Is it really possible to spend one billion dollars?
I was listening to the latest GrowthEverywhere podcast (discovered earlier this morningvia Growth Hackers) where they interviewed Emerson Spartz, a 27 year old middle school dropout. He homeschooled himself, started the number 1 fan site for Harry Potter fans, and today, across his various media properties, garners 160 million monthly page views.
In the interview, he mentions his financial goal. He wants to earn 1 billion dollars by the time he turns 30.
That’s right, 1 billion dollars.
That made me think. Does he want one billion dollars because he needs the money?
Of course not.
At some point, you earn enough money to support yourself, to give, and to buy a few toys.
I believe that his desire to reach one billion dollars is simply a ‘can I do it?‘ goal.
He likely wants to figure out if he has the mindset and mental capability required to earn one billion dollars. He’s already earned one million.
He has anabove average mindset.
The mindset required to earn one million dollars is completely different than the mindset required to earn the average American household income of $51,000.
It has to be.
Otherwise, more Americans would be earning one million dollars, right?
But the mindset required to earn one billion dollars is not much different from the mindset to earn one million dollars.
It is simply a three zero difference.
If you think earningone million is impossible and earningone billion is impossible, then figuring out how to earn either one requires roughly the same mental effort, correct?
Impossible = Impossible
If you disagree then I would challenge you to search and find the definition of impossibler.
Exactly. It’s not a word.
So with that in mind, I tried to figure out what Emerson Spartz would do with one billion dollars.
We’ve already established that no one really needs one billion dollars. Heck, people survive everyday under the poverty level.
My fiancé and I agreed thatit is not about the money. He even arguedthat no one could easilyspend one billion dollars without wasting money.
I disagreed, stating that I could spend one billion dollars easily.
So he came up with a challenge.
How Would I Spend One Billion Dollars?
The challenge is this. Spend one billion dollars. Every single cent.
The conditions: I have to spend it on myself. No donating, no buying investments, none of that. I mean, if I made one billion dollars the first time, starting from zero, I could certainly make it again.
Donald Trump is living proof. He has been bankrupt and earned it all back and more.
Richard Pryor’s character in the movie Brewster’s Millions faced a similar challenge. He had to spend a $30 million inheritance in 30 days.
Faced with this challenge, someone who has never had that much money would find it difficult to figure out how to spend it.
I disagree. I think I could spend one billion.
Once I started looking for ways to spend one billion dollars, I realized that I had to dream big. Really big.
Here’s how I would spend one billion dollars.
1) Purchase a home ($125 million)
The Maison de L’Amitie is a home in Palm Beach, Florida. I chose it because it is off the coast of Palm Beach, one of the most beautiful areas in Florida. The garage has space for 50 cars. However, I would only need enough space for one.
2) Purchase a diamond encrusted Mercedes Benz ($4 million)
This car was rumored to be the possession of Saudi Prince Alwaleed. An article from Business Insider claims that the car is not his. Well, now that I’ve purchased it, it’s mine.
3) Purchase an island. Two to be exact. ($29.5 million + $43.3 million)
This is a private island off the coast of Greece. It is non-devloped and only a 30 minute speed boat ride to Athens. The listing price is approximately $43.3 million USD. That seems reasonable.
This is a private island in the Caribbean sea. It is also an undeveloped island and a part of the US Virgin Islands. The island is only five miles from Cyril E. King International Airport, making it accessible to commercial and private jet air service from around the world. Which brings me to my next purchase.
4) Purchase a jet ($100 million)
This jet is on the more conservative side. I could have spent 600 million on an Airbus but I decided to budgetmy money for the islands. (budget, ha!) This Boeing 757 jet is one that Donald Trump is selling. Obviously I would have to get a new paint job.
5) Purchase a yacht ($263 million)
This yacht is said to be owned by Russian billionaire, Alisher Usmanov. It is one of the largest yachts in the world and requires a crew of 47 people.
Whew! I’m exhausted. But I’ve only spent $564.8 million! It was really hard for me to figure out how to spend the remaining $435.2 million.
But here is how I would do it.
6) Develop two islands. ($36.5 million X 2)
Now that I have two islands, I have to develop them. I need roads and other infrastructure as well as a resort home to live in when I visit. I’ll also build private resort residences for friends or anyone that is willing to rent them out. This may break one of the rules because it would qualify as an investment property. However, as a condition of purchasing Necker Island,Richard Branson was required to develop a resort so I am going to assume that I have to do the same.
Richard Branson paid $10 million dollars to develop Necker Island. That was in 1978. Using this inflation calculator from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, I calculated that in today’s money, 10 million dollars is equal to roughly 36.5 million.
7) Hire a private pilot for a 10 year contract term. ($2.1 million)
FindaPilot.com is a service matching pilots to job postings. One job posting listed the monthly compensation for a Boeing 757 pilot operator at $17,460. One year’s salary is really just a drop in the bucket so I extended the term over 10 years. This assumes that the entire compensation package is covered by the contract salary.
Ok, I’m almost tapped out by now. At this point, I’m just looking for ways to get rid of the remaining $360 million.
8) Buy a life for 12 million Candy Crush users ($207.8 million)
How many times have you gotten a request from a friend on Facebook asking you to send them a life in Candy Crush?
I’ve heard the game is addicting.
After the first few requests I blocked the app, but maybe I could finally give them a life. The company reports that approximately 12 million users spend an average of $17.32 a month. I’d be willing to buy a life or power up or whatever it’s called for each of them for one month.
9) Fritter away the remaining funds on unnecessary objects ($152.2 million)
Earlier this year, Oprah raised over $600 millionauctioning off some of her most prized possessions. She decluttered and went back to the basics. Oprah is a billionaire but for her, less is more.
Now that I have completed this exercise, I can honestly say, I would have a hard time spending a billion dollars.
Yes, my fiancé was right.
Now I challenge you. Could you really spend one billion dollars? How would you do it?
Was it a fun exercise to try to find ways to spend money?
How are you spending the money you have now? Would your spending habits changeif you had a billion dollars?
FAQs
Can you spend 1 billion dollars? ›
How fast can you go through that money? If you were really dedicated, and could spend $20 per second, you could spend $1 billion dollars in 578 days (1 year, 214 days). You're gonna need some caffeine, but you can afford it, so go for it.
Can you spend a billion dollars in a lifetime? ›And let me tell you… it's probably more than you think. If you were given a billion dollars and told that you could spend it at a rate of $1,000 a day, it would take you about 2,740 years before you ran out of money. That equates to $5,000 a day for more than 500 years or $100,000 every single day for 25 years.
How do you explain a billion dollars? ›The USA meaning of a billion is a thousand million, or one followed by nine noughts (1,000,000,000).
What would you do if you had 1 billion dollar? ›You could buy a private island for a lot less than a billion dollars but pour all your wealth into
How long will it take to spend 1 billion? ›If someone then gave you a billion dollars and you spent $1,000 each day, you would be spending for about 2,740 years before you went broke. How many dollar bills does it take to make a stack 1 inch high? Well, we'll give you the answer: 100 dollar bills.
How can I spend 75 million dollars to make the world a better place? ›How to Spend $75 Billion to Make the World a Better Place (2013) by Bjorn Lomborg is a short summary of The Copenhagen Consensus project that got experts in various areas to work out the cost benefit ratios of various forms of aid and then got a panel of economists including multiple Nobel Prize winners to judge them.
How big is a billion dollars in $100 bills? ›Which denominations are at hand? For example, one billion dollars in $100 bills (1 gram each) would weigh 10 tons — approximately 22,046 pounds. If you were to weigh one billion dollars in 50 cent coins (11.34 g each), it would weigh approximately 22,680 tons.
Is $1 billion dollars a lot of money? ›A billion dollars is a number that represents a considerable amount of money. A billion is equal to one thousand million dollars. So, when we say that someone has a billion dollars, we mean they have a lot of money.
How tall is a billion dollars in $100 bills? ›If stacked, the $1 billion in $100 bills would be 10,000 feet tall – imagine 10 Eiffel Towers stacked on top of each other.
How much is a billion dollars examples? ›One billion dollars equals 1,000 million dollars. Large numbers like millions, billions and trillions are critical to understanding many aspects of our modern world. For example: The U.S. Census Bureau currently estimates the world population is almost 8 billion people — 7,868,872,451 to be exact.
Can you spend a trillion dollars in a lifetime? ›
It would take you more than 2,700 years to spend a trillion dollars, if you spent one million dollars every day. And if you had that much and spent one dollar per second, it would take more than 32,000 years to spend it all. Also, a trillion dollars in one-dollar bills would weigh 2.2 billion pounds.
What is the value of 1 billion? ›1 billion in rupees is 10,000 lakhs. 1 billion is a natural number and is given by 1,000,000,000. The number preceding 1 billion is 999,999,999 and the succeeding number is 1,000,000,001. In Mathematics, the numbers can be defined with the help of place value.
How many houses can you buy with $1 billion dollars? ›Buy a house.
If you had $1 billion, by my calculations, you could buy about 1,900 average houses. That's more than one person could live in, presumably, but you could give houses to all your friends and family and still have houses left over for bare acquaintances.
Spend $1 Billion Dollars In 24 Hours or LOSE IT ALL - CHALLENGE
How long does it take to spend 1 million dollars? ›The average American spends $164.55 per day. At this rate, it would take almost 17 years to spend a million dollars.
How long would it take to spend $1 trillion dollars? ›One Trillion Dollars $1,000,000,000,000 - If you spent one dollar per second, in a day you would spend $86,400. Over the course of a year, your spending would come to more than $31.5 million. At that rate of spending, it would take you over 32,000 years to spend one trillion dollars. (A trillion = 1000 billion.)
What is the best way to spend a million dollars? ›- Pay Off Debts. ...
- Keep an Emergency Fund. ...
- Create More Steady Income and Start a Business. ...
- Save for Retirement. ...
- Buy Real Estate. ...
- Invest in the Stock Market. ...
- Give It Away.
If you, and one descendent per generation, saved $100 every day, and each of you lived for 90 years, it would take you and 304 generations of your descendants to save up one billion dollars.
How do you spend $75 billion dollars to make the world a better place summary? ›How to Spend $75 Billion to Make the World a Better Place (2013) by Bjorn Lomborg is a short summary of The Copenhagen Consensus project that got experts in various areas to work out the cost benefit ratios of various forms of aid and then got a panel of economists including multiple Nobel Prize winners to judge them.
How much is 75 billion? ›| Name | Number |
|---|---|
| 75 Billion | 75,000,000,000 |
| 75.1 Billion | 75,100,000,000 |
| 75.2 Billion | 75,200,000,000 |
| 75.3 Billion | 75,300,000,000 |
How much does 100 billion look like? ›
What is 100 billion dollars in numbers? Answer: $100,000,000,000. What does 100 billion look like in numbers? Answer: 100 billion means 100000000000.
What does $1 million look like in $100 bills? ›0043 inches thick. Ten thousand $100 bills equals $1 million (10,000 x $100 = $1,000,000). Therefore, a $1 million stack of $100 bills is 43 inches tall (10,000 x . 0043 inches = 43 inches).
How does trillion look like? ›Trillion is a number with two distinct definitions: 1,000,000,000,000, i.e. one million million, or 1012 (ten to the twelfth power), as defined on the short scale. This is now the meaning in both American and British English.
How does 1 billion look like? ›If you write a 1 followed by nine zeros, you get 1,000,000,000 = one billion! That's a lot of zeros! Astronomers often deal with even larger numbers such as a trillion (12 zeros) and a quadrillion (15 zeros).
How thick is a $10000 stack of $100 bills? ›$10,000. A packet of one hundred $100 bills is about an inch thick. It could be one year of tuition at a state college, one fifth of a decent salary, one month of a great salary, or a wild night in Vegas.
How much is a billion pennies? ›Proudly Pennies is a student-led fundraising initiative to raise one billion pennies, which translates to $10 million by 2013.
How thick is a $20 bill? ›(Our present sized currency measures 2.61 inches wide by 6.14 inches long, and the thickness is . 0043 inches.)
How much money is a rack? ›1,000 US dollars is called a “rack”. 10,000 US dollars is called a “stack”. 100,000 US dollars is called a "brick" or a "honey bun".
How much money can bill Gates give everyone in the world? ›Gates could give every single living person on the planet $15 — and still have $28 billion left over. The world population was 7,874,758,042 as of May 2021.
How much money is in the world? ›Defining 'money' as cash (or cash equivalents), and using the broadest definition of cash (which includes savings accounts), there is approximately $125 trillion in the world.
How can I earn 1 billion? ›
What's the Fastest Way to Make $1 Billion? - YouTube
How many seconds is a trillion? ›Answer: One trillion seconds is slightly over 31,688 years. That would have been around 29,679 B.C., which is roughly 24,000 years before the earliest civilizations began to take shape. Were you surprised by the size of the difference between one million seconds and one billion seconds?
How many years and days is 1 trillion seconds? ›It would take almost 12 days for a million seconds to elapse and 31.7 years for a billion seconds. Therefore, a trillion seconds would amount to no less than 31,709.8 years.
Is there a trillionaire in the world? ›A trillion is such a huge number, followed by twelve zeros. That is one thousand times a billion (nine zeros followed by 1). Do you know that only 6 trillionaires ever lived on the face of earth? As of today, there are no trillionaires who live on earth.
How long would it take to count to 30 trillion dollars? ›Utah state representative Ken Ivory, the chairman of the ALEC Center to Restore the Balance of Government, noted that it would take 32,000 years to count to one trillion, allotting one second per number, which means it would take 960,000 years to count to 30 trillion. That's 3,902 times the age of the United States.
How big is a billion examples? ›A billion is a number with two distinct definitions: 1,000,000,000, i.e. one thousand million, or 109 (ten to the ninth power), as defined on the short scale. This is now the meaning in all English dialects. 1,000,000,000,000, i.e. one million million, or 1012 (ten to the twelfth power), as defined on the long scale.
How much is 10 billion? ›Answer: 100,000 hundred thousands. How many millions in 10 billion? Answer: 10,000 million.
How many millions is 1 billion? ›1 billion = How many Million? Solution: One billion is equivalent to thousand million.
Has a house ever sold for 1 billion dollars? ›Yes, you read correctly, the $1 billion house, that's not Rupee or Yen, that's one billion U.S dollars. India's richest man, Mukesh Ambani, has completed the development of this his new home in Mumbai that currently has an estimated value of $1 billion.
What is the highest price paid for a house? ›With an all-in final closing cost of $141.12 million, the home set a new record for the most expensive residential property ever sold at auction in America –– nearly 50 percent higher than the previous U.S. record for a home sold at auction.
Do billion dollar houses exist? ›
The Word's Most Expensive House: Mukesh Ambani's $1 billion Property. The 27-floor private tower in the heart of Mumbai has been classified as “the most expensive residence in the world” by Forbes magazine. This real estate madness has been built by the boss of Reliance Industries: Mukesh Ambani.
How much is 1billion in Nigeria money? ›1 Billion USD to NGN – US Dollars to Naira
As of today at 10:00AM UTC one billion 💵 us dollars is equal to ₦432,370,000,000.00 (NGN) or 🇳🇬 four hundred thirty-two billion three hundred seventy million naira.
If you were to spend one million pounds a day it would take you 2,740 years to spend one billion pounds!
Can you retire 4 million? ›Is $4 million enough to retire at 65? Yes, you can retire at 65 with four million dollars. At age 65, an annuity will provide a guaranteed level income of $269,200 annually starting immediately for the rest of the insured's lifetime. The income will stay the same and never decrease.
How much money does a millionaire make a day? ›The 30 for 30 Rule: How saving $30 a day will make you a millionaire. I plugged the numbers into my financial calculator over and over, and yet the result was always the same. All it takes to become a millionaire is to save just $30 a day (that's assuming the stock market's historical 7% rate of return).
Can you retire 2 million? ›Yes, $2 million should be enough to retire. Annuities provide an income option to pay a guaranteed amount each month for two lives.
Can you spend a billion dollars in 24 hours? ›Spend $1 Billion Dollars In 24 Hours or LOSE IT ALL - CHALLENGE
Can you spend a trillion dollars in a lifetime? ›It would take you more than 2,700 years to spend a trillion dollars, if you spent one million dollars every day. And if you had that much and spent one dollar per second, it would take more than 32,000 years to spend it all. Also, a trillion dollars in one-dollar bills would weigh 2.2 billion pounds.
Can a million last a lifetime? ›Assuming you will need $40,000 per year to cover your basic living expenses, your $1 million would last for 25 years if there was no inflation. However, if inflation averaged 3% per year, your $1 million would only last for 20 years.
How much would you have to spend a day to spend a billion dollars? ›Suppose you had $1-billion. You could spend $5,000 a day for more than 500 years before you would run out of money. Breaking it down even farther, it means you would have to spend over $100,000 every day for the next 25 years in order to spend $1-billion.
How much is 1billion in Nigeria money? ›
1 Billion USD to NGN – US Dollars to Naira
As of today at 10:00AM UTC one billion 💵 us dollars is equal to ₦432,370,000,000.00 (NGN) or 🇳🇬 four hundred thirty-two billion three hundred seventy million naira.
One billion dollars equals 1,000 million dollars. Large numbers like millions, billions and trillions are critical to understanding many aspects of our modern world. For example: The U.S. Census Bureau currently estimates the world population is almost 8 billion people — 7,868,872,451 to be exact.
How can I earn 1 billion? ›What's the Fastest Way to Make $1 Billion? - YouTube
How tall is a trillion in $100 bills? ›And more importantly, when the U.S. government is talking about a trillion dollars, that is the system they are using. With that out of the way, let's get to our calculations. This packet is a stack of one hundred $100 dollar bills. It's about 6" by 2-1/2" by 0.43" high.
How many years and days is 1 trillion seconds? ›It would take almost 12 days for a million seconds to elapse and 31.7 years for a billion seconds. Therefore, a trillion seconds would amount to no less than 31,709.8 years.
Is there a trillionaire in the world? ›A trillion is such a huge number, followed by twelve zeros. That is one thousand times a billion (nine zeros followed by 1). Do you know that only 6 trillionaires ever lived on the face of earth? As of today, there are no trillionaires who live on earth.
Can a married couple retire on 2 million dollars? ›Can A Couple Retire On 2 Million Dollars? Yes, $2 million should be enough to retire. Annuities provide an income option to pay a guaranteed amount each month for two lives. Once the first spouse dies, the annuity will continue to pay the same or a reduced amount for the remaining surviving spouse's lifetime.
How much do I need to retire at 55? ›Experts say to have at least seven times your salary saved at age 55. That means if you make $55,000 a year, you should have at least $385,000 saved for retirement.
How much money do I need to retire at 50? ›Individuals aiming to retire by 50 might need to accumulate 75% of their current annual income for every year they expect to be retired, Due says. So if a worker has current income of $100,000 a year, and is planning on a 35-year retirement, he or she would need more than $2.6 million by age 50.
Is $1 billion dollars a lot of money? ›A billion dollars is a number that represents a considerable amount of money. A billion is equal to one thousand million dollars. So, when we say that someone has a billion dollars, we mean they have a lot of money.
How many houses can you buy with $1 billion dollars? ›
Buy a house.
If you had $1 billion, by my calculations, you could buy about 1,900 average houses. That's more than one person could live in, presumably, but you could give houses to all your friends and family and still have houses left over for bare acquaintances.
Which denominations are at hand? For example, one billion dollars in $100 bills (1 gram each) would weigh 10 tons — approximately 22,046 pounds. If you were to weigh one billion dollars in 50 cent coins (11.34 g each), it would weigh approximately 22,680 tons.