Use the “4% Rule”, this would be an inflation adjusted $200K per year every year (more or less, the “4% Rule” is more of a great observation than a rule).
I would live on a third, give a third to my family, and a third to local organizations.
Alternate between going full retirement mode by turning the money into $200k a year and planning for a mass collapse by buying farmland tucked away in the Appalachian Mountains.
I would buy a brick house on top of a forested hill. My nearest neighbor would be a 20-minute drive away.
I would work on my magnum opus of tabletop rpg rules, which I would convert into a video game.
I would commission art and fund the construction of shrines to the four tezcatlipocas.
Fund owl habitat preservation.
Get set for retirement and give away a few million. I don’t need that much money, and it could really make a difference in other peoples lives
Hire a fiduciary and pay off my debts, which I think currently is just my mortgage.
I wouldn’t quit my job straight away. I like my team and I’m learning rapidly having them around.
Travel more, and invest in my hobbies, picking up a couple others that currently are out of reach.
The remaining 14.5 million would grow.
Double it and pass it to the next
Put it all on red
I would retire.
I’d buy a moderately nice place in the city I want to libe in, provably 1mil absolute max, depending on property taxes. I would then invest the remainder, ensuring that with relatively stable investments I could live comfortably on the interest going forward, with the interest covering property tax and my expenses.
Drop it in investments and work for another year. The extra year of work is so that I can get the investments to move to long term capital gains tax rates. With that sorted, I can now retire. Even a simple index fund often returns an average around 7%. So that’s ~$350,000/year. Pull $200,000 and leave $150,000 for growth. Exact numbers will fluctuate, but it will be close. I’m going to get taxed at something like 12.5%, or about $25,000 leaving me $175,000 to live on. This isn’t monthly vacations in Tahiti money, but it’s a pretty comfortable living, if I’m not stupid and wasteful. If I really want to stretch things out, I can always move to a lower cost of living country. Though that often carries personal risk with it, and I don’t know if I’d want that extra stress. Numbers would also change based on how that original $5mil got taxed. If it’s something like a lottery win, it would shave the numbers down a good bit by taxes.
Share it with the first person who replied to such a question
i’d fund a militia to start guerrilla warfare against the bourgeoisie.
I would buy a house, and go to university to study physics.
Start a vegan commune.
Setup a business idea I’ve had since I was young. I don’t think it would work in the us so I’d try somewhere in Asia.
Own a house, then business as usual
