If I Had a Million Dollars and a Kia

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Had some fun yesterday in our Math/Finance homeschooling. Just before finishing the unit, you have to do a problem solving project. This project however was no problem. We were asked what we would do if we won a millions dollars.

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Point of correction, we started with a little more than a million dollars.

1 000 000

13 300

1 013 300

Just the the Bare Naked Ladies, first, we bought a house. We had three choices: a mansion with a pool, movie theater, and a bowling yard. A moderately priced house in the suburbs, and a luxury four floor townhouse in the city. Minime went with the townhouse.

Minime's reasoning.

I chose to live in the luxury townhouse, with 4 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms, because downtown might be a nice place to live. Its near a mall and a movie theatre, and I can walk everywhere. I like walking.

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Some more calculations and we were down to $586 300.00. Houses are major purchases. And now we needed a way to get around. Time for some wheels.

This time we were given four choices ... none of them a K-car, all of them electric and quite expensive if you ask me.

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Minme had the good sense to choose the most economic choice offered. We are hitting the road in a Kia, which was still a whopping 42 000 dollars. Seriously, who has that much to spend on a care and still goes with a Kia?

I chose the Kia because it was the most economical choice and because and it still has plenty of space.

Some more calculations and now we are down to $543 800 and time to plan for college ... off we go in our lime green Kia.

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We were down to $ 463 800 and time for a charitable donation. Minime chose the BCSPCA and 10 000 dollars.

I chose this charity because animals should be treated well.

So now, we have $453 800 and must plan for the upcoming years.

The average family spends 93 724 a year on living expenses. However, I have bought a home outright and will not have to pay rent or mortgage, only property taxes, which are much less. I chose to subtract 20 000 dollars from my yearly expenditures to reflect this.

93 724 - 20 000 = 73 724
453 800/73 724 = 6.16

So with a million dollars, you got but 6 years to live high on the hog.

We were then asked if a million dollars is all that much after all. I do feel we were led to the answer and better choices could have been made.

After completing this project, I do not think a million dollars is a lot to live off in real life because the cost of living is high and always increasing.

There are a lot of things I would change. I would buy a modest home with a small acreage. I could grow and raise my own food on this land, cutting the amount of money I spend on food. I might also start a small business selling my farm products.

I would also buy a used vehicle and probably save about 20 000 dollars. Right now, my family and I live on much less then 70 000 dollars a year and I would be raising money, and food from my land, I would probably need a lot less than 70 000 dollars from my savings to live. This way I might even be able to make a million dollars last a lifetime.

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