Ev BogueI asked this question on Google+: What would you do with $100,000 in the bank? (It was a private question, so some of you might not be able to see it.)
The reason I asked was because someone asked me the same question, and I couldn't come up with a good answer. I hope that I can come up with a decent answer at some point at the future, but right now I'm existing in the uncertain space of not knowing what I'd do if I had $100,000 in the bank.
Maybe that's because I'm doing exactly what I want with my life: drinking a toddie on what might be the last day of summer in Seattle, writing things in Scrivener. Or perhaps I don't have a very good imagination.
What the Google+ thread brought up in me though was a question: how many of these things could be done right now?
Here are some of the things that people wanted to do with $100,000:
- Start a company
- Teach yoga
- Drop out of school
- Eat real food
- Travel
- Buy things for family
- Start a vegan food cart
- Move somewhere
- Go on a cruise
- Sell a house
- Hire people
- Build Apps
- Quit my job
- Make art
- Get married
- Become a writer
The two things that definitely required $100,000 were these:
- Saving $50,000
- Investing in $10,000 in 10 startups.
- Pay down debt (consumer, student loan, mortgages)
Surprisingly absent from this list was anyone saying: buy more stuff. Maybe this is just the crowd I attract though.
Now, I don't want to downplay how nice it'd be to have $100,000 in the bank. This seems like a worthwhile dream for me and you. It would give me some extra padding just in case something happened.
My question is this: Do you really need to wait until you have $100,000 to do what you want with your life?
Based on the list of answers above, I'm not sure we need to wait.