What Do You Do With Large Amounts Of Money?
What Do You Do With Large Amounts Of Money?
Suppose you win 100 million. What do you actually do with it? Banks only guarantee 250,000. Do you have to invest it? Is there anywhere you can just let it sit and draw interest?
Here in Norway you are legally required to attend a few sessions with financial advisors(a protected title here, so they will actually be qualified), before you are able to recieve your winnings.
The rough thoughts I have had about being in such a situation is to allocate maybe 10%-20% as "fuck you money" to have fun with, and the rest to follow all their advice with
Hire a fiduciary to invest it so you can live off the interest and some for the rest of your life. You’ll still have plenty to blow after that so it’s up to you what you want to do with it.
Go to a big city and get a lawyer, finacial advisor, and accountant that have expeirience dealing with that kind of money. Make sure all three are okay with working together. Take their advise. Enjoy life and (for me) do fun things that bring a smile to the not-so-lucky. If i won big money id buy a nice food truck and go around factories around lunch time offering really good food for free. Or go to walmart looking for people with kids and tell them ill buy anything they can fit into 1 cart. Id also hire a professional chef (and team) to cook a great meal for the local homeless shelter. Things like that are good for your soul and will give you a far better feeling than blowing it on toys.
Edit: id do stuff like that as much as my financial team would let me.
you invest it in (foreign) right wing radical organizations bent on overthrowing their democratically elected government. that way, when these groups eventually succeed due to your generous contributions they will allow you to swoop in and buy up their country's previously nationalized natural monopolies at bargain bin prices through local intermediaries at which point you can cut costs and inflate prices for the citizens of the entire country and receive many orders of magnitude ROI
it's win-win so long as you propagandize enough people about how this specific thing that you're doing is actually defined as democracy, they'll be totally ok with it and won't suspect a thing
Depends what you want to do with it. If you want to keep it liquid, you can just keep it in bank accounts in major banks. Split it across several major banks. If they all go under, your problems will be far bigger than money. You can also have multiple savings accounts with each bank to garuntee 250k in each one and earn maximum interest. I have 6 savings accounts with my bank each with ~200k in it. If the balance exceeds 250k, the interest rate dtops down from 4.25 to somethink like 1.15.
If you dont need to keep it liquid, you buy a stable asset like land. You might choose to buy a bumch of houses and apartments in the city, but that comes with strata fees and property management etc. Plus, being a landlord investing in residential property makes you a shitcunt. In my case, I purchased rural land. I purchased land adjacent to nature reserves, with about 450ha of arable land, 110ha of forested land, and 85ha of salt damaged land. Im remediating the 85ha of salt land, and strategically planting out about 10 trees/year/ha on boundaries of my arable land to reduce soil erosion and degradation. I lease the land to a couple of organic grain growers who work the land. At any given year about 1/3rd of my arable land is fallow. (Note tgat im not a farmer by trade, I just think its a good, sustainable asset that I can use to directly improve the environment)
New roof, solar panels, battery, EV, remodel part of the house, new siding, buy a small house in my neighborhood to function as a guest house, take care of my parents, spend a couple months in Europe.
Oh, you meant the rest of it. Government bonds are always good. You can also use more than one bank to expand the $250k limit (which applies per account type and bank). A trust, for example, is insured separately from your checking account.
Past that, I couldn't tell you. Your financial advisor would though, just make sure they have a "fiduciary duty" to serve your interests.
Speaking generally: investments.
Diversifying stocks and bonds mainly, and each asset should be diversified from the others of the same type (eg; tech stocks counter balanced with things like agriculture or energy or something that's also stocks but not in tech - Rinse and repeat for bonds, etc). Mainly long standing assets should be prioritized, stuff that has historically paid well in dividends and will hopefully continue to pay well.
The majority of your assets should be stored in this manner.... This will help the long term value of your money. Above and beyond that, the assets will counter balance eachother if they're properly diversified, as one sector under-performs, another should be performing better and make up the difference, so payouts should be fairly steady.
At the end of the day, those investments will make up your passive income, which any sufficiently rich person has in spades. I wouldn't pretend to put numbers on any of this, whether to say what percentage of winnings should go to what or in what volume, and certainly nothing fixed, if you're not sure how to get any of this finance stuff handled yourself, there are plenty of investment firms and personal wealth management companies that will gladly take your money so you can make more (so you can continue to pay for their services), and who will be more than happy to get you started.
Moving away from stocks, bonds, and passive income, you'll want to focus on fixed assets. Having your money invested into things. What those things are is up to you, but I would advise to focus on getting a good property instead of other assets, since real estate tends to be one of the few things that continually increases in price over time with few exceptions. Compared to other investments (eg, stocks and bonds) unless the property is a specific "income property" aka, something you're renting/leasing out, it's not the best investment for growth, but having a home that you own and being able to live more or less rent free, helps you hold onto your money, rather than blow it on a place to live. A house will be a rather large one time investment that will at least hold its value, and you'll get a place to live out of it. Cars tend to lose all value in a matter of years to decades, and there's a high likelihood that they could be destroyed through use. So cars are generally expenses, not investments with few exceptions. So buy vehicles with the understanding that you may not get your money back at the end of the life of the vehicle; IMO, that applies for almost any vehicle including planes, boats/yachts, etc. So spend wisely in regards to transportation.
For everything else, out of your passive income create a salary for yourself, and set aside some "in case of shit" money from your year over year dividends. Reinvest/grow your funds with whatever you're not paying yourself in salary. The amount is up to you, but I'd say if you can afford to live on less than half of the payout, and reinvent the other half or more, do it. The in case of shit funds would be for incidentals like your car getting totaled, or needing to replace the water heater/HVAC on the house, or something unexpected you just need instant cash for.
Up front, you should be paying off debts and living within the salary you set for yourself.... Doing everything in your power to keep your investments intact and growing for your own future. It's fine to go on vacations or cruises or whatever you want, as long as you stay within your self defined salary, and you're not just blowing through the capital of your investments. Long term, you're going to be able to live very comfortably without needing to worry about money which, honestly, is the only outcome that should be worth anything.... That safety and security is extremely valuable. Do not throw it away on a few years of indulgence.
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there’s a lot of reddit posts (yes. i know, the heresy) and youtube videos on this. tldr: get good lawyers and financial advisors before you tell anyone, and let them help you work it out.
After the usual paying off debts, buying houses for family and making sure that sort of needs are taken care of, I would invest in things that really should exist to improve society in general, even if thwy may bot be guaranteed return on investment.
Greener energy, pollution cleanup, educational endowments, social enterprises, things along rhat line.
Just invest enough to draw on to cover your basic needs for life and be secure, and spend the rest on things people you know need. Improve the place you live. Fix something small. Build some parks with low income housing nearby. Don't be a dick and buy shit just to buy shit for yourself.
Just a reminder that !personalfinance@lemmy.ml exists in case people want to discuss this kind of questions
Rich people have their own special financial advisors. The ones who know how to avoid taxes.
Hire someone to open you 400 bank accounts.
Buy 100m of S&P 500, live off dividends with stealth wealth and no work.
Real estate and Stocks/ETF to park it. Get my family nicely set up. Then build an under the radar luxurious home with good research equipment so I can do science without all the hassle in academia. Also some charity living projects for the poor in my area.
Considering that quality of life won't improve much beyond a net worth of 5-10 million dollars (heavily depends on the cost of living in your area, as well as stuff like cost of healthcare), there is no point keeping that much money.
If I got 100 million dollars, I would donate 95 million do various causes, pay whatever tax I owe for the other 5 million, and retire with the 2.something millions I have left.
As for where to keep it... First I would pay off my mortgage, and then I would invest in index funds and bonds.
Buy a house. There isn’t any more land being made. (Except in Hawaii, what with the volcanos out there)
Lend some to Uncle Sam by buying Treasury bills. He’s been good for the interest payments. They tend to earn a bit more than bank CDs anyway.
If you’re really risk-averse, go for those bank CDs. Brokerage houses like Schwab can buy those on your behalf, and track which banks hold them, so you don’t exceed the deposit threshold at any one institution. Good luck finding 400 banks through a brokerage’s finder, though.
Buy stock in publicly traded companies. Or buy mutual funds. It’s good to get some growth in the portfolio, which fixed income alone can’t do.
Donate some to a nonprofit when you need a tax write-off.
Start your own company. Go back to school. Invest in yourself.
I'd give most of it away or start some kind of foundation. Having that much money, amongst all the poverty here in South Africa, it would just feel immoral.
The money I'd spend on myself would be to own an average middle class home, a normal car, and maybe a project car if I could get some utility from it. And on paying off medical debt and spending it on medical treatments to minimise my chronic back pain. And to set up a fund that pays me enough every month so I never have to worry about hunger or not having enough money by the end of the month to do stuff.
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/banking/ways-to-insure-excess-deposits/
Here are some of the most common strategies if you're over 250k. But at 100M it would be very foolish to not invest (likely hiring a private wealth manager to do so competently).
Pay off my debt, give 10 million to churches and charities of my choice, give a million to my parents and another million to my in-laws, give myself a million, and take the remaining 87 million and start a non-profit that aims to fight climate change and eradicate world hunger.
Either you or someone with a fiduciary duty to you will open up several accounts to invest in your name. These accounts will vary but be geared to making you money, providing the liquidity you need, and hedging against market risk. You might also make an investment in illiquid assets like real estate or hedge funds.
It won't be guaranteed unless you pay insurance on it, but you should be rich enough to take the hit of one account going under.
Get someone qualified to manage it.
Figure out how much I would need to live the rest of my life comfortably without having to work on anything I didn't want to.
Invest the rest in helping others that want to do good.
Ultra low risk is possible with staggered bonds. That kinda money, you can live off the lowest yield of earnings and live like a king.
I'd pay off my entire immediate family's debt firstly. Then I would speak to a lawyer and accountant to protect myself and my family. Then, based on the accountants advice, I'd set it up so my parents can live where they want to live or travel somewhere and renovate their entire house where they can live and no longer have to work anymore. I'd get my sister a house wherever she wants and no matter the size. I'd get myself a secluded house where I can live on peace and a car so I can work in peace and all the moochers can leave me alone. If also invest in starting my own creative studio where I'd be working on my own game and hiring artists, voice actors, musicians, and programmers that I know. And, since all that wouldn't use the entirety of the 100 million, I'd also use a good chunk of the money to help all those affected by the canadian wildfires because that just sucks what happened to those people and they don't deserve it.
Private wealth management. They take a large cut but it's worth it for most mega-rich folks. They will manage the money for you and invest it according to your goals. They spread the funds out into various investment classes to lower overall risk and they work full time moving money around to maximize gains. They also have access to tax experts who can advise on how best to minimize taxes.
I'd build as many zero-equity housing co-ops as I could in areas with high costs of living.
As recent events have shown, the FDIC guarantee amount isn't a hard limit (at least in the US). That said, the name of the game is to keep accumulating capital, so you just use the money to make investments. Maybe you have some specific ideas about which investments to make, but typically you just hire a company to do this for you. What you don't do is spend it. Instead, you use those investments as collateral on lines of credit and that is how you get your spending money. This way, you get useful cash flow while minimizing your taxable income.
An important thing to do is launder your reputation by contributing to charities and causes and making investments that have popular appeal. It's cheap insurance to make sure the working class doesn't bear too much resentment for you specifically if a revolution ever does materialize.
Buy more hard drives and some 10gig networking gear. Cut my hours at my job to like 20 a week
Help friends & family. Donate to community assistance programs. Donate to other causes. Buy people nice gifts.
investment opportunities are endless really. I'd buy real estate & develop it for resale - relatively easy profits there. US FDIC only insures up to 250k per account, but there are other country's banks out there - the Swiss banking system was a popular choice in the past but I've heard that the Cayman Island banking system is good as well. invest in tech - small businesses, as a few tens of millions isnt going to go that far, but 100 mil is good seed capital.
or, shit, just retire on it & pass the remains to your descendants.
pay my personal expenses with it but keep working a job. donate to the communist party of my choice, so we can have a legal defense fund and do fancy projects that we can't afford now and can help out comrades in need. donate to every strike fund in the world that will accept a payment. maintain a large list of such funds. donate money to battered women's shelters and to give direct aid to poor and homeless around the world. repeat until the money runs out. as far as the technical aspects of how to manage money that large without losing it due to bank system failure, i guess i could open thousands of accounts in different banks and put 250,000 in each of them or do some other strategy. ill take off a few months from work to research how to do it and talk to people who know more about the subject until i have a solid plan for that.
Get bigger tits. The rest I would use to save others because 25000 people dying of malnutrition every single day is just beyond fucked up.
I'd buy a nice house somewhere a bit wild and in the middle of nowhere on the south coast of either England or Wales, something old with character and a big garden with a good pub nearby. I'd also buy a classic wooden sailing yacht and put enough funds aside to maintain her as well as kitting her out for serious passage-making. When I'd done that I'd figure out how much money I need to make work optional for the rest of my life and how much would keep my family comfortable in an emergency, as well as a small 'shit hits the fan' fund kept in something you don't need electricity to access like gold just in case. I'd then donate the rest to charity, the bulk to enviromentalist lobby groups and charities directly helping people (the RNLI comes to mind for example) but also to a few niche causes like keeping the ailing pirate radio ship Ross Revenge afloat and starting a breeding programme to save the highly endangered otterhound. I'd also like to have a few documentaries made, and I'd drop a few content creators I like some donations too.
Honestly all I really want to do is go sailing and not have to deal with the rat race, I don't want to live an oligarch's lifestyle and I definitely don't want the sort of attention and arseache that money would bring you. That money would be far more effectively used for good in the hands of others so I'd end up donating the majority of it, I suspect on the order of 80% of it at least.
You don't have to, but it's kinda dumb not to. You can cram it all into a wooden chest and bury it in your backyard if you want, but while its down there its slowly losing value.
Instead you can set it up to make more money for you, without you having to do anything. Money, in sufficient quantities, can become self-replicating unless you do dumb shit with it and waste it. You just hire someone who knows how to make that happen, some financial manager of some sort, and they take care of it. You can even set it up so they just budget out an allowance of your own money for you, so you know how much you can spend every month or whatever. If you want.
This way you don't have to worry about anything, you just know you have such-and-such amount every month to play with, just like most people. It's just a lot more than most people get.
put it in the too big to fail banks, those are likely to be bailed out completely regardless of FDIC limits.
if you give me the money, ill put 3mill in a bank and give the rest to certain political organizations....
You give it specifically to me so I can fund the production of a fighting game or something
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Invest in my people (friends and family), especially the ones I care about. Not exactly a win win but it's basically a wash in the worst case and a super win in the best case.
If they succeed in their endeavours, I get partial ownership in it or it can be a loan (whatever they prefer) and if they run away with the money, it's a cheap price to pay for setting up someone I cared about with a better life and finding out they were not trustworthy.
Also, if spread around enough, there will be enough people who will be thankful to you for improving their lives that they'll be there for you for a lifetime.
This is all after you do the usual investments with some amount and also keep enough aside from any ideas you want to try to bring to fruition (you'll want to do something at least after all)
A lot of wealthy individuals "park" their money in things like real estate and art. For the art, they safely pack it away in warehouses. There's a whole industry that'll do it for you. A lot of them dont even see the art. It's just a wealth parking vehicle.
Another avenue is starting one or more non-profits and philanthropy organizations for the money.
And another is a living trust, to avoid probate when you die, to maximize the inheritance for your surviving beneficiaries.
Buy lots of weed. Buy a place to make a workshop. Buy lots of machines. Teach teenagers (and adults, if they want) woodworking, metalworking, and robotics. Make some money on the side from random comissions. Maybe bild myself a wooden house.
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A fiduciary (not an accountant) will know what to do. Contact a fiduciary
Multiple banks, only storing what is federally insured by the FDIC in as high yield interest rate savings accounts as I can get.
100m $ !? Other than buying all things I and my family need, I may invest a in real estate that I could rent, and put the rest in the bank.
I don't know, I'd probably just give 50 millions to charity and hire a professional to counsel me on what to do with the rest
Save for the taxes, VTI/VXUS/BND and chill, plus whatever else you wanted
Invest a decent chunk, find somewhere I can be away from things, set my dad up somewhere nice he can get the medical help he needs without worry.
After that, work on funding pro-womens rights and LGBT+ causes and platforms. Do what I can to help others in a position like mine, where there isn't really a "safe" place around to let the mask drop away.
Invest it into the right place, to begin the unlimited money glitch, and spend the rest of my life in luxury
Of course first into a bank, a few million in crypto, another few million in ETF, another few million to actual brokers. Then it's time to start buying up property and renting it out at a fair rate - it's not like I don't have money invested elsewhere. All this to diversify investments.
Gotta buy my entire family houses too, so that they don't have to be wage slaves anymore. I should be left with... 50M or more?
Now the fun part starts: investing in opensource. I'd spend my time making a team to find "critical" places to invest in. Stuff where there's just little to no competition or the market is dominated by big players. Identify opensource projects that could challenge that dominance and see if groups would want to work on it full time, be it development, marketing, hardware costs, security audits, etc.
And of course travel and do lots of drugs.
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Finally get rid of the biggest barrier to a better world for at least 300million people, primary/buy-out every single politician of the democrat party to ensure the things that are ostensibly in their platform are actually enacted. Also ensure that every single current non-elected neo-liberal "policy wonk" and their sycophants never have any influence in any future government again.
i would invest it - probably in real estate or land.