What would you buy?

Kagato

Hypothetical question that all are welcome to answer.  The more answers I get, the better, actually.

If you had $5 million dollars in funds available to you, but were only permitted to buy ONE thing - any 'change' would vanish upon completion of the transation - what one thing would you buy?  Also it needs to be ONE item - it can't be '$5 million in bitcoins' since that would be several items, unless you purchased a single coin valued at $5 million

(Please don't try to find loopholes and just answer honestly.  What would be your one 'desired belonging'?)

Me personally... I'd probably buy a Stradivarius violin.  I've always had a thing for violins and have loved the design of Stradivarius instruments.  If I had the money, I'd buy one in a heartbeat.

(trivia: A true Stradivarius violin - one that was made by Antonio Stradivari back in the 17th century - can sell for anywhere between a few hundred thousand dollars to a little over $4 million at current auction prices.)

Ordassa

A house or investment fund of some sort. Property I can rent to cover the cost of its upkeep & taxes. Anything less is foolish

Kagato

A house would qualify - an investment fund would be dubious for the purposes of the question since it is not a tangible item beyond the paperwork.  Also please refrain from insulting other people's answers, even unintentionally.  I want people to answer honestly otherwise this entire exercise is pointless.

Deichtine

I'd buy an annuity.

Tirah

A really big hunk of gold, or some artwork, something I can easily turn back into money to spend on multiple things.

Cazanto

Kagato said:

(Please don't try to find loopholes and just answer honestly.  What would be your one 'desired belonging'?)

I'll play in the spirit of this, though I'm just going to make up something on the spot.  As I write this, I have no idea.

As much fun as it would be to pull a Zoidberg and go off to buy "one art, please!", I simply wouldn't appreciate it.  So if I could buy one thing?  Maybe a Lamborghini, just because I've always liked them since I was small.  Or build the best personal brewery ever in my basement.

Aeldra

I'd personally go boring and buy a house myself, simply because it'd make day-to-day a lot easier, even with the need to put back money for repairs and stuff. NOw then there'd only be the question -where- to buy the house, but that could be solved.

Ordassa

Aeldra said:

I'd personally go boring and buy a house myself, simply because it'd make day-to-day a lot easier, even with the need to put back money for repairs and stuff. NOw then there'd only be the question -where- to buy the house, but that could be solved.

5 mil can buy alot of house in the better areas

Sondayga

They were selling this whole town/navy base last year for about 1 mil. I think that would have been interesting to own. And I wouldn’t have had far to move.  http://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/spy-town-sugar-grove-station-auction-west-virginia/story?id=39725132

Deichtine

Sondayga said:

They were selling this whole town/navy base last year for about 1 mil. I think that would have been interesting to own. And I wouldn’t have had far to move.  http://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/spy-town-sugar-grove-station-auction-west-virginia/story?id=39725132

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-35958871

Kagato

It has been interesting, some of the responses I have been getting here, plus via other sources.

Please do not take this as being negative, it is just an observation from the responses - It seems that the human desire to hold onto and increase wealth is definitely alive and strong - the majority of responses have been focussed around means to attempt to retain the wealth and/or expand it, with only a small amount choosing something that would give themselves personal enjoyment or immediate utilitarian use, such as a house, vehicle or other personal belonging.

Also I only received one response that was completely selfless and altruistic, they saying that they would purchase a sufficiently sized building to utilize as a way to help the needy get on their feet.

Daraius

That’s a little cynical of you. The scenario says any unused money will evaporate, so it’s expected people would want to maximize its value or at least try to maintain it. Can’t do anything altruistic with the money that goes poof after your purchase.

Tremula

I'm quite boring compared to most of you, I suppose. I'd buy myself a little bookshoppe. I've dreamed of having one since I feel in love with reading when I was a kid, and had all these plans on how kids would be able to use it like a library and I'd offer take-one-leave-ones and host a book club. Nothing too profitable unless you deal in antiquities or rare collectors, especially these days, but something I always wanted.

Kagato

Daraius said:

That’s a little cynical of you. The scenario says any unused money will evaporate, so it’s expected people would want to maximize its value or at least try to maintain it. Can’t do anything altruistic with the money that goes poof after your purchase.

Eh, not really.  Numbers talk - a good 75% (3 out of 4) answers that I received were things like "I'd buy a gold/silver ingot worth $5 million" or "I'd buy a $5 million stock certificate".  No interest in enjoying the money, just in getting more of it.  The remaining 25%, minus the one example I listed were things like buying a more suitably sized house for their family, or a car/plane/something else they always wanted.

Tremula said:

I'm quite boring compared to most of you, I suppose. I'd buy myself a little bookshoppe. I've dreamed of having one since I feel in love with reading when I was a kid, and had all these plans on how kids would be able to use it like a library and I'd offer take-one-leave-ones and host a book club. Nothing too profitable unless you deal in antiquities or rare collectors, especially these days, but something I always wanted.

Nothing wrong with that.

Sylandra

See this exercise doesn't work as well for me because the things I need to handle at this point in my life are bills, loans, tuition, medical expenses, and saving money for when and if I want to have a family with my partner. My goal would be to buy something then sell it so I could handle those things. I don't think I'd want to own anything worth five million dollars, to be honest! I'd be worried about the extra expenses that come with something like that (taxes and insurance for fancy car or house, etc).

Kagato

Sylandra said:

See this exercise doesn't work as well for me because the things I need to handle at this point in my life are bills, loans, tuition, medical expenses, and saving money for when and if I want to have a family with my partner. My goal would be to buy something then sell it so I could handle those things. I don't think I'd want to own anything worth five million dollars, to be honest! I'd be worried about the extra expenses that come with something like that (taxes and insurance for fancy car or house, etc).

True.  For hypothetical questions like this, it is difficult to pose them in a theoretical vacuum as real world factors are often an influencing factor in one's decisions.

Sylandra

Alternatively you could buy 18,181,950 credits.

Ayisdra

Sylandra said:

Alternatively you could buy 18,181,950 credits.

You probably could just buy the game itself.

Xenthos

I do not have one "desired belonging," so my only answer would be something that could be liquidated to provide overall improvements to quality of daily life.

^-- This is (part of) the answer I wrote earlier and the forums saved as a draft (the rest apparently got lost after a save), but I decided not to bother posting it.  I'm going ahead now mostly because of your statements about people wanting to buy something to "increase wealth".  You're making an awfully big assumption there.  I'm betting nearly everyone who has said they would buy a big sellable item is in the same general boat as Sylandra and myself.  Of course we'd use some of it for immediate improvements, as well as investing to make sure that we're happy in the future too.  I feel like if you don't have a Big Buy you need, that's simply what makes the most sense.

Cazanto

I have to agree with Daraius.  The wording of the game created a rule set which lends itself towards particular answers.  Particularly "one desired belonging", the exclusion of an example of investment (bitcoins), and then the request that people do not try to find loopholes.  And then, your own example of a single belonging of personal worth.

As such, I personally avoided answers that then seemed like a roundabout way of reinvesting the money, and took it to mean "what's the one thing you would spend this on"?  Which might have been too strict an interpretation of the rules on my part, but, then again, my answer was bound by said interpretation.

All of that is just dandy!  So long as your conclusions take such things into account.  But if you're looking at general human decision making and behaviors outside of what is a fairly restrictive rule set, and using responses that came from within that rule set to do so, well, I wouldn't.

Arix

My mom's jewelry my half-brother stole when he came to live with us one time. It's not worth 5 million and it's technically more than one t hing  but great grandma was a bitch on wheels and that jewelry was the only nice thing she ever gave my mom

Kagato

Cazanto said:

I have to agree with Daraius.  The wording of the game created a rule set which lends itself towards particular answers.  Particularly "one desired belonging", the exclusion of an example of investment (bitcoins), and then the request that people do not try to find loopholes.  And then, your own example of a single belonging of personal worth.

As such, I personally avoided answers that then seemed like a roundabout way of reinvesting the money, and took it to mean "what's the one thing you would spend this on"?  Which might have been too strict an interpretation of the rules on my part, but, then again, my answer was bound by said interpretation.

All of that is just dandy!  So long as your conclusions take such things into account.  But if you're looking at general human decision making and behaviors outside of what is a fairly restrictive rule set, and using responses that came from within that rule set to do so, well, I wouldn't.

I also specifically said 'one item', which is why I mentioned the restriction against things like bitcoins unless someone purchased a single coin priced at $5 million otherwise under the restrictions mentioned, they would have gotten one coin at market value and the rest of the funds would go *poof*

It would have been nice to see people say things that they wanted personally rather than default to what has ended up being the majority answer of trying to find ways to retain the funds outside of the scope of the question and get even more money out of it (my second motive behind trying to discourage people from saying they would buy investibles specifically for future liquidation)

In the end it was mainly for fun and curiosity.

Sylandra

If you want to see what expensive items people want, it might be more useful to ask, "If you were a billionaire who would never want for money in your lifetime, what most ridiculous thing would you buy?" Otherwise, people's answers are forced to conform to their current financial situations, and that makes us have to think about things like long term investment in the future. Cazanto is right, the stipulations of the question do limit how we respond.

Ordassa

Unless we are all trust fund brats where losing 5 mil wouldnt mean we would starve or be homeless; we would put the money towards improving our lives in the long term.

Deichtine

Kagato said:

Cazanto said:

I have to agree with Daraius.  The wording of the game created a rule set which lends itself towards particular answers.  Particularly "one desired belonging", the exclusion of an example of investment (bitcoins), and then the request that people do not try to find loopholes.  And then, your own example of a single belonging of personal worth.

As such, I personally avoided answers that then seemed like a roundabout way of reinvesting the money, and took it to mean "what's the one thing you would spend this on"?  Which might have been too strict an interpretation of the rules on my part, but, then again, my answer was bound by said interpretation.

All of that is just dandy!  So long as your conclusions take such things into account.  But if you're looking at general human decision making and behaviors outside of what is a fairly restrictive rule set, and using responses that came from within that rule set to do so, well, I wouldn't.

I also specifically said 'one item', which is why I mentioned the restriction against things like bitcoins unless someone purchased a single coin priced at $5 million otherwise under the restrictions mentioned, they would have gotten one coin at market value and the rest of the funds would go *poof*

It would have been nice to see people say things that they wanted personally rather than default to what has ended up being the majority answer of trying to find ways to retain the funds outside of the scope of the question and get even more money out of it (my second motive behind trying to discourage people from saying they would buy investibles specifically for future liquidation)

In the end it was mainly for fun and curiosity.

No one item will give me as much joy as a safe and secure future.

I know it sound boring but well its true.

Stratas

Since it's a weirdly restrictive hypothetical anyway, why not add more restrictions? Whatever you buy is yours. It's "bound" to you like an artifact, so you can't really sell it for profit. If you buy a gold nugget or a painting or a $5 million spitoon from Antique Roadshow, it's yours until you die (and your beneficiaries can't sell it either.) Would this change what you buy?

Xenthos

I'd probably just end up hoarding it at that point for some future opportunity.  You know, just like I hoard currency in Lusternia.  Would be a tremendous waste to blow it on something worth just a couple thousand, and I can't afford the property tax on any property that expensive (much less upkeep)-- something which is of the same with an expensive item (are you really going to buy a Stradivarius without getting insurance on it, for example?).

There's really just no single item I need to improve my life at this time, and any super-big-item on its own would end up degrading quality of life by adding additional burden, so... this whole hypothetical just doesn't work for me.

Ess

I would buy Scotland (I think you could get it all for that)

Xenthos

According to Google, Scotland's GDP in 2010 was $216,000,000,000.

Ess

Ang their expenses were more so as they are effectivelt bankrupt, i reckon i could get them for $5 million. At least Dumfries

Saran

If I could stretch it far enough... probably buy a house set up with like library space, secret passages, and the like. Maybe with some gaming spaces that I could rent out or something.