But Not a Real Green Dress, That's Cruel
Every so often, usually when out driving, that "If I had a million dollars" song pops up on shuffle, and every so often I think about what I'd actually do.
The issue of course requires limitations. Because when people ask for the "If you had a million dollars, what would you spend it on" answer they're not looking for the answer "Hire a good accountant and maybe an investment broker, donate a substantial amount to charities I support instead of my usual $20 to $50 blibs, and pay off the mortgage". Well, maybe some people are looking for that answer. I don't know. It always feels a bit like a "You have these resources that must be used" question, often a "that must be used on yourself", and often a "right now!"
I mean. Does "I know there are some kind of account or fund where you can put in money for a kid's college education that basically becomes inaccessible for other purposes until umpty-lump conditions are met" count as buying something under the 'buy something right now for yourself' principle? Because if I had a million dollars I'd pop in like $100,000 per kid in that kind of thing, because I expect that with the way that college education costs are going that will cover a state university for four years by the time the kids might want such a thing. And that would be buying a big chunk of peace of mind.
Does - basically - buying a retirement fund of some sort count? Because there's something that I'm not gonna have from my employer unless I do it myself, given that my employer is basically me and that's not likely to change. And for all that my brain explodes a little every time I get the Good Feminist lecture about how I need to be Gainfully Employed in order to Properly Provide For Myself When I'm Old And Decrepit, same principle on the 'buying peace of mind' front applies. On the other hand, I did a quick lookup on 401(k) stuff and IRAs for the self-employed and those are limited by fraction of income per year, which basically means that I can't put a giant chunk of a windfall in one as far as I can determine in five minutes of looking. Feh. Well, maybe something is possible, I'm not going to investigate more deeply for a hypothetical.
So I'll leave it at that for "things I buy for myself right now that will be useful in 20 or more years". This can sink an arbitrary amount of money, and mostly pay out in reduced stress for right now.
What other practical things that are boring but useful can I do?
Pay off artan_eter's grad school debt. The level to which this would improve the stress levels in the household is probably not understateable.
Finance my own return to college and/or grad school plans, though since that's not actually immediate it may not qualify under 'pay this now'. However, with all the other stuff I could buy now, that kinda frees up the finances a bit anyway, so maybe I don't have to think about it.
I would pay off the second mortgage on the other house. The cost of the second mortgage is basically the difference between breaking even and losing money slowly on that as an investment property; breaking even would be a nice improvement. (We can't afford to sell it, so we're renting it out.) Paying off more of the mortgage overall would be a handy use for money that needs to be put somewhere if it doesn't go away, in this hypothetical "spend your million dollars or lose it" scenario, as that shifts the damn thing more towards 'making money' than 'holding steady'.
I would pay off my mother's second mortgage. She's underwater in her house, very financially strapped from being a part-time art professor who can't get a solid job for ageism reasons, and I suspect this would alleviate her stress a lot. Which would alleviate some of mine.
Which brings me to the house we live in, also a prime target for "spend your million dollars or lose it" money sinks. But before I get into practical stuff of the type of paying off a big chunk of mortgage, let's have a little practical and a little fun.
We have work to do on the house. Let's do all of it, including the maybe someday stuff. (Some of this is stuff we're in the process of putting together money for anyway, so.) That would be, among other things:
That opens up space for other things.
Like doing the work in the unfinished basement to convert about half of it into my studio, deluxe version. That will take a little electrical work, setting up some sweet air filtration and venting (out through the same vent as the dryer, since the studio is under the laundry). Possibly putting up a divider to keep the dust more contained, since the other half of that room appears likely to be turned into some general storage and is also not remotely airtight due to the Mysterious Passage to Nowhere aspect.
Like doing work in the sun room to make it actually sunny, replacing the mediocre glass panes with nice ones that actually open, and that kind of thing.
Like replacing all the cheap vinyl replacement windows with nicer windows, possibly even ones with wooden components, but certainly better insulating ones.
Like hiring splurby to do us stained glass panels for the floor lights on the stairs and in the hallway.
Like building a greenhouse onto the south side of the laundry room between the garage and the main house, which is the perfect place to put a greenhouse, and doing it with all of the bells and whistles I'd love to have, like a built in internal water garden and proper heating.
Like building a sauna or bathhouse somewhere on the property. (Or buying one, artan_eter keeps talking about a barrel sauna.)
Like renovating the bathroom off my bedroom into something truly awesome, since the space is so weirdly designed. And renovating the other upstairs bathroom into something with a decent tub, too. (We can go on and on about bathroom renovation projects, now I think of it....)
Like building a ritual space in the backyard that would suit both artan_eter's quirks and mine. I have recently developed a couple of weird, strong opinions on this subject that are irrelevant since we are so far away from that project it's not funny. ;)
Like building an epic and excellent treehouse somewhere in the yard. Even if the kids don't want it, I always kind of have. (When I was little, I had a set of magnetic geometric things that could be arranged on a board, and I was constantly building theoretical treehouses in them and telling stories about that to myself.)
Like doing a good, solid kitchen garden setup for stuff that would grow outside the greenhouse. Which will probably require, at minimum, a consultation from experts on where to put it, supplies aside.
Stocking the greenhouse and the garden, of course. Possibly - if other things produced the sun for it - planting fruit trees.
Phew.
After that, there's still certainly enough money to throw the multiple tens of thousands of dollars of research books I have on my list into the pot, which would be nice. And probably some more recreational books too, but the stuff that's like $4K would be nice to finance with the magic wand of theory.
There's stuff for the kids in there. Like more train set pieces, or more play food. We could sink money into that, but really on the million dollars level this is chump change.
I wanted to start a Re-ment collection for offering purposes, actually. I'll add that in here.
I was gonna say that was all, but y'know, we've been saying we need a minivan. So: a minivan.
(Which mostly brings me around to "mutter, mumble, need to re-up my learner's permit so I can take my fucking road test again".)
Whatever's left after the splurge in kid toys, books, BPAL, and hippie clothes: into one mortgage or the other.
Oh, after whispercricket gets to plot her dream Disneyworld vacation.
ETA: Oh. And a parrot.
The issue of course requires limitations. Because when people ask for the "If you had a million dollars, what would you spend it on" answer they're not looking for the answer "Hire a good accountant and maybe an investment broker, donate a substantial amount to charities I support instead of my usual $20 to $50 blibs, and pay off the mortgage". Well, maybe some people are looking for that answer. I don't know. It always feels a bit like a "You have these resources that must be used" question, often a "that must be used on yourself", and often a "right now!"
I mean. Does "I know there are some kind of account or fund where you can put in money for a kid's college education that basically becomes inaccessible for other purposes until umpty-lump conditions are met" count as buying something under the 'buy something right now for yourself' principle? Because if I had a million dollars I'd pop in like $100,000 per kid in that kind of thing, because I expect that with the way that college education costs are going that will cover a state university for four years by the time the kids might want such a thing. And that would be buying a big chunk of peace of mind.
Does - basically - buying a retirement fund of some sort count? Because there's something that I'm not gonna have from my employer unless I do it myself, given that my employer is basically me and that's not likely to change. And for all that my brain explodes a little every time I get the Good Feminist lecture about how I need to be Gainfully Employed in order to Properly Provide For Myself When I'm Old And Decrepit, same principle on the 'buying peace of mind' front applies. On the other hand, I did a quick lookup on 401(k) stuff and IRAs for the self-employed and those are limited by fraction of income per year, which basically means that I can't put a giant chunk of a windfall in one as far as I can determine in five minutes of looking. Feh. Well, maybe something is possible, I'm not going to investigate more deeply for a hypothetical.
So I'll leave it at that for "things I buy for myself right now that will be useful in 20 or more years". This can sink an arbitrary amount of money, and mostly pay out in reduced stress for right now.
What other practical things that are boring but useful can I do?
Pay off artan_eter's grad school debt. The level to which this would improve the stress levels in the household is probably not understateable.
Finance my own return to college and/or grad school plans, though since that's not actually immediate it may not qualify under 'pay this now'. However, with all the other stuff I could buy now, that kinda frees up the finances a bit anyway, so maybe I don't have to think about it.
I would pay off the second mortgage on the other house. The cost of the second mortgage is basically the difference between breaking even and losing money slowly on that as an investment property; breaking even would be a nice improvement. (We can't afford to sell it, so we're renting it out.) Paying off more of the mortgage overall would be a handy use for money that needs to be put somewhere if it doesn't go away, in this hypothetical "spend your million dollars or lose it" scenario, as that shifts the damn thing more towards 'making money' than 'holding steady'.
I would pay off my mother's second mortgage. She's underwater in her house, very financially strapped from being a part-time art professor who can't get a solid job for ageism reasons, and I suspect this would alleviate her stress a lot. Which would alleviate some of mine.
Which brings me to the house we live in, also a prime target for "spend your million dollars or lose it" money sinks. But before I get into practical stuff of the type of paying off a big chunk of mortgage, let's have a little practical and a little fun.
We have work to do on the house. Let's do all of it, including the maybe someday stuff. (Some of this is stuff we're in the process of putting together money for anyway, so.) That would be, among other things:
- Clean out the formerly mouse-infested insulation from various areas
- Various pest control treatments here and there
- Widen the driveway a bit at the bottom
- Replace the hot water heater
- Consider supplementary electricity generation (though honestly we are way too emotionally torn about the number of trees we'd have to take down to take advantage of our perfectly angled south-facing roof, and it probably wouldn't be many different trees to geothermalise)
- Install some form of air conditioning at least in the upstairs bedrooms
- Install water filtration in the house
- Make the attic into something like temperature-controlled storage so we have the library space up there we want
- Other heat efficiency improvements
- Various minor and moderate home repairs and improvements not worth delineating
- Replace washing machine with the washing machine we wanted
- I'm sure there's stuff I'm forgetting
That opens up space for other things.
Like doing the work in the unfinished basement to convert about half of it into my studio, deluxe version. That will take a little electrical work, setting up some sweet air filtration and venting (out through the same vent as the dryer, since the studio is under the laundry). Possibly putting up a divider to keep the dust more contained, since the other half of that room appears likely to be turned into some general storage and is also not remotely airtight due to the Mysterious Passage to Nowhere aspect.
Like doing work in the sun room to make it actually sunny, replacing the mediocre glass panes with nice ones that actually open, and that kind of thing.
Like replacing all the cheap vinyl replacement windows with nicer windows, possibly even ones with wooden components, but certainly better insulating ones.
Like hiring splurby to do us stained glass panels for the floor lights on the stairs and in the hallway.
Like building a greenhouse onto the south side of the laundry room between the garage and the main house, which is the perfect place to put a greenhouse, and doing it with all of the bells and whistles I'd love to have, like a built in internal water garden and proper heating.
Like building a sauna or bathhouse somewhere on the property. (Or buying one, artan_eter keeps talking about a barrel sauna.)
Like renovating the bathroom off my bedroom into something truly awesome, since the space is so weirdly designed. And renovating the other upstairs bathroom into something with a decent tub, too. (We can go on and on about bathroom renovation projects, now I think of it....)
Like building a ritual space in the backyard that would suit both artan_eter's quirks and mine. I have recently developed a couple of weird, strong opinions on this subject that are irrelevant since we are so far away from that project it's not funny. ;)
Like building an epic and excellent treehouse somewhere in the yard. Even if the kids don't want it, I always kind of have. (When I was little, I had a set of magnetic geometric things that could be arranged on a board, and I was constantly building theoretical treehouses in them and telling stories about that to myself.)
Like doing a good, solid kitchen garden setup for stuff that would grow outside the greenhouse. Which will probably require, at minimum, a consultation from experts on where to put it, supplies aside.
Stocking the greenhouse and the garden, of course. Possibly - if other things produced the sun for it - planting fruit trees.
Phew.
After that, there's still certainly enough money to throw the multiple tens of thousands of dollars of research books I have on my list into the pot, which would be nice. And probably some more recreational books too, but the stuff that's like $4K would be nice to finance with the magic wand of theory.
There's stuff for the kids in there. Like more train set pieces, or more play food. We could sink money into that, but really on the million dollars level this is chump change.
I wanted to start a Re-ment collection for offering purposes, actually. I'll add that in here.
I was gonna say that was all, but y'know, we've been saying we need a minivan. So: a minivan.
(Which mostly brings me around to "mutter, mumble, need to re-up my learner's permit so I can take my fucking road test again".)
Whatever's left after the splurge in kid toys, books, BPAL, and hippie clothes: into one mortgage or the other.
Oh, after whispercricket gets to plot her dream Disneyworld vacation.
ETA: Oh. And a parrot.