[vision-master]

Why wait?

[patience]

Buy a lot of forest near my daughter, put an energy self-sufficient cabin on it for old age, get started again with horse farming and logging, and put up a first rate blacksmith shop. Take apprentices and teach selected individuals how this all works.

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('patience', 'B')uy a lot of forest near my daughter, put an energy self-sufficient cabin on it for old age, get started again with horse farming and logging, and put up a first rate blacksmith shop. Take apprentices and teach selected individuals how this all works.

[patience]

Yup. Older than DIRT! No, don't want any newfangled gadgets. Had my fill of that. Already married for many years, and stopped chasing girls when I caught the one I wanted. Don't want to travel. If there was somewhere I'd rather live, I'd already be there....

[jlw61]

Since it's not a lot of money, I would use it to, over the next couple of years, to load a few school boards, city councils and county board of supervisors with Libertarians in an effort to test the theory that Libertarians could make a difference. If I'm right, we would be setting the stage to create a more secure locality and improve all of our lives.

If I'm wrong, then it wouldn't matter.

[mefistofeles]

Honestly the best investment would probably be stockpiling ammunition. The price of ammo also seems to be going up the price of .223 ammo seems like it's up almost 60% over the past year. I remember buying a few boxes for a little over $5.00 a year ago, now it's over $8.00 .

Shotgun ammunition is absolutely ridiculous, I just spent $64 buying 30 rounds of shotgun ammo,four slug boxes and two boxes of 00.

From an investment point of view I have NEVER seen ammunition prices go down. No matter how good or bad the economy is ammunition will always be useful. It may not be PC but it's hard to imagine an investment better than ammunition.

[careinke]

50,000 gallon water tank with a direct solar powered well at the top of my hill. Add basement, solar roof, grey water system, solar water heater. and summer kitchen to the house. Build HUGE storage/shop/garage. Fence in property with movable paddocks. Buy Ammo, gold, and silver with whatever was left.

[oldchuck]

Okay, thanks. Still looking for anything I've overlooked.

One observation, with the exception of Toecutter (very creative) and perhaps jlw61 (not very realistic), most all these ideas would only consume a limited amount of the million. Still a lot of cash to do something with. And that something would inevitably involve stashing it in the system in the form of electronic blips of one sort or another. And it makes me very nervous to know that those electronic dots on somebody's screen could disappear in a micro second. A lot have in the last year or so. Same situation if you have a bank account with a thousand bucks in it. With a million you just can't spend it fast enough on basic stuff. How many rolls of toilet paper can you buy?

[kiwichick]

take Jim Rodgers advice; invest in things that are essential for human survival

food
water
renewable energy : geothermal and wavepower
oil/gas/coal/uranium (because they are all going to increase in value)
energy efficentcy
co2 sequestration
phosphate
recycling

[Maddog78]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('oldchuck', 'm')ost all these ideas would only consume a limited amount of the million.

[Pops]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('oldchuck', 'A')nd that something would inevitably involve stashing it in the system in the form of electronic blips of one sort or another.

[patience]

Pops,

Land has been the basis of real wealth for a very long time. Of course, it works better if you DO something with it, preferably something sustainable.

Just doing some weeding out of our woodland on our old place and letting the good young stuff grow (known as timber stand improvement) increased the value of the woods by about $200/acre/year. And what we cut out of it was worth almost that much. That was a better return than farmers were getting on corn at the time, and required very little investment in equipment to do it at that scale.

[oldchuck]

I agree, Pops, but there are some problems. It's easy to blow a million on "real estate." A million dollar house in a fancy neighborhood doesn't amount to much really. Land is another issue. Just owning a big chunk of land can be a problem. How much can you use productively? If you have a lot more than that it just sits, an illiquid asset that probably won't appreciate much and won't be doing you much good. Once you get as much as you need or can handle, build your modest but comfortable house, stock the workshop, buy the tractor, then what do you do with the rest? An annual trip to the Bahamas? You are still going to be stuck with a lot of rather ephemeral electrons. (I really don't want to be stashing several hundred pounds of gold bars under the bed.)

[vision-master]

Funny nobody has offered to help the poor?




I guess that's why she's a Saint and we are just common mortals.

[JoeW]

This is a no brainer for me. I would pay off the house and go back to school to be a doctor. If you want to talk about a skill that will always be valuable...try helping the sick and wounded.

In all the world, I challenge anyone to show me where there is a homeless, starving doctor. (That's rhetorical, of course. No need to point out that a random homeless doctor or two exist out there).

[Pops]

Naw, I wasn't talking about buying a house.

Here is a little place I found real quick with a built-in income of maybe $30k a year just from watching the grass grow.

[oldchuck]

Vision - Giving money to the poor is a whole other discussion.

Joe - unless you've got an awfully lot of house to pay off you would still have plenty left over to stash in electrons.

Pops - nice looking place and it does chew up the million pretty well. I doubt, however, you would be able to just sit back and watch the grass grow.

[Pops]

Actually raising beef on a management intensive basis really isn't that management intensive once you have your paddocks and water in place - I figured maybe $50k-$75k but that's just a guess depending on what's existing, how good and where the ponds and well are, handling facilities, etc.; maybe $25k for hay equipment & $50k for stock to start.

And of course $50k for a big dually pickup and matching stock trailer!

You can't just walk away and wait for the money to roll in but there are ranches like this all over run by 2 job families. The animals feed themselves, breed themselves, calve by themselves, basically the managers job is deciding how many head to carry, which paddock they should graze next and when they should move.

[Hawkcreek]

I would do the same things I did with my last million -----motorcycles, women, and beer.
But I would probably keep a little just to waste.

[AgentR]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Hawkcreek', 'I') would do the same things I did with my last million -----motorcycles, women, and beer.
But I would probably keep a little just to waste.