this post was submitted on 17 May 2026
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What are you even going to do with a billion dollars? I can't even think of what I will do with a million dollars other than buying a comfy home for my family instead of living in a small congested apartment.
A million is easy to think about and honestly disappears pretty quickly compared to a billion. Between student debt, medical bills, private debt of various types, I'd eat up 100K in an afternoon alone. Then buying house somewhere else I'd like to live would take a huge chunk out of that. I'd have a much better setup than I do now but it'd be gone within a few years.
One million is more money than most people earn in a lifetime of work.
Median income in California is around 95k yearly, which means you get your million after 10 years of work
World average income is 10,000$ per year.
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17512040
If we're talking other countries we need to adjust to prices in other countries, ones that don't have student debts and medical bills to worry about. If I get analogue of a million bucks in my currency, I wouldn't have to sweat how much of that I will have to give up because I had bad cold 10 years ago. It's a different world, so it's a different million
Yes, economists do that, we all are aware
Well, in this conversation we aren't. We compare a million dollars in context of the US, and a salary on the other side of the world.
Yes, that's what we're doing. You might not be doing that but then you're replying to the wrong comments.
Did you lost the context already? Come on, we're only like 6 short comments deep at this point, it's not that complicated.
The context of a thread started by someone referring to the global average and you interjected with your united statesian centric perspective?
Are you guys all can't read more than two comments deep?
Edit: same guy actually, but what does it matter
Most people don't live in California.
Most people don't have medical bills or student debts to worry about, so potato potato
What does that have to do with income?
What does spending your money has to do with getting your money? Oh, I don't know how to answer this conundrum.
Me neither when the context was that most people don't earn a million in their lifetime.
The context (actual) was that for some people million is not that big sum of money, and for some it is, and without grounding it to a concrete situation, abstract million doesn't really make sense.
I heard that when I was a kid, and it may have been true then. There's no way this is true anymore. It would mean you make an average of under 30k per year for your working life. True for some I'm sure, but no way it's most. A billion tho...
30k a year is a good salary in most European countries. In most other parts of the world that's being rich. My statement stands true: one million is more than a lifetime of work for most people in the world.
Median salary in EU is 39k. 30k will be a bad salary for most people in most European countries.
That is before taxation.
Fair enough. 30k netto seems to be closer to a median then.
It demonstrably is not. The average over a lifetime was 1.7M in 2023.
Mean average maybe, what about median?
Where does your average come from?
Actually a billion is very hard to spend if the rule is for personal use. You can do it by buying super yacht or private jet but other than that, there's nothing much you can do with that amount of money if you're a decent person.
But for altruism purpose, i can think of many, many stuff.
A million is buy a house or feel comfortable that you get to retire money. But yeah by 10 million I'm living off dividends, own a house, and am comfortable spending money incredibly frivolously because I'm making well into 6 figures in interest. At thst point I might be inviting friends on foreign vacations, my treat.
That's an amount of money that I'd have to come into because I'd rest on my laurels before I hit it. The only reason I can see going past it aside from gold sickness is control of a company you founded.
It's still 1% of a billion. It's under half a thousandth of how much she got in the divorce.
Compensate for your insecurities
come on, you can think of something .
you could create a whole humanitarian organisation. have well funded teams dedicated to improving the communities of your choice
a million just gets you a cozy home in a decent neighbourhood. Now you pooped out all your funds and need more to cover maintenance
I have always wanted to get a bunch of land that used to be thriving forest and restore it, then donate it to the native tribes that used to live there, with all legal rights and protections. Can't do that on my current income.
Well, it's not money, it's assets.
If you have a house, car, etc, that collectively cost 1mil, you're worth 1mil.
What you could do with the extra money you have is putting it into assets that generate cash flow. Stocks, bonds, indexes, businesses. If you can manage it well enough, it could secure you a lifestyle where you can ditch your job without being strapped for cash.
That's basically what the rich do, except on a MUCH larger scale, where the cash flow generated is enough literally throw money around.
Start a space program.
I know someone who "lucked" into a million dollars on a stock deal. It does not go as far as as you'd expect these days. Still a lot of money, but not even close to "fuck you" money like it was 15 years ago.
Private island with a mansion full of shiny electronics, huge library, nice boat, jet skis, and tons of drugs. Tons. So many drugs.
You forgot about the women and viagra
I would start many of the passion projects Ive had.
Many of them would be brand new organizations with fully funded salaries for 10 years.
And I would buy a house for all my close family (about 10 people total so not much of the Billion)
I could easily spend 10 Billion because the vast majority would be trusts for for those salaries/budgets
Depending on costs I would start a hundred such organizations and the bulk of the rest would go to acquiring property/budgets for those organizations need.
I would charge very minimal rental space for many interesting businesses that wouldn't be able to survive due to that. Places like a drive in movie theater, boardgame restaurant, pool/billiards place, music venues(no arenas but I would try to buy places like the one they used for The Talon exterior shots in the tv show Smallville. I would specifically buy that specific theatre if able and renovate it which could easily cost 100s of millions for a variety of venues ide like to operate
I have many ideas. Many of them I think would be valuable additions to the places they are and not just blood sucking wealth generators.
I think the world leadership struggles to plan for more than 5 years at a time and even then not much. Change takes time, we need to start thinking long term 25 50 100 100+ year thinking if we want to benefit those that come after us, which .
A few kilos of cocaine, a shit ton of viagra and a whole bunch of hot women.. All on my large yacht sailing the world, while engaging in world class scuba diving, with a 5 star chef on board and of course donating a bunch to charity.. Installing wells in Africa, helping orphans, urgent medical care in the undeveloped world and building schools and paying for great teachers in those same countries.. Connected underdeveloped areas to the internet