You just got $5 million — but you can’t tell anyone. What now?

r/

You suddenly receive $5,000,000 (or the equivalent in your country), tax-free — but you’re not allowed to tell anyone about it. Not your friends, not your family, not even anonymously online. How do you spend it without raising suspicion?

Comments

  1. Skxawng_3600 Avatar

    I don’t spend it at all. I put it in a high interest bank account, collect the interest and live off of that, probably alone.

  2. mltrout715 Avatar

    Pretend to go to work, spend normally

  3. YourMothaWasAHamster Avatar

    So if I put it in the bank, does that mean I told the bank and I lose?

    If I buy a house for 1 million, does that mean I’ve told the people I bought the house from?

  4. Atticus_Johnson Avatar

    I don’t tell anyone but some of my side projects/hustles “hit” a little bigger than before and I’m set.

  5. OldManTrumpet Avatar

    I’d add it to my retirement portfolio and just carry on as before. With a little less stress. No one would ever notice a difference.

  6. manchvegasnomore Avatar

    I just live my life. Small extras and vacations I could get away with.

  7. Cinti-cpl Avatar

    Start a plumbing service company and always be “busy” no one ever really asks the details of your day lol

  8. Mironin Avatar

    Pay off all my debt and continue to work. Eventually quit and build a woodshop somewhere. I’m not allowed to tell people, doesn’t mean they can’t figure it out.

  9. The_Caffeine_Fairy Avatar

    The boring answer is to prudently invest it and carry on as normal.

    The real answer is to use it to hire people to fill your best friend’s bathtub with rubber ducks every time they leave the house using the spare key they so naively entrusted to me.

  10. realnrh Avatar

    So basically you’d like to know how to launder money.

  11. Glittering_Time_9040 Avatar

    I just put it all in savings and live off the interest. Ill tell my family i got a job, ive been out of work for a while, then spend time away from home every day to keep up appearances until I find actual work. When i eventually decide to buy a house nobody will suspect anything as I’ve been making good money for a while.

  12. Mykkus_65 Avatar

    Pay off house. remodel and buy new truck. Far as they know it was a heloc. Get chiller job and leave the rest in the bank. I have private fuck you money. Build a helluva bourbon collection.

  13. nathan1653 Avatar

    I can’t tell my wife? Going to make it complicated

  14. MrEndlessMike Avatar

    Put it in an HYSA, live off of interest and pretend to go to work. Probably sleep in my car. Man, I love sleep.

  15. TheWholeCoat Avatar

    Inverse ETFs. It’s gonna be a rough year anyway.

  16. sapphirekiera Avatar

    I’d pay off my debts and my house, then create a savings/investment account and put the 5 mil there. I’d transfer out like…one or two grand each month, in smaller amounts and add to the main checking accounts. I handle the finances in my house, and I’d just tell my husband I got a raise or something. I think I could get away with it for awhile!

  17. WeakAfternoon3188 Avatar

    Tell everyone I got a remote, stay at home job paying 100,000 a year. Working 5 days a week. This would allow me to purchase almost everything I would need to get to retirement.

  18. theawkwardcourt Avatar

    Pay off my student loans and mortgage. Paying off my loved ones’ debts would be trickier to do without explaining anything about where the money came from, but I might just be able to get away with saying I’d saved those sums some other way? Put the rest into a diversified index fund. $5 million isn’t so much money that it requires or even invites extravagant spending.

  19. Intermidon Avatar

    Just continue my life as normal, but I’m about to be finding some amazing deals online.

  20. healthyqurpleberries Avatar

    I’m not gonna generate good ideas to spend illegal money

    Edit: at least not for free

  21. NotEnoughBoink Avatar

    “I won 4 million everyone!”

  22. No_Personality_8245 Avatar

    Put the cash away, make a very nice living from the interest rates and tell people you do some cash with crypto.

  23. hitchinpost Avatar

    The hypothetical doesn’t say I have to hide it. Just that I can’t TELL anyone. So, I give it all to my SO, tell them I can’t talk about it, and trust them to trust me. The rule about telling people doesn’t apply to her, so she can do whatever she wants with it.

  24. whatdoidonowdamnit Avatar

    I’d be perfectly fine not telling anybody. I only live with my children, and they’re not quite old enough to question my finances. They only ask if I have cash on me when they want to buy churros or something while we’re out and about, since I usually don’t.

    But this is what I dream about. Winning the lottery or something so I can set my kids up for the future and send them to college.

  25. BusyVegetable42 Avatar

    Invest it, quit my job, and pretend to keep working. I could easily live off of the interest and reinvest it.

  26. MrPuddinJones Avatar

    Could I just not go to the casino and “win big” and then share?

    Or ?

  27. FictionsMusic Avatar

    No one would be suspicious even if I got a house and paid cash. No one is watching what I do enough or cares

  28. Drakahn_Stark Avatar

    I just spend it however I want without telling anyone.

  29. Unlikely_Effective72 Avatar

    I wouldn’t have told anyone anyways, and only thing I would buy would be a house really.

  30. jrh1524 Avatar

    Pay off the house, invest the rest, live normally

  31. stckhmjndreddit Avatar

    At $5 Million I invest it and keep working normally maybe retire 10 years before I would have otherwise and if anyone sake say I made some really good investments.

  32. PurpleAcceptable5144 Avatar

    My family already doesn’t understand my job. All i have to do is slowly upgrade my life and tell them I’m doing really well and being promoted at work. Easy peasy.

  33. officiallytimothy Avatar

    I’ll just say I went 4 million instead since we’re not allowed to tell anyone that we got 5 million

  34. Hot_Republic2543 Avatar

    Invest it and pay bills with it. Get a few nice things but nothing extravagant. Help some relatives who need a little. Just get used to that money being there because you can run through $5m quickly if you just go wild.

  35. martyrees76 Avatar

    If I got $5 million I wouldn’t be telling anybody anyway!
    Especially my wife. I’d pretend to go to work, but just relax somewhere. Read a book, watch a film. Every so often I’d pretend to win some big cash amount. Pay off the mortgage. Let the wife spend my “winnings” but keeping most of it safe somewhere

  36. Frosty_Piece7098 Avatar

    Invest it, talk to a wealth manager. I might work another few years and I’ll come up with a story for why I quit.

  37. Potential_Stomach_10 Avatar

    Go by the vacation home we’ve been looking out for the last couple of years. The rest goes into some type of safe investment

  38. rhyza99 Avatar

    So, OP, did you miraculously receive $5M and are now seeking advice without breaking the rules?

    No need to answer. We know what’s up.