this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2023
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I have asked this question to countless people (mostly in hair salons) as an alternative to small talk, and it always yields interesting results.

Rules:

  • You get the money right now, right where you are. If it's 10pm and you're in the middle of nowhere, your money will still go poof at 11pm.
  • As a result of the above, tell us what time it is and roughly where you are (big city, desert, small town, ...)
  • You must spend the money. You cannot give it to someone to hold on to it for you for a while.
  • Normal world rules apply, e.g. you cannot buy a $250k car at a dealership in 1h in cash, and you cannot buy a house in 1h either.
  • Remember that getting from where you are to the place you need to go takes time. Factor that in!

Edit: I'm glad you guys had fun with this one. Feel free to post similar hypothetical questions. I kinda like these.

Edit edit: Free advertising πŸ˜… --> I run and maintain an open source push notification service called ntfy, which let's you send notifications to your phone via PUT/POST, like curl -d "backup successful" ntfy.sh/mytopic. Go check it out.

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[–] [email protected] 62 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Go to the nearest jewelry store and buy everything in it. Wait an hour, return it as per the refund policy. If there is no refund policy then I would sell it off. Even if I lost 50% on the sell back, that's still half a mil in cash.

Most popular jewelers have at least a 30 day refund policy.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

This has been my go to answer if the hair stylist asked what I'd do. I'd go to different jewlery stores, because they'd still call the cops if you wanna buy stuff for a million.

(I forgot to add the "no returning items" rule; but since you added the "selling it off" part I think it's fine, hehe)

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 2 years ago

I would buy four tickets on a mini-sub tour of the Titanic and give them to 4 billionaires.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 2 years ago (2 children)

It's 10:15pm in suburban Colorado, and I'm purchasing one sexual favor from my husband for $1 million.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

One? You've got a whole hour! That's probably 7 or 8 at least!

...right?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 years ago

Let's put it this way. It's a 45-min session for $900,000... and at some point I also make it rain with the remainder of the cash.

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

I'm in Switzerland, so I buy a leisurely coffee and croissant. With the change I buy a bottle of water.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago

With the change I buy a bottle of water.

What change? You took out a loan to get the croissant.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 2 years ago (4 children)

1 million in index funds which I will reinvest later.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 years ago (1 children)

The post specified cash. How would you purchase $1m in index funds with cash in an hour?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Bring it to my bank, deposit, then purchase online.

Though I'd leave it in my index fund, on average they perform better than actively managed accounts

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago (4 children)

I think getting to a bank, explaining where 1M in cash came from, getting them to accept the deposit, getting them to count it, then spending it in less than an hour is not feasible.

Because, depositing it in a bank is not enough.
It has to be spent.
So, if you don't spend it then the bank is left without however much disappears... If that makes sense.

And, given that, I don't think investing is a suitable application.
Otherwise, just invest it directly at the bank.
Maybe you don't get inflation-beating interest (ie, if it was your 1M you would be losing money), but after whatever-term you get 1M of clean money to spend.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Where do you go that accepts 1M in cash without calling the cops? And who manages to count that much money? And who won't call the cops if the money suddenly vanishes?

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 2 years ago (1 children)

First I would bang on a neighbor's door and pay them to follow me with a camera then run into the fairly nearby motorbike shop and yell 'quick I'm doing a Mr Beast challenge I need to spend a million dollars in the next half hour!' all four guys working would jump at it especially if I said 'give yourself 10% commission on each one'

The only other shop near that isn't just groceries is a wedding dress shop so I guess while they're getting the paperwork ready I'd run in and buy their most expensive white gowns so that we could ride in style - though the train might get caught in the chain...

Oh and I'd run into the pub and tell them to ring up as much as possible before the time runs out so we can all go there after to relax.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I think that's the most creative one I've ever heard. Well done.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 2 years ago (4 children)

I'm on a flight 35,000 feet above the Gobi Desert. The cash is pretty much useless to me. In fact it's a bit bulky and I'll be glad to see the back of it.

Plus, nothing on this flight can be bought for any kind of dollars.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I'd buy at least 10 snickers and a bottle of wine or something, right?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago

What could a banana cost, Michael? $10?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 years ago (1 children)

So like two beers from the plane alcohol list, got it

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 years ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

What would you do for the remaining 55 mins ?

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I read that as chickens and thought your grand plan was to start a farm, LMAO.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 years ago (1 children)

A monkey. I've always wanted a monkey.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Why do these always exist before the internet? We can order bullion online now. It's almost midnight in a fairly rural area

But yeah, I know a guy that will sell certain things for cash that normally require legal hurdles. But if you show up, cash in hand, he'll backdate things on his end. One phone call, I could buy out his stock in fifteen minutes because I'm a regular customer he trusts. He's usually got a few hundred thousand of goods in place.

Barring that, I'm kinda screwed at this time of night.

I know a couple of farmers that would let me buy livestock in cash like this, but that's only going to be a few thousand bucks.

I know a weed dealer that would be able to give me a few pounds if he's got it in, but I would have to call and ask how much he has.

Do services count? If so, I've got an idea for a cheat lol. Hire my wife for a back rub.

So, I just took a second and sent a text to an acquaintance and explained the scenario. Turns out you can buy a car in an hour or less. It's just a matter of paperwork to make the sale official. So, if you know a car dealer, and they have enough on their lot, you could easily get rid of most of that million in time. Most of the time wasted isn't really necessary. If the dealer and the buyer are already on the same page with the price, you could get as many cars as you have time to sign for.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

The fact that it is only cash makes it difficult

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

Everything is closed.

Plan A: I could try to stuff an atm full of cash, but I'd be investigated for fraud, counterfitting or something. I would record myself holding the cash, wave it in front of all the security cameras I could to show that I legitimately have it, then insert it as much into the ATM as I could and acquire reciepts. In $100 bills I can put 50 at a time so $5000.If it stops accepting any money, I could try a crypto ATM too. Countersue the bank for stealing my money if they claim I'm responsible for the disappearance.

Plan B: I can reach the airport in under a half hour, I could convert it to USD as much they let me before leaving. They might accept 10k that way.

The trouble is, I will be asked about the origin of the money, "It just appeared in front of me/A genie gave it to me/I dug it out of the ground" are reasons that might not hold up well in court.

E: Wait does "spent" money vanish or does it stay?

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I'm screwed.

It's 8pm on a Sunday and I'm stuck in hospital temporarily unable to walk, so I can't really buy anything in the next hr :(

Guess I may as well share it with the nurses. If I can't give it away, then maybe buy a hug from each one, or a massage, or ... no let's not go there!

Anyway, better to share it than let it lapse :)

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 years ago

Buy a bunch of prepaid debit cards and use it to buy a bunch of random bullshit from ebay and Amazon. Won't be able to get anywhere near $1M worth of prepaid cards but whatever. When all the pointless shit shows up in my doorstep, resell for like 75% of its original value.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I'd buy a $1M hug from someone I'm very close to. Then offer them a $500K hug.

It doesn't break rule 3 as written.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 years ago

Depending on timing, as long as there's a bank branch near me when this deal starts (which, there is one ~10 minutes drive from me); I would head there first, 100%. I'd pay off every debt I have with the bank, Credit Cards, lines of credit, etc. Should take 20 minutes or so, it's not a large number of debts, but it's not a trivial amount.

I'd then drive across the city to the bank that holds my mortgage, and give them whatever is left.... either as pre-payment towards my mortgage, or simply to buy out the mortgage and pay it off.

I wouldn't have much left after that; but I'm hoping I can get all that done in an hour. If, at that point, I have enough time remaining to buy anything, I'd probably see if I could hit up the nearest hardware store and buy all the power tool batteries I can find. Just the batteries, because damn that shit is expensive.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago
[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago

Transport in my area is so shit it would take me an hour just to get to a place I could spend cash; I would buy nothing.

Except maybe a therapist out of my own pocket to deal with something dangling financial stability in front of me.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago (3 children)

I would immediately pay off all of my debts in my online banking/credit cards/student loan/utility accounts, send my Landlord my rent early via Zelle, login to my parent's mortgage and credit card accounts and pay them all off, pay off all of my wife's student loans and credit cards and business loans via her online accounts, and spend the rest on ebay gift cards.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 years ago (3 children)

It's cash though, how do you pay all those things off with cash in only 1 hour? If you walk into a bank with 1 million cash and ask to deposit it, that might set off some red flags.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 years ago

It's definitely gonna set off red flags when the cash disappears an hour later.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I'm in Vegas, 22:22, so.. $1 million dollars of food, water, and sun screen for the un housed.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago

Quito Ecuador at 8:30pm on a Sunday night. Nothing other than small cornerstores and liquor shops are open. So I guess I'll buy as much liquor as I can to resell later.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Cheap Answer: Go to my nearest Walmart/Grocery Store (10 minutes away from me)and max out all of the vanilla visa debit cards with the $1 million but after fees it won’t be $1 million but I would still spend the million.

Actual Answer: Luckily I’m in a prime spot where I live that I’m 20 minutes away from Lamborghini, Aston Martin, and other luxury car dealerships. So I’d go there and purchase how many cars I can with the million. After I sign, sell them back to the dealership or sell them privately.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Do you really think they are not going to call the cops if a dude shows up with $1 million in cash to buy cars, asking to speed up the transaction? No way are they not gonna.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago

Well i am not going to respond to this post until I am in the bank....Ahh crap.

Well Sunday afternoon.... Ummm

I would probably look for a local gold/ prescious metals shop. But i don't know if they have that much on hand.

An alternative would be Costco. I should be able to get there in 15 minutes and then maybe that is enough time for me to explain the situation and give me a bar code scanner and access to that locked room with all of the expenses stuff is. And I will just start scanning like mad.

Along the way to Costco i can call family and friends and they can meet me there to help coordinate.

After that it is just a matter of reselling everything. Or i guess it is Costco i could just return it all. Although that doesn't feel right lol.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I'll just call everyone to distribute the money to. Spread the information about. When the money disappears people think I'm a magician

Industry town, 1pm

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago

I would "buy" an agreement with my parents that from then on they will purchase for me whatever i ask them toβ€”up to a total of a million dollars.

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