Probably the first thing I would do is to exchange them for gold-backed currencies.

Share it with the first person who replied to such a question

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.

Start a vegan commune.

Set the kids up and then move to Uruguay

Nothing crazy. I wouldn't try to invest it someway to get mo money, beyond an interest bearing savings account, because chances are good I'd lose it.

Pay off my house. Travel a bit--France, Spain, maybe SEA for the food and to experience something different. Buy a camper van and visit the old campgrounds in CA and OR my family had vacations at when I was a kid. Leave as much as I could to my son after that.

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.

i'd fund a militia to start guerrilla warfare against the bourgeoisie.

Put it all on red

Pay off the house, catch up on repairs, then sit on it because it'll fuck my insurance and be gone paying for medical stuff in maybe ten years

Own a house, then business as usual

I would buy a house, and go to university to study physics.

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.

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.

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

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

Buy a plot of land with a nice view and construct one of those nifty passive houses. Also get my teeth and knees fixed, put together a nice home lab, and go travelling. Split the surplus between retirement savings and donating to causes I find worthy.

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.

Buy real estate, bitcoin and some type of food truck

Disclaimer: Not an investment advisor and not your investment advisor

Nothing crazy. I wouldn’t try to invest it someway to get mo money, beyond an interest bearing savings account, because chances are good I’d lose it.

• https://investor.vanguard.com/investment-products/etfs/profile/bnd
• https://investor.vanguard.com/investment-products/etfs/profile/vt

The first one is a Vanguard US bond fund that pays around 4% to 5% annual dividend on a monthly basis, and the second one is a Vanguard Total World Stock Market fund (captures a piece of the entire world market). A savings account now is paying around 0.38%. So on $5mil if you put it all in BND it'd pay around $200k annually. In a savings account it'd pay $19k, and savings accounts are only insured up to $250k.

The bond fund is taxed as ordinary income, so you could sit down and decide if something like VTEB would be better than BND (lower yield but 0% federal income taxes). It really doesn't take much to beat a savings account, and it doesn't take long at all to start working around taxes.

I'd pay it all as a voluntary additional tax payment, the government would do a much better job than I could myself in making sure that the money really benefits the entire community.

I like your style!

Are you in a country that does good? If America then that dumbest thing I ever read.

Retire. Don't like my job. Tech is circling the drain.

Other people posted some details but essentially if you're not an idiot you can park that in safe investments and live a happy life.

I get so frustrated when I read about people who like win a few million, blow it on like stupid cars and houses, and end up poor again. Just don't do that.

Damn, I gotta get one of those negative mortgages

The 4% rule is kind of crappy and even it's creator has modified it.

If the US had universal healthcare then I'd already retire. As is, $5m isn't safe to retire with health issues/needs

Lol, for some reason I thought it was 15 mil, not 5. If you do happen to find one of those illusive mortgages though, hmu.

You are either a degenerate gambler or already a billionaire \s

God gave it to me

I would purchase 3 to 5 homes in the US.

Firstly pay tax. Then donate atleast 30% of remaining amount. Then put remaining amount in mutual funds which can generate better alpha and do work that I enjoy or like and retire when I feel like

Pay my mortgage and invest

Exchange it for Euros

I'd go to your table and put it all on black

Same.

I'd buy a mountain and build a nature retreat so friends and family could visit. I'd probably only spend a million or two on it, after the land and off grid infrastructure I'd build it myself, making cabins and gazebos over time. I'd curate the land to be full of fruit bearing trees and make animal friends

Then I'd make more friends and invite people to stay. I'd look for damaged people and offer them a refuge from the world for as long as they want

I'd probably buy a significant amount of silver, yuan, and euros as insurance. The rest I'd hand over to a financial advisor after taking time to find someone I can trust, then I'd try to never think about money again

I'd spend most of my time enjoying a life surrounded by nature and friends who are free to live without worries. Travel occasionally to meet new friends and see more of the world, but mostly I'd just be happy to live freely

If you really mean that I envy you. I'd like to live in a place like that

Tax includes military spending more often than not. If I was you I would find other ways of donating.

No I didn't.

5 Million? O.K. let's roll.

60K for university education, should be plenty.

40K go to paying various bills for friends and family

100K for various charities

1.8M go to building a non-profit high tech eco commune in Argentina or a similarly climatically stable place with features inspired by FM 2030's book Upwingers in regards to future living

300K go to anti-militarist causes

500K go to various vegan groups

200K go to building school projects in developing regions

1M are invested into a photovoltaic power station from which I will extract a $6000 rent p.a. max with the rest of the proceeds going to a fund for disabled people and disadvantaged youths

Last million:

100K for travels

100K for a communal homelab that provides hosting for FLOSS and anti-conservative politics

200K for hackspaces

250K for unions, they better have some conviction though

350K for cruelty free research on rare diseases

$5m would afford a solid health insurance plan monthly premium that wouldn't make that big a dent if your $5m is well invested.

Immediately invest a million into China directly for Chinese citizenship, then 4 million via wealth management companies so I and my children can live off of dividends for the rest of time in China.

Even 1% dividend monthly on 4 mil is $40,000 a month.

I'm moving to Europe.

Move to China

5mill could pay a lot of poor people to hurt rish people...

What do you mean? It is great for planning purposes.

I am well versed in it, but "crappy" arguments split both in "too low" and "too high".

Invest in one of the two startup projects im working on

And watch that 5 mil turn into 5k overnight 😎