If I won a million dollars (assuming no taxes or after taxes)... newly built $250,000 house with built in vault/underground survival area built out in the middle of nowhere somewhere, perhaps Montana or Western South Dakota. The $250,000 includes all appliances and the underground area with some sort of secure entry door, and also includes a windmill for power generation. I'm one who would live simple, and would not buy a mansion or spend beyond my means.
This would leave me $750,000. Of this, $100,000 would be used to purchase silver bars on the open market. I would take delivery of these bars and store them in the secure vault. This would leave me with $650,000. Of this amount, I would take $500,000 and invest it in high quality dividend producing stocks and trusts that yield between 7 and 10 percent a year. I know of one now that yields about 9% and is safe. This would give me residual income of $45,000 per year which would be taxed at 15%, which is the tax rate on dividends. Even if the 9% isn't met, and I get a bit less, that's more then enough for me to live on, keeping in mind the property taxes where I'd be living would be dirt cheap, under $1000 per year, because it's unlikely there would be a public school at all in the county I'd choose to live in.
That would leave me $150,000 to play around with, live off of, etc. I'd probably spend most of my time gardening and learning how to live off the land as much as possible and learning how to conserve every penny, which I'm already good at.
Given that I believe we are in for some hard times, much harder then anyone might realize, this plan suits me just fine and I'm confident I'd be able to make the money last my whole life without having to be a wage slave, or a white collar, or anything like that. Sound boring to you? Good, then I won't see the masses moving out to my area any time soon.
This must by why rich people always stay rich or get even richer. The first million is the hard part. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif