million dollar house, and definitely don't want to pay the property taxes on it. But I can resell it later and keep the money this time.
I'd go to all the pawn shops and clean them out. Lots of gold and silver I could resell.
McDonalds
If I had 1 million in hand-
I am willing to bet the dealership could get me in and out pretty quickly!
Likewise, I have a friend selling a house. I am quite certain we can make a bill of sale in an hour.
But- since those options are off-limits. Honestly- there really aren't many options.
Since, its cash-in-hand, that likely means online transactions are against the rules.
SO- the best course of action would be to visit a store with a lot of expensive goodies. In my case, walmart is the best local option. Suppose I could buy out all of the TVs, game systems, etc. At least those would have the best resale value.
Gold, house, stonks.
I think I could legit buy my condo in an hour with that kind of money. But only if the agent is in this part of the city and not in her other home outside the city.
My wife could write up a basic contract that could work as she went to law school and used to do some work for a law firm.
But if that still does not count, then I’d probably order a bunch of computer stuff. Like a new laptop, all the parts for the latest pc stuff, a steam deck. Maybe a bunch of hard drives and some server level stuff.
I guess I’d have tons of money still leftover so I’d buy my wife some stuff that she would like.
I’d totally buy a steam deck. I want one so badly.
I can’t really think of things that I’d like to buy. That are not a car or house.
If I can't think of something better, I would donate to my university's foundation and earmark it for myself, or at least my department.
Or, I would just donate it to charity.
Or, pay off all my debts and donate to charity.
Well, I have an online portal in which I can make payments on my house from anywhere, at any time. I pay off my house first. I still have quite a bit of cash left after that, but I don't really like the buy and return/sell back comments. I think that's a cop out. And I'm feeling lucky, so I'm gonna head to a casino that is about 15 minutes away from my house and put it all on black.
Does the money go poof if you spend it? For example, say I buy some jewelry with half of the million dollars. Then, the time limit passes. Does just the half a million I still have on hand disappear or does the cash I spent vanish as well?
If the cash I spend vanishes, then I might be opening myself up to fraud charges after the hour is up. Going back to the jewelry situation. I buy half a million in jewelry and hand over the last of the cash just as the time limit ends. If the money in the store clerk's hands suddenly vanishes, they're going to demand their merchandise back. If I'm already walking out the door when it goes poof, they'll call the police on me.
Of course, if the money that I spend doesn't vanish after the time limit expires, then that's a different story.
Living in the small rural community I'm living in ATM I'm not even sure I could. Maybe I could call up some property sellers selling something for around 800k and offer a million. But there is a zero percent chance they wouldn't assume I was a scammer when I told them they needed to accept this deal within the hour or it was gone, haha.
I mean, if I get that money via my bank app, just gonna buy some stocks and bonds with it, wait 60 minutes and cash them all in after. I get to keep the money after taxes are deducted, and then might as well get my life in order and start travelling with my newfound financial freedom.
I'd buy a good FPV drone, a Hurdy Gurdy and a nice office chair. My current one sucks.
Yeah, that's it.
At the Bitcoin ATM around the corner.
It's just after noon and where I live, shops are open 365 days a year. The nearest IKEA is about a 30 min drive from here, I'll just ask the kitchen designer to print me a bill for 1.800 ovens, pay, then return everything within the 30 day free returns window.
Alternatively I would call my bank on the way and buy bearer bonds, traveler cheques, gold bars or whatever else, if they can issue them in time.
I would go out and find a store in which to buy liquid commodities, like gold, jewelry, etc. Anything that doesn't immediately degrade after being bought and becoming "used", and preferably something that can be returned, so I can quickly retrieve my money after "laundering" it away from being owned by the stipulation. And then, because having a shitload of money requires a shitload of thought, I would probably go find a nice cheap general aviation plane to buy for myself, or maybe a glider, and get my PPL, and live my dreams. And then maybe I'd buy and convert a work van into a place to live, and live the rest of my life out on the road hiking and camping. The rest, I could invest away in a safe and broad portfolio, and live my life worry-free. I live nowadays (excluding rent) on like $0 cause most of it is government aid anyway. So no more work.
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Whelp, It's still just barely afternoon for me, so I'd gotta get to the bank as fast as possible to get my card straightened out so I can go online and order a bunch of things like art commissions from digital artists I like and then go onto other sites like Etsy or eBay to get things like a couple different knock-off pokemon plushies (looking at you, grafaiai).
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Then find DVD/Blu-ray sets for the cartoons I really like. Shows like Ahhh! Real Monsters or Code Lyoko. Whatever I could think of in the moment because I'd be too busy freaking out in excitement.
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Probably go to some place like a thrift store and buy some clothes for my stuffed rabbit and bear since I think they would look lovely in some nice clothes (even if they are baby clothes).
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After all that is purchased, I wouldn't know what to do, so probably just spend it on games on Steam or donating to groups like the people behind LibreOffice or Krita. Just giving a little towards the development of open source products I like in order to thank them for their product.
Edit:
I would only deposit a small amount into the bank so that way I would be able to use my card to buy all of these items online. I'd assume the money isn't directly deposited into my bank account, so I'd need to manually do it.
Thankfully I live close enough it'd only take less than 10 minutes to get in. Getting an appointment, might be an issue, so I might have to scrap all of the online shopping plans and just go to the game store I like and just buy a ton of old games and a pro controller for my switch and if they have it, another switch and a copy of pokemon scarlet so I can complete the pokedex on my violet save by either modding the switch or starting 2 new saves and doing LAN trading.
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I would prepare myself to take a BIG loss.
I think I would go on Amazon or eBay and order a bunch of new or slightly-used laptops. Then I would spend the next few months selling them at bargain prices. I would never get the whole million back, but I'd make some damn good money.
Somebody smarter than me might buy something that will gain value over time instead of losing it, but hey, I only have an hour so this is the best plan I could come up with!
does donation count? There are a few nonprofits in my area that Id probably give it too. Other than that wipe my mortgage and student debt, buy a new car, and a couple of suits probably. Man being an adult is boring.
Probably a crap load of music studio gear then donate to one or more schools in my neighborhood
Assuming stuff was still open, I'd go to the bank and deposit it immediately.
Afterward I would pay off every debt I have online.
After that? Pay off my sister's car and my girlfriend's college debt. Then probably rent as far in advance as possible.
I honestly wouldn't have much time after doing that so I would maybe do an online grocery order to stock up and then seriously make a random DoorDasher's day.
I'd gift it to my best friend making sure I'll be around if it vanishes ;) Running my own ntfy server btw.
Disappear as in physically disappear? I wouldn't spend that "money" knowing that I will be sued.
Disappear as in I don't get to spend that money? Buy my mother's phone with 1 million and let her use the phone anyway.
Considering I won't be able to actually get it into the bank account on time because of KYC, the best thing I can do is to purchase the closest convenience store that is next to my house - I don't think the dude will reject a transaction in cash
A million dollars in bitcoin, I'd walk away with a cool $100 after selling it all.
In truth, being in a central Florida town at 7 in the morning, I'd go on a shopping spree at some of the bigger box stores and stock up on electronics and building supplies, before I blew the rest on tools.
The answer to this heavily depends on how the funds are supplied. If it is in an account I can buy stock with an instant transfer. if it is cash, it is essentially worthless since counting it and the transaction will take over an hour. If we are counting only the agreement to purchase then I would choose property. While this is sn interesting question, I think it is more of a question about how we define "buy". One million dollars is a large enough amount to set off lots of red flags and questions, but not so large that you commonly move that amount of money. For someone who frequently does large transactions it would be basically business as usual. For the average person it would be a logistical nightmare.
