become own client, developer and architect both. but it probably wouldn't be enough in today's lending climate. last year though, would not have been bad start. enough to finance land purchase and construction loan for small house then sell for 20% - 50% yield. maybe next year will be possible again...
Pay off debt, save a big chunk for my son's college education, then tear down the crumbling garage and turn it into a proper studio building for my poor husband. Those three items would take every penny of $200K, in fact we'd probably end up financing part of hte construction, but having paid off our previous debt we could take on a little more - it's the American way ;-).
I'm with LB. Pay off debt, and put every bit left into a high yeild savings acct. We have decided that even if we did save, we wouldn't be able to afford college for our son, so oh well; besides, the government will probably take up the tab at some point. And Husband will get his proper garage/shop when we build our house - will probably use the interest made on the savings acct to do that.
So are the taxes already paid on the $200k? That makes a difference.
The more I think about it, the more I'm reminded that these days $200k isn't all that much money.
I'd love to do the kitchen remodel (properly), new roof, bathroom remodels x2, finish the landscaping. There goes all $200k and the house is still probably not worth much more than I paid.
Would love to just pay off the mortgage. There goes damn near the whole $200k.
Could put the whole thing in a royalty trust (highest yield I know of) and earn about 10%, but that's only $20k/year, less taxes. Not near enough to retire on.
Not enough to start doing real estate, at least free and clear of bank loans, which aren't easy to get these days. And that's a full time job to do it right anyway.
Yeah, I'd probably just go to Vegas and blow it all in one hell of a week. Sweet!
I've always been a big fan of the "go to hell" fund -- meaning, a stash of money, conservatively invested and highly liquid, with no particular defined purpose other than to give you the economic flexibility to tell your boss where to stick it if he asks you to do something that goes severely against the grain.
makes for a pretty good "rainy day" fund in uncertain economic times too.
I'm somewhat amazed how posters here are denegrating $200k.
It's a great deal of money and impalajunkie is fortunate to have it available. It may not represent instananeous wealth and it may not be the key to instant riches, but invested wisely and not squandered on unimportant consumption, it can become the cornerstone of true wealth when it's really needed -- the golden years.
impalajunkie - take the long view - get rid of expensive debt and invest the rest wisely.
I would pay off my highest interest student loans (private, newer gov't), but let the ones that are sitting below the interest rate ride. I'd take the rest and put a down payment on a plot of land and a construction loan to build a 2-4 unit green row housing project, # of units depending of course on what land I could find and how much financing I could get. I would not move into my own property unless my housemates were willing to come with, since I've got a pretty low-rent situation going on at the moment and would likely make more by renting a unit and continuing to rent myself than by moving in. Then I'd sit back and watch rent flow in to supplement my income for the rest of my life. Except that if the market conditions were ever right, I might turn it condo and sell the units.
Spend the first 25cents on a call to a finance expert. Or buy as many trampolines as you can and install them in the ground in a giant grid and just jump for joy all damn day long.
paying off your debt makes practically no sense unless you have debt over 5% interest
This is exactly why I distinguished between my higher-rate loans and my lower-rate loans. I've got some sitting at 2.85% that I'm willing to take the full period to pay off, but there are some sitting at 7%ish interest that I'd pay off immediately if I could. Not anywhere near $200k though.
not to go all "oprah's big give" on the archinect boards, but no one has mentioned something that they would do for another person.
i wouldn't advocate giving it all away, by any stretch of the imagination, but there must be a worthy cause - or a worthy person - out there that you know.
a couple of thousand dollars to the right person could very well make a bad situation seem not so desperate.
pump about 75k into existing property (Montserrat) - sell, buy another (Montserrat) - renovate - sell...work my profit up for comfortable living. Take 2 months off each year one in Tobago/Jamaica the other somewhere new. The balance of funds invest in a high yield with annual roll over for a rainy day.
charity as in Bill Gates, Creative Capitalism. where you give money to losing causes to keep people complacent with jobs in the mist of an economic collapse?
find a run down warehouse building in a fringe neighborhood, sign at least a 10 year lease (preferably more), pay who i need to to change the use group and obtain a c of o, gut renovate to loft apartments, give myself the top one with the view, convert ground floor to shop and start furniture side business, make income back from rental units, spend the rest on blow and booze.
kidding on the last part, i'd probably travel where i could and help my folks out on their mortgage so they can retire earlier.
i wouldnt rush to purchase real estate unless you are looking at an area that was NOT hit hard by the real estate correction. but then again if thats the case yr upside for future appreciation might also be limited.
anyhow a lot of people are buying now thinking it is a bottom which it might be but there is still a LOT of potential downside. at worst you wait a yr and you buy in a little higher than now. right now the ratio of real estate price to per capita earnings is historically super high. and its not just in the US, parts of europe are seeing the worst real estate correction in decades.
and stay away from going long in the stock market, we have a long way to go down. we are only 10% off of last year's highs...
right now i am in cash and when the time is right, inverse ETF's.
I guess I'm not very adventurous - I don't have and don't really want an expensive lifestyle or anything remotely close to it.
- set up a small fab shop for me to play in
- pay off existing school loan
- put aside portion for grad school
- put aside portion to pay for niece's college education
so ... impalajunkie ... you're suggesting you're prepared to push the boundaries of the risk/return ratio ... you're willing to throw the dice and risk it all in an effort to get to the top of the heap quickly.
accellerated speed and high rates of return come with a price -- very high risk ... is that something you're comfortable with?
i used to work with two guys who developed strip retail ... their first few projects were succesful ... they put quite a lot of money in the bank ... by then, they thought they were bulletproof ... on their 4th project they thought their future was secure and they paid too much for the land ... they quickly ran up against the 1990-1992 real estate downturn ... the bank eventually took over the project and each of those guys had the fun of writing the bank a personal check for $1,000,000 so the bank wouldn't come after them personally. neither one of these guys is in the real estate business any more.
what goes up quickly can just as quickly come down. the real estate field is littered with the bones of those who didn't understand, or couldn't stomach, the risk involved.
ha...$10+ million does not count as "very" rich in my humble opinion...at a minimum you'd need a private jet or mega-yacht to qualify and $10 million does't get you very far in those categories
I know people that have private jets and 80+ ft. yachts but have a net worth less than $10m.
the appearance of wealth through 'toys' does not mean that person is actually a high net worth individual. Less than 5% of Mercedes Benz drivers are millionaires.
i like mdler's idea of purchasing art ... seems to me that many of the great art collections began by people finding unrecognized talent and purchasing their work. it's unlikely that this would reap you a great financial gain anytime soon, but it might be fun ...
Let me ask you something, when you come into work on monday, and you're not feeling that well, does anyone ever ask you if you have a "case of the mondays"?
stick it in a high yield cd, then when the timing is right... down payment on a home... live there, build up equity with renovations... sell it or rent it out...
and then buy a cool unfinished space in the city, design and build it out as a nice urban loft home / art studio space... live there and do some work out of it...
I wonder about the validity of saving any sum of money these days for more than a year, because if interest doesn't keep up with inflation doesn't that mean your money is just getting less valuable over the long run?
if you had $200,000 cash/free money, what would you do?
seriously. no jokes. no dumb posts. no google image link inserts.
brainstorm. be creative. be profitable. create your retirement and your dream?
start a company? how? what idea? how to utilize the money? what your estimated profit in what time frame?
buy/sell/rent/develop real estate? what region/area, why, and how do you think it'd turn out?
pay off debt? is there a smarter way to use the money (as in making money WITH money) instead of just using it to pay off debt?
invest into stocks or mutual funds? doesn't this seem like a slow return to you?
how would money help you achieve what you want or desire?
lets start a dialogue.
im just curious and anxious to learn, and talk!
thanks.
real estate.
become own client, developer and architect both. but it probably wouldn't be enough in today's lending climate. last year though, would not have been bad start. enough to finance land purchase and construction loan for small house then sell for 20% - 50% yield. maybe next year will be possible again...
Pay off debt, save a big chunk for my son's college education, then tear down the crumbling garage and turn it into a proper studio building for my poor husband. Those three items would take every penny of $200K, in fact we'd probably end up financing part of hte construction, but having paid off our previous debt we could take on a little more - it's the American way ;-).
I'm with LB. Pay off debt, and put every bit left into a high yeild savings acct. We have decided that even if we did save, we wouldn't be able to afford college for our son, so oh well; besides, the government will probably take up the tab at some point. And Husband will get his proper garage/shop when we build our house - will probably use the interest made on the savings acct to do that.
vacation home. I'd like to design/build a family vacation home. Realistically, though, $200k is not enough to buy good land.
So are the taxes already paid on the $200k? That makes a difference.
The more I think about it, the more I'm reminded that these days $200k isn't all that much money.
I'd love to do the kitchen remodel (properly), new roof, bathroom remodels x2, finish the landscaping. There goes all $200k and the house is still probably not worth much more than I paid.
Would love to just pay off the mortgage. There goes damn near the whole $200k.
Could put the whole thing in a royalty trust (highest yield I know of) and earn about 10%, but that's only $20k/year, less taxes. Not near enough to retire on.
Not enough to start doing real estate, at least free and clear of bank loans, which aren't easy to get these days. And that's a full time job to do it right anyway.
Yeah, I'd probably just go to Vegas and blow it all in one hell of a week. Sweet!
I've always been a big fan of the "go to hell" fund -- meaning, a stash of money, conservatively invested and highly liquid, with no particular defined purpose other than to give you the economic flexibility to tell your boss where to stick it if he asks you to do something that goes severely against the grain.
makes for a pretty good "rainy day" fund in uncertain economic times too.
that's really not a lot of money...but i could make it work by moving to mexico with my family and start building homes.
I'm somewhat amazed how posters here are denegrating $200k.
It's a great deal of money and impalajunkie is fortunate to have it available. It may not represent instananeous wealth and it may not be the key to instant riches, but invested wisely and not squandered on unimportant consumption, it can become the cornerstone of true wealth when it's really needed -- the golden years.
impalajunkie - take the long view - get rid of expensive debt and invest the rest wisely.
travel the globe.
I would pay off my highest interest student loans (private, newer gov't), but let the ones that are sitting below the interest rate ride. I'd take the rest and put a down payment on a plot of land and a construction loan to build a 2-4 unit green row housing project, # of units depending of course on what land I could find and how much financing I could get. I would not move into my own property unless my housemates were willing to come with, since I've got a pretty low-rent situation going on at the moment and would likely make more by renting a unit and continuing to rent myself than by moving in. Then I'd sit back and watch rent flow in to supplement my income for the rest of my life. Except that if the market conditions were ever right, I might turn it condo and sell the units.
diversify!
Spend the first 25cents on a call to a finance expert. Or buy as many trampolines as you can and install them in the ground in a giant grid and just jump for joy all damn day long.
Donate towards paying for a clutch job on a Ferrari for some poor Ferrari owning soul who's down on their luck.
This is exactly why I distinguished between my higher-rate loans and my lower-rate loans. I've got some sitting at 2.85% that I'm willing to take the full period to pay off, but there are some sitting at 7%ish interest that I'd pay off immediately if I could. Not anywhere near $200k though.
invest in something that would pay back of increase in value
not to go all "oprah's big give" on the archinect boards, but no one has mentioned something that they would do for another person.
i wouldn't advocate giving it all away, by any stretch of the imagination, but there must be a worthy cause - or a worthy person - out there that you know.
a couple of thousand dollars to the right person could very well make a bad situation seem not so desperate.
anyway - my $0.02
real estate.
pump about 75k into existing property (Montserrat) - sell, buy another (Montserrat) - renovate - sell...work my profit up for comfortable living. Take 2 months off each year one in Tobago/Jamaica the other somewhere new. The balance of funds invest in a high yield with annual roll over for a rainy day.
meta
who is giving 6% on savings accounts right now???
quizzical-
i wasn't asking for advice i was just genuinely curious to get people perspectives and ideas.
i've been following the real estate track, buy-design-build-sell-repeat, working on getting together a retail strip now.
I'm with Gillespie on this. Whatever happened to charity?
Two hundred grand would 1) do a lot of good for one or many people in desperate need, and 2) get you title to a chunk of Karma the size of Iceland.
mdler
my credit union gives 6% interest on my checking account (up to 50,000$) it is called rewards checking
3 requirements
make 14 ATM transactions a mo
check your statement on-line (no more mail)
and get payed back for up to 40$ in atm fees
well that last one is more of a bonus than a requirement to get 6% interest
charity as in Bill Gates, Creative Capitalism. where you give money to losing causes to keep people complacent with jobs in the mist of an economic collapse?
karma is supernatural? Iceland is shrinking...
find a run down warehouse building in a fringe neighborhood, sign at least a 10 year lease (preferably more), pay who i need to to change the use group and obtain a c of o, gut renovate to loft apartments, give myself the top one with the view, convert ground floor to shop and start furniture side business, make income back from rental units, spend the rest on blow and booze.
kidding on the last part, i'd probably travel where i could and help my folks out on their mortgage so they can retire earlier.
i would buy some art...I have always thought it would be nice to amass a collection and then let the public see it
i would definitely blow it on booze and blow, but in a display of charity, i would share the booze.
my ING aint givin' 4.5%
i wouldnt rush to purchase real estate unless you are looking at an area that was NOT hit hard by the real estate correction. but then again if thats the case yr upside for future appreciation might also be limited.
anyhow a lot of people are buying now thinking it is a bottom which it might be but there is still a LOT of potential downside. at worst you wait a yr and you buy in a little higher than now. right now the ratio of real estate price to per capita earnings is historically super high. and its not just in the US, parts of europe are seeing the worst real estate correction in decades.
and stay away from going long in the stock market, we have a long way to go down. we are only 10% off of last year's highs...
right now i am in cash and when the time is right, inverse ETF's.
slow and steady wins the race...
slow an steady will make you wealthy over a long period of time.
but what if you want to be VERY wealthy, as in $10m+? You have to accelerate your income and returns somehow!
i'd open a bar
I guess I'm not very adventurous - I don't have and don't really want an expensive lifestyle or anything remotely close to it.
- set up a small fab shop for me to play in
- pay off existing school loan
- put aside portion for grad school
- put aside portion to pay for niece's college education
all investments would be through Wu-Tang Financial, of course!
so ... impalajunkie ... you're suggesting you're prepared to push the boundaries of the risk/return ratio ... you're willing to throw the dice and risk it all in an effort to get to the top of the heap quickly.
accellerated speed and high rates of return come with a price -- very high risk ... is that something you're comfortable with?
i used to work with two guys who developed strip retail ... their first few projects were succesful ... they put quite a lot of money in the bank ... by then, they thought they were bulletproof ... on their 4th project they thought their future was secure and they paid too much for the land ... they quickly ran up against the 1990-1992 real estate downturn ... the bank eventually took over the project and each of those guys had the fun of writing the bank a personal check for $1,000,000 so the bank wouldn't come after them personally. neither one of these guys is in the real estate business any more.
what goes up quickly can just as quickly come down. the real estate field is littered with the bones of those who didn't understand, or couldn't stomach, the risk involved.
good luck, my friend.
No, charity is in helping out people less fortunate than I.
if you want to do charity try Food Not Bombs
quizzical-
yes im ready to risk it. I'm 26 years old, if i lose a crapload of money i have a very long time to make it back.
i do appreciate you sharing your experience with me though! I am cautious to cover my butt, i'll definitely do my homework.
Good suggestion, Anti.
Buy a new bicycle while you think this over.
ha...$10+ million does not count as "very" rich in my humble opinion...at a minimum you'd need a private jet or mega-yacht to qualify and $10 million does't get you very far in those categories
I know people that have private jets and 80+ ft. yachts but have a net worth less than $10m.
the appearance of wealth through 'toys' does not mean that person is actually a high net worth individual. Less than 5% of Mercedes Benz drivers are millionaires.
Read the book Millionaire Next Door.
GP: I could spend a lot of money on a bicycle...
#1 car of millionaires is F-150
i like mdler's idea of purchasing art ... seems to me that many of the great art collections began by people finding unrecognized talent and purchasing their work. it's unlikely that this would reap you a great financial gain anytime soon, but it might be fun ...
Those F-150's go through clutches like crazy! Who I ask. who, will pay for all that clutch work?
Realistically what I would do if someone dropped 200g on me right now? Probably drop it in a high-yeild CD until i could figure out to do with it.
I'll tell you what I'd do, man: two chicks at the same time, man.
That's it? If you had a million dollars, you'd do two chicks at the same time?
Damn straight. I always wanted to do that, man. And I think if I were a millionaire I could hook that up, too; 'cause chicks dig dudes with money.
Let me ask you something, when you come into work on monday, and you're not feeling that well, does anyone ever ask you if you have a "case of the mondays"?
stick it in a high yield cd, then when the timing is right... down payment on a home... live there, build up equity with renovations... sell it or rent it out...
and then buy a cool unfinished space in the city, design and build it out as a nice urban loft home / art studio space... live there and do some work out of it...
I wonder about the validity of saving any sum of money these days for more than a year, because if interest doesn't keep up with inflation doesn't that mean your money is just getting less valuable over the long run?
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