Pay off my debt, pay off my mom's debt, invest half of the rest, give the other half to charity. But since the payout is usually over 20 years or whatever, I'd probably just end up living off of it and getting fatassed.

Compiled from our googlechat:
1) I could relax about money for the first time in one billion years.
2) then buy a nice car (I do like my current car but...I could go for something nicer)
3) then take some time without pay and finish all the shit I started (around the house/yard/garage etc)
4) and then pay Lana for private yoga lessons 'til I was a yoga master.
5) and then I'd buy a big, plasma tv that hung on the wall in the living room (I like this idea because it wouldn't be all home theatre gigantic and all)
6) Oh, and I might take that MSCA boot camp thing (I would like to finally REALLY understand DNS, and have some credentials, intead of just experience.)
7) and, a road trip, a big motherfucking drive all over north america. We'd get something comfy for everyone and just drive. Lotsa good music, just stopping wherever we feel like it. Maybe some sort of GPS or satellite internet access to plan stuff. I could fly out and drive Adam (my kid brother who's in Victoria for the summer) back for school (University of Toronto) that'd tide me over until the house stuff got done.

"Material possessions will never make you happy, nor ease the suffering of your soul in anything but the most transitory and illusory of fashion." —Some guy who was either really rich or really poor (and probably didn't have kids)

That's no fun Eide. Try again.

Pay down my variable interest rate loans, then make the rest of the money work for me. Then, in the end, I'll pull a Warren Buffet and leave most of it to charity.

Or, buy an island.

1. Get Mrs chewy's foot fixed.
2. pay off all our debt.
3. renovate our condo - especially the kitchen
4. build our mountain hideaway
5. build my own applied creativity center
6. buy a honda del sol and put a brand new engine and replace any other totally worn out parts in it.
7. take mrs chewy across the country & up to alaska in an RV.
8. invest, and see what I could give to HRC and Americans united for separation of church & state.

Would it be enough that I could invest it and live off the interest? Because that's all I want; time for creativity, interpersonal interaction, and exploration (like you said, road trip).

1) Buy my mom a house and set up a trust fund for her
2) Buy myself a small house with a nice fenced yard
3) Create the Cmonkey Foundation which would invest the remainder and distribute the interest to 503(c)s and activist groups
4) Buy some comic books

1) Set aside half for growth and income.
2) Buy a better house, and put better stuff in it.
3) Renovate, or rebuild from the ground up, the 80-year-old family beach house, which has seen several hurricanes in the last two years.
4) Stop worrying about money.
5) Relax, travel, get healthy.
6) Buy land to set aside for nature conservation.
7) Remain the real me, and never let the money ruin my life.

Sure, Eide. I think one of the greatest things money can do it buy you the room to do what you are driven to do.

Apart from the TV, and the more comfortable ride, my wishes are pretty small too. I mainly want the money to buy some time back from the Man.

If it was, say, a million, I'd pay off the mortgage (£100K), probably wouldn't move, I really love living where I do, but I'd do a total refurb on the place so it was exactly how I wanted it. The only thing that'd tempt me to move is if a house came up for sale in a neighbouring street (I'm in a flat/apartment), but then I'd have to spend about £500k on buying a house, and why do I need a big house anyway?

A nice new car, not a huge thing, but a high-performance small car, maybe a Merc A-class or an Audi A2. I don't need a big car and my garage is pretty small.

I'd spend some on buying a holiday home in the US, probably on Lake Logan where my Ohio almost-family are. I think around £80K would get me a nice lakeside holiday home there - that's about $145,000, and property in Southern Ohio is very cheap.

I'd pay off my sister's mortgage (about £50K) and buy her a new car.

I'd hire a personal trainer to get me in shape. I might, but only might, think about getting my tits done (although after my last go-round with boob surgery, I'm not sure I'd want to put myself through anything like that again for, er, fun).

I'd buy a season ticket for Manchester United.

I'd go part-time in my job so I could spend some time doing voluntary work. If I didn't have this huge mortgage to service, I could afford a drop in salary.

I'd probably buy a couple of investment properties for my retirement with the rest of it, leave about £100K in the bank for a rainy day.

1. Pay off debt.
2. Set my mother up for the rest of her life (she has NO retirement plan! I'm already freaking out about mine. And now, hers!)
3. Invest money - keep it building, keep big donations going in to my favorite non-profits
4. Travel
5. Travel
6. Travel
7. Come home occasionally to garden

Apart from the TV, and the more comfortable ride, my wishes are pretty small too.

I saw that (after hitting Post the first time), and I respect it. Otherwise I probably wouldn't have bothered with the second comment. I notice most people here have some kind of debt they want to escape. That's pretty much what I want, too; except my debt is the time I have to pay in. We all want to be free, eh?

Buy a little house in a city I like, and a tiny little house in a beautiful place on Puget Sound somewhere.
Buy a nice couch.
Buy a nice stereo and all the music I want.
Build a darkroom and get some cool camera equipment and take the photography certificate at Photographic Center Northwest so I can really learn how to be good at it.
Set up a fund for whatever health care and assisted living my dad might need as he gets older.
Give half of what's left to charity (mostly grassroots anti-poverty and environment stuff).
Give grants to my artistic friends.
Invest the rest.
Travel to Britain, Europe, Iceland, Mexico, Africa, China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand.
Not work jobs I don't like anymore.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the debt, that comes first.

1) Pay off the mortgage
2) Get all the stuff around the house fixed I never get a chance to
3) Ensure the kids' college educations are fully funded
4) Get some new cars
5) Quit my job and start teaching
6) Travel to Europe and Australia

I would sell my house, quit my job, and go and live on Matinicus Island.

Two chicks,dude.

*now goes to hell*

- Pay my mom's debt and my debt.

- Buy my mom a house and a reliable car.

- Buy myself a house.

- Go on a trip to Europe with my family and do the crap they want to do. Meet up with my brother in Amsterdam and smoke a lot of weed. Meet my mom in the UK and look at a bunch of places my dead relatives are buried, and also see a lot of churches. My sister will probably want to go to Italy.

- Try and use the time to do some creative work, and also to make a difference in the lives of others.

1. Pay the taxes.

- Buy two new cars (nothing fancy, mine is almost 10 years old, the mister's is 20)

- Pay off my mum's mortgage (the only real debt she has) which will cover what we owe her (the only debt we really have) and then some (she's actually pretty well set in her retirement, but paying off the mortgage would make her life that much easier)

- Buy a home on Vancouver Island (on the beach or damned close) and the stuff to furnish it

- Road trip around North America (after we sell the old RV and buy a new one (motorized, not a bloody fifth wheel)

- Some of the left-overs would be invested, of course

- Set up some sort of charity like Modest Needs

I guess it depends on what sizable is.

For smaller values of sizable, I'd pay the taxes, put it away for retirement, and maybe buy one or two extravagant things.

For larger values of sizable, I'd pay the taxes, put it away for retirement, and retire.

Most of the usual stuff, but first, I'd take all my friends to dinner at the Genoa, reputedly Portland's best restaurant.

Man, you'd have to win the lottery to afford Genoa.

Buy a little house in a city I like, and a tiny little house in a beautiful place on Puget Sound somewhere.

YES, I forgot about my little dream of a little house with a little private beach, right on Puget Sound. Plus some money for kayaks and crab traps, for fresh crab all summer long.

I might give a shot at living in NYC for awhile. Get an apt. overlooking the park or a place in Park Slope, and see what happens. At least I would get some good food, if nothing else.

Or the other route, Orcas or San Juan Island, a modest place on one of those islands.

Pay off my student loan
Get a place of my own in a cool neighborhood in Chicago. And then another one in NYC. Both close to dog parks so Barney has plenty of room to romp around. : )
Lease time on a private jet so I can take Barney between places. : )
Travel
Donate a bunch to Alpha Phi Omega, Jaycees, IU journalism school, Welsh Terrier breed rescue, and other animal rescue groups.

That's for starters.

You don't have to pay taxes on lottery winnings in Canada.
/smirk

Glad to see everyone's mom on the list here...

For me: Debt first, though I'm lucky enough to owe less than 10K, with no mortgage. Then get my mom sorted out financially; pay for renovating her basement, etc. Put money aside for my nieces to go to university, if they want. Obviously the same for my son. Maybe help my ex and his partner buy a small place up the coast.

Some renovations-- kitchen and bathroom. Never liked the kitchen floor in my suite (ceramic tile); I'd put in some kick-ass Marmoleum instead. A verra good stereo. Built-in bookcases instead of the Ikea standard. A new sink in the bathroom. Tile the walls. Buy extravagent towels and sheets, too.

I'd probably break down and buy a car.

Go back to school for another degree. Travel, travel, travel. Visit my friends. Buy tickets for the Met in New York without flinching. All that stuff. Live the life I have already, just with nicer clothes and less worry. Take my son and his girlfriend on a trip to Europe. Help finance a friend's film. Etcetera.

Donations, obviously, to Doctors Without Borders, then our local medical clinic for their outreach programs for young single mothers in poverty, and so on.

Nice dreams...

Pay off my mortgage, then give my house to a very nice family in my development who don't have much. (I have a nice, new, manufactured home with three bedrooms/two baths and they rent an old single wide place) Then build a nice, not huge, house on a lake somewhere so I can have deer in my yard. Give money to Mom and some to our brothers, and donate to Breast Cancer Research (Mr. V's Mom died of breast cancer) and to the Salvation Army (when I was a struggling single mom, they had an affordable summer camp for my boys to attend that they loved). And take the kids in an RV to see the country every summer.