1. College funds for my kids.
2. Buy a bigger house.
3. New truck for dh.
4. All new furniture and appliances for my house.
5. Save the rest!

~A bigger house in the same town so kids can still go to their schools
~Give certain family members and special friends a nice monetary gift from my portion of my $10 million
~Completely fund the childrens' college funds; put away money for their futures
~Give much more to charity
~Buy brand new SUV and daughter a car
~Buy husband a small plane; he's a pilot
~Travel more
~Save

I know a few multi millionaires. One build a very nice house and invested wisely. He even continued to work as a teacher until it was time to retire. He knew exactly what to do probably because he was a general business teacher. LOL They live a very normal life well except for the fact that lack of money is not an issue.

Another friend of ours who was already a multi millionaire married someone who really didn't have nothing but three kids. Boy is she taking him for a ride. I always said if I came into money never would I act like her. He has bought her several houses and when she didn't like one she had the builders tear it down and build a new one. She is so wasteful it is disgusting. I hope he comes to his senses before it's too late.

But lets see I would

1. pay off my house
2. build on
3. buy a new car and truck.
4. I would buy my grandparents farm and 160 acres so I can be sure it
stays in the family.
5. Probably a few vacations.
6. I would want to try and live as normal as possible. I would never want
my kids to become spoiled little rich brats.

Of course I would also help out my family too.

1) We would move to a nearby town NOW. We are already thinking of doing that in the next two years, but we would not have to worry about the intricacies of down payments, homeowners insurance, etc. We could just DO it.

2) Give away to charities that we believe in. Encourage the kids to do the same and participate in the decision making process.

3) Set up college funds for my neices and nephew. (My kids already have theirs set up, thankfully, but I know my neices and nephew do not.)

4) Buy new cars. Ours are getting up there in miles. It is one of the intricacies of saving for our hopeful move in 2009.

5) Take a family vacation to the Grand Canyan, Mount Rushmore, Yosemite, Washington, DC, Dry Tortugas, New England or some other awesome American landmark.

6) Replace my engagement ring that was stolen last year.

7) Invest in our retirement so we would not have to worry one bit ever again.

8) Set up some sort of account/trust for my inlaws retirement, but where they would not be able to control the money. They are HORRIBLE with money!

9) Hire a housekeeper to come in every couple of weeks.

10) Take my family to Europe in five years!

We would:
1) Tithe 1,000,000.

2) Pay off all our debt. 45k in student loans, 14k for our doublewide (unless my MIL insisted on selling it her self), medical debt (~1k).

3) Buy a house. Not a mansion.. probably in the neighborhood of 2,500-3,000 square feet tops. in our area we would be looking at spending 300k - 350k. I would then give myself a 100k budget to furnish said house. Nothing extravigant.. just not hand-me-downs either!

4) Give my BIL an investment of 100k for his start-up business. (the one my dh works for, and would continue to work for. )

5) Give the NonProfit I "work" for (unpaid position) a grant of how ever much $$ they want, up to 100k.. with more to come in the future (paid out of our salary.. see #7)!

6) Buy a car... maybe 2. We are curently a one car family, and I would love to have a minivan, but would consider a hybrid, or even an all electric car as I do not do much driving as of yet. And, if I get a new car, I am sure dh would feel left out. LOL!

7) Invest the rest which would be more than 8 mil, (w/ taking $ out for taxes when they are due). I would use part of the interest to increase our take home to $4k/month. The rest would gather interest. Now that is what I call an emergency fund!!!!

__________________
-Sarah

My "Forget the Joneses" Blog: Click Here

I honestly don't think our lives would change too drastically. We would invest the bulk of it and live off of the interest. I would know that my kids could go to school wherever they wanted and wouldn't worry about having to go back to work in 5 years to pay for private school tuition once my oldest gets out of elementary school. We would just keep on keepin on, with a few more luxuries added in here and there. We would also have more to share, which would be nice. I would set up trust funds for the kids when they reach the age of 25. My dh's family did this for their boys and it helped us buy our first house when we got married. That little nest egg helped us make a few very good real estate investments over the last 10 years. We never would have been able to profit from the real estate market like we have without that first chunk of money that they gave us. I would love to be able to do that for my kids!

It would change a Lot.

First off we'd put money away for ds education. We have money aside but now college would be 100% paid for.

Then dh would quit his job. He hasn't been very happy with it lately, and he is Very handy. So he would quit and and THEN we'd sell this house. We'd probably move to British Columbia (dh is Canadian, and hey with 10 mil. I could travel back here to see my family whenever I wanted). We would buy gorgeous property on the lake or ocean and dh would design a SMALL but very elegant house for us. Two bedrooms, but pretty large kitchen. Dining room that spilled out into the family room so it didn't have to be too big but could hold a crowd. Live in housekeeper. I'd tidy up, she'd or maybe HE'd (ha ha, why not?) would do the rest. One bathroom. Yes, one! We have 3 people, how many bathrooms do we need? (We have 5 now, yes, five!) But that one bathroom would be large, with a sunken in tub, gorgeous tiled shower and most important of all: separate commode with a door. We have that now and it would be Hard to give that up.

Did I mention the guest house in back of our house? It would be MUCH bigger, to accommodate elegantly a large number of guests, whereas our house would be much smaller so I could keep it up. Dh would have a huge workshop separate from the house, so that he could build furniture, like I said he is very handy. He would definitely keep busy that's for sure.

Ds would still go to a Montessori, through high school, they do exist but are few and far between (we have one here that just opened). Do they have a Montessori college?!

We'd travel. We would buy property in PEI Canada where dh's family is from so when we visited them we could stay at our Own house. Have you ever been there? It's absolutely gorgeous.

I'd definitely find a pet project charity and donate $ to it, Or maybe I'd just send $ to people who Really needed it. I would build a tiny Catholic chapel in honour of Saint Therese my patron Saint. We'd give $ to the Church, and in turn we would go to Mass at Christmas and Easter in Rome. (We're dreaming, right?)

And I'd invest the rest.

i would
1. buy a new house(not anything elaborate just new so everything was new like furnace ect)
2. pay off all my debts
3.pay off my in-laws debts and build them a new house
4.take my kids on a dream vacation of a lifetime.
5. put one of those clipper windmills in my yard and sell back the energy..
i just could not even tell you that kind of money is out of my relm of thinking.

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SILENCE IS GOLDEN BUT DUCK TAPE IS SILVER.

Well, even though one hopes it wouldn't, I am sure my life would change alot. In my opinion, coming into that much money(especially all at once) usually isn't a good thing. Just ask many of the people that have won that much money.
But-I can still dream that I would handle it well. LOL.
I would tithe at least 10 percent. I know hubby would want to pay off the houses of everyone in his family. I would buy my mommy a house. Pay off my brothers debts(they are not huge, just too big for them to handle) and buy them cars. Would pay off our debt and buy a house in the area that has all the bedrooms on one floor, and a finished basement. With at least 5 acres of land. I could put my children in the local Christian school, or homeschool them with the best supplies. Pay for them to go to college if they want, or support them if they decide to become missionaries. And buy everyone in the house a new wardrobe. And a membership to the YMCA. Go on all their expensive feild trips with them. Hire tutors to teach them thier instruments better.
And of course buy eco-friendly cars. Maybe not my hubby. He might want some monster pickup, or a suburban. LOl.
I would be able to visit with friends more, and take them out to lunch or movies.

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"The Christian does not think that God will love us because we are good, but God will make us good because he loves us."- C.S. Lewis

That's where my dh's family is from! Maybe we're related!