If I had a billion dollars I would...

Can one buy a Time Machine for a billion? I really would like to fix my 1979-1984 period

If not, how about the fountain of youth
 
lsaway said:
I live in a no income tax state. If you move to Texas, don't spend all your money on a large house or real estate because the property taxes will suffocate you. The state has to get its income somewhere if it is not getting income tax. Even though I don't have a mortgage, I still say I really don't own my property. If I can't afford to pay the high property taxes, the state will be owning my property.
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If we were to move to TX, it would likely be to an air park. I just looked up the property taxes on a $2MM house in Pecan Plantation and compared it to the same value house where we live now. TX would be nearly $20K per year lower. We also pay property tax annually on our cars - and NE taxes all income, including retirement and Social Security.
 
The thing that has always stumped me in these thought experiments is this
...ok...makes sense that you'd need to pretty much at the get go hire two people (or firms)...a) a good lawyer, and b) a good financial advisor

plenty of both out there....BUT how do you go about finding those two people that are 1) trustworthy and 2) understand that sort of amount of money?

It seems to me that lawyers and financial advisors are afflicted with the same mental limitations as me or anyone else. We can only think in terms relative to a pile of money in the same ballpark of the one we have experience with.... a larger pile of money overflows our knowledge like the water in the Mississippi would overflow the banks of a small stream....
 
I’m pretty young… but a billion dollars still requires me to spend 20-25 million a year for the rest of my life. That’s what I would do, just try and spend it. In year one I’d pay off debts, buy a Phenom 300, and buy C81. After that it gets hard!
 
kaiser said:
buy C81. After that it gets hard!
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Got this hair brained idea we can get a group together to buy it. If one bought in you own the hangar. But the 8 million is a non starter. Maybe 2....maybe. That's about what Claude bought 10C for and they had just put in a ton of new hangars.
 
kaiser said:
I’m pretty young… but a billion dollars still requires me to spend 20-25 million a year for the rest of my life. That’s what I would do, just try and spend it. In year one I’d pay off debts, buy a Phenom 300, and buy C81. After that it gets hard!
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You won’t even make a dent. The income on that billion, after taxes, is still well over 25 mil.
 
Racerx said:
Got this hare brained idea we can get a group together to buy it. If one bought in you own the hangar. But the 8 million is a non starter. Maybe 2....maybe. That's about what Claude bought 10C for and they had just put in a ton of new hangars.
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We could do it if we split it 27 ways…
 
kaiser said:
I’m pretty young… but a billion dollars still requires me to spend 20-25 million a year for the rest of my life. That’s what I would do, just try and spend it. In year one I’d pay off debts, buy a Phenom 300, and buy C81. After that it gets hard!
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Got it.. year 2 I’d buy a bunch of lobbyists and Senators to keep GA alive forever!
 
I would hire Ben Aflac’s hair plug guy, and get myself a new ‘do.
 
Brad W said:
The thing that has always stumped me in these thought experiments is this
...ok...makes sense that you'd need to pretty much at the get go hire two people (or firms)...a) a good lawyer, and b) a good financial advisor

plenty of both out there....BUT how do you go about finding those two people that are 1) trustworthy and 2) understand that sort of amount of money?

It seems to me that lawyers and financial advisors are afflicted with the same mental limitations as me or anyone else. We can only think in terms relative to a pile of money in the same ballpark of the one we have experience with.... a larger pile of money overflows our knowledge like the water in the Mississippi would overflow the banks of a small stream....
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My former boss actually split his payout from the purchase of our company into multiple “lumps” of money and placed it with multiple investment counselors and had a sort of “fly off” over a few years. I’m not sure how it ultimately worked out but with a billion dollars you could tryout several…
 
- Donate a large amount to Hospice. They took incredible care of my first wife - angels walking on Earth.
- And an equal amount to leukemia research, and for MS research, with my wife having MS. All donations to be anonymous.
- Fund a CAF squadron.
- Sponsor an airshow that I volunteered with for many years. Every dollar beyond operating expenses goes directly to local charities. I got so much out of working on the airshow, with friendships, flights in cool planes, and the satisfaction of seeing the crowd loving the show.
- Buy a Netjets membership. Leave the long-distance flying to the pros. Despite having IFR and commercial, I’m very much a VFR guy.
- Get a 182 for us to take short to medium trips in.
- Pay a pro to go through my RV-8A and make it exactly how I want it.
- Buy up every square inch of land for sale around here and keep it exactly as it is now, to help preserve our rual scenery and lifestyle.
- Two planes is enough. I wouldn’t move from here, and our hangar is the maximum size allowed in our airpark.
 
DaleB said:
Then you’re down to a couple hundred mil at most, after taxes, the divorce split, and lawyers. If it would be worth that much to be rid of them, then why not do it now, when it would be so much cheaper?

My wife and I have had the “large lottery win” discussion a few times. Yeah, with a billion we’d make a few lifestyle changes. For starters we’d move to a state with no state income tax (and be very vocal about it to our current state). The money saved would pay for frequent trips back to see the kids and grandkids. There would be more travel - much more. Then there would be a trust fund so that our descendants would not be able to live the life of spoiled a*****e idle rich, but would at least have an education and some help when they need it.

A billion dollars would allow us to do everything we wanted and never touch the principal. I don’t think we’d make some grand gesture large donations up front; we’d be able to donate tens of millions every year and not even feel it.
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Unfortunately the states with no income tax have a higher sales and property tax rates.
 
Brad W said:
The thing that has always stumped me in these thought experiments is this
...ok...makes sense that you'd need to pretty much at the get go hire two people (or firms)...a) a good lawyer, and b) a good financial advisor

plenty of both out there....BUT how do you go about finding those two people that are 1) trustworthy and 2) understand that sort of amount of money?

It seems to me that lawyers and financial advisors are afflicted with the same mental limitations as me or anyone else. We can only think in terms relative to a pile of money in the same ballpark of the one we have experience with.... a larger pile of money overflows our knowledge like the water in the Mississippi would overflow the banks of a small stream....
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There is a concept called a home office. It’s a team of full and part timers who manage stuff for you. I’d start with a huge law firm that has a reputation more valuable than my money


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My favorite story on wealth is when they asked one of the Grateful Dead members if fortune had changed him, and his answer was something like:

You know when you're eating pistachio nuts and one of them doesn't have a crack in it. I throw those away now.
 
DaleB said:
If we were to move to TX, it would likely be to an air park. I just looked up the property taxes on a $2MM house in Pecan Plantation and compared it to the same value house where we live now. TX would be nearly $20K per year lower. We also pay property tax annually on our cars - and NE taxes all income, including retirement and Social Security.
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I just looked t the tax rate for Pecan Plantation in Granbury TX. That is the lowest school tax rate of .9999% I have seen anywhere in Texas. The total 1.3307% is really low. My county is 2% and other people I know are paying 3% or more. On a $2m house in Granbury, that is still $27,000 a year. In Texas, we don't pay property tax on cars, unless used in business. They will even Tax the chair you sit on if it is being used for business or a home office. Airplanes are taxed. It is going to depend on how aggressive the Tax Assessor's office is for the county.
 
A DA-62 for starters, from there just start looking for places to land it. And maybe a P38 haha
 
If I won a billion dollar lottery, I would put all my close relatives and best friends on the ticket. I don't need all that $ and I would have given them some of it anyway. This way we all only pay tax on it once. No more gift taxes and no death tax when I die. I also won't have to listen to them begging me for money. I also would take the annuity instead of the lump sum. Why give up 1/2 a billion dollars?
 
Buy an Amel 54 and put it in the islands somewhere. Hire a professional crew to keep it cleaned and maintained. Buy a King Air, train to fly it and use it to get back and forth.

Invest the rest in a trust fund to provide operational funds, income for my daughter and future kin.
 
lsaway said:
If I won a billion dollar lottery, I would put all my close relatives and best friends on the ticket. I don't need all that $ and I would have given them some of it anyway. This way we all only pay tax on it once. No more gift taxes and no death tax when I die. I also won't have to listen to them begging me for money.
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You would be amazed just how many relatives and friends you would suddenly have...
 
lsaway said:
If I won a billion dollar lottery, I would put all my close relatives and best friends on the ticket. I don't need all that $ and I would have given them some of it anyway. This way we all only pay tax on it once. No more gift taxes and no death tax when I die. I also won't have to listen to them begging me for money. I also would take the annuity instead of the lump sum. Why give up 1/2 a billion dollars?
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That's a great way to lose a vast sum of money (regardless of specific amount) over night.
 
2-Bit Speed said:
That's a great way to lose a vast sum of money (regardless of specific amount) over night.
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Lose a vast sum of money that I never had in the first place. I am fine with that. I am no more deserving of the $ then anybody else. I didn't earn it just because I bought a lottery ticket.
 
I would invest whatever money is necessary to clean-house in Chicago's political scene and do whatever I could to get the city on a better track.

Oh, and I'd probably buy a Columbia 400, too :D
 
Matthew said:
Get a low deductible health insurance policy.

—

I think someone here, or on another forum, long ago, recommended starting a family foundation. You’re going to get hit with all sorts of financial requests. That seems to be what “breaks” typical lottery winners. Have a quarterly meeting with the board (family members) and decide what requests to consider. That seemed like sound advice.
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By the time you join the billionaire’s club, you should have what’s known as a family office as well as a foundation. The foundation handles all charitable giving.

That’s separate from any trusts. A Rockefeller family trust is a strategy to avoid later generations being able to squandering away the windfall.
 
Build a new airport, start a flight school with badass taildragger planes at reasonable prices, start an A/P training program, start a 135 charter, become a DPE, dig a ditch, start a seaplane school, add industrial ammonia refrig system to build artificial snow, start a ski plane school (TX), glider club, gyro copters, build a control tower, ATC training facility, probably gonna need to make my airport class Charlie. Probably gonna need to start manufacturing Jacobs radial parts. There will be DC3s in there somewhere. And you must refer to me as Master Blaster or Ace.
 
texasclouds said:
add industrial ammonia refrig system to build artificial snow, start a ski plane school (TX)
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This is the greatest dumb idea I've heard in years. Right up there with the indoor ski hill in Dubai. Hope you win the money!
 
lsaway said:
I just looked t the tax rate for Pecan Plantation in Granbury TX. That is the lowest school tax rate of .9999% I have seen anywhere in Texas. The total 1.3307% is really low. My county is 2% and other people I know are paying 3% or more. On a $2m house in Granbury, that is still $27,000 a year. In Texas, we don't pay property tax on cars, unless used in business. They will even Tax the chair you sit on if it is being used for business or a home office. Airplanes are taxed. It is going to depend on how aggressive the Tax Assessor's office is for the county.
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Yawn. Annual property tax where I live now on a $2mm house would be $42K. I understand there are other tax burdens in Texas, but trust me here. Missouri is the “show me” state, Nebraska is the “tax me” state. You can find higher taxes, but you need to go to one of the coasts to do it.
 
DaleB said:
Yawn. Annual property tax where I live now on a $2mm house would be $42K. I understand there are other tax burdens in Texas, but trust me here. Missouri is the “show me” state, Nebraska is the “tax me” state.
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According to Rocket Mortgage, Texas is the 7th highest @ 1.80% average & Nebraska is 8th highest @ 1.73%. I know these are just averages, and it depends on the location. I did not realize how high Nebraska is. The highest % of the tax bill is for the school district, and they can vary widely. I need to move to Hawaii for their 0.28% tax rate.
 
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