If I had a million Dollars

You know, I sing that song a lot. A REAL lot. Like almost every time I go to any store other than the grocery or gas station. Even the dollar store. As I've said before, Hubby is a pilot. He flies the little puddle jumpers for a regional airline. Many pilots make insane amounts of money (ex. captain for FedEx STARTS somewhere around $200,000.00). Some make really great (ex. Captain for Delta starts at $120,000.00). Regionals make . . .um less. Captains still do ok. First officers . . .get there. I've surprised more than one person when I tell them that Hubby made less his first year than my sister did her first year teaching. Seriously. Less than a teacher. We've gotten great raises each year, but he's only been flying for 3 years. In other words, we are not rolling in dough (except for sugar cookie, but that's only because I use them as bribes to get my son to use the toilet. Anyway. Moving on.)

Our budget is often tight, which is why I sing that song. I spend 95% of our money on necessities, like toilet paper and milk, 7% on almost necessities, like pancake mix, and 3% on extras, like Christmas presents, Halloween candy, or gum. (I don't know why, but I've honestly been craving gum for weeks now.)

Wow. I'm really rambling here. I promise I'll get to the point. Today, I sang this song for the 10 billionth time, I thought, "What would I do with a million dollars, really". So now I'm here to answer that question.

This assumes that I inherited a whole bunch of money or something, and taxes have already been taken out. It also has a bunch of rounding to make easy math, and a lot of estimates that I don't really have a clue how much it would cost in reality.

#1. Pay tithing (100,000) Remaining: 900,000

#2. Pay off all debts (mortgage, student loans, credit card) (195,000) Remaining: 705,000

#3. Buy a car for hubby (yea for 2 cars!) (7000). Remaining:698,000

#4. Set aside a nice chunk for each kid, with some extra for future ones (150,000). Remaining: 548,000

#5. Fix our really sad pathetic fence (5000). Remaining: 543,000

#6. Buy real bedroom furniture for our room. (4000). Remaining 539,000

#7. Decorate the kids room with real furniture and accent pieces that don't look like crud (3000) Remaining: 536,000

#8. Fix my sad outdated bathroom (2000). Remaining: 534,000

#9. Change out my yucky lousy flat top in my kitchen with a real stove + fix the pealing wall paper, scratched linoleum, and new dining table. (5000). Remaining: 529,000.

#10. Buy a freezer and a whole bunch of food storage (3000) Remaining: 526,000.

#11. Um. Er. Buy some warm clothes for my boy (100). Remaining: 525,900.

#12. I've honestly got nothing. As of 4:35 October 14, that's really all I would want to get. Most of the things on my list will happen, but not as quickly as I'd like. But there's a few fluff stuff on my list that I don't need, which I'm learning to just deal with. I guess I don't really need a million dollars to be happy. I could get everything I want for less than 500,000. And everything I really need with a trip to Goodwill.

Some days it really helps to put it all in perspective.

What would you do with a million?