Pay off my parent's debt, retire them, pay off my own, spend my days reading comic books and messing around in Blender. Stay at my cheapish area, have my parents sell their house and move to a bigger one. Travel more since I'm near an airport. Avoid anything too expensive and live mostly the same lifestyle so it doesn't run out. Invest in the safest thing possible since at 5 mil youd be making 6 figures a year letting it sit.

Pay off debts. Invest the rest structured in trust funds for my kids. I don’t got many years left. I’d rather they get it while they’re young enough to enjoy it and not let it all get siphoned away by the “end of life” care system in America.

pay off my parents house, and fix up the stuff weve neglected. finally upgrade my ram lol

Pay off a bunch of debt. Invest the rest.

It's a boring answer, but it's true. I've had a stable financial situation rug-pulled from under me three or four times already in my adult life. I'm sick of it.

I don't even want to be financially stable for my own sake. I want to be able to tell my kids yes when they ask to eat at McDonald's more than once a week. I want to be able to help everyone I know who needs it. I want to be able to pay for my wife to fly back home to her grandma's funeral without worrying about if I need to sell a car to pay for it.

I'll tell you what I'd do, man: ten chicks at the same time, man.

Pay off the house I live in, put 100k in trust for each of 4 family members, buy a much larger house and hire a paid staff of 3 and 1 volunteer and make it into a free shelter for single mother victims of DV and their children, set up a trust to pay for the education of both the mothers and children for the duration of their residence, and probably buy a commercial property so my mother can open a charity shop in it as she's always wanted, and bank the rest for some interest. I'd still keep doing my job because it's not very hard. Maybe negotiate down to 4 days a week.

I'm pretty financially comfortable and so are the members of my family that I care about. I'll be inheriting two houses when my separated parents die, so I'm not really sweating for retirement money.

mm retire i guess and dont tell anybody

Invest in one of the two startup projects im working on

And watch that 5 mil turn into 5k overnight 😎

Leave my country, buy an old decrepit spooky mansion in a non-Western country, and spend the rest of my days pretending to be a ghost whilst using the remaining funds for small acts of charity for the nearest town/village. I wanna see if I can create a legend.

I'm a developer and I love it, but hate the current state of the field. I would quit my job and start my own company. It would be a lot less scarry if I didn't have to worry about making money. I could just make the things I wanted.

Share it with the first person who replied to such a question

Create a non-profit, make music, create a design studio, fund local collectives, invest on my retirement, maybe do a masters degree..

I’d retire.

5 Million? O.K. let's roll.

60K for university education, should be plenty.

40K go to paying various bills for friends and family

100K for various charities

1.8M go to building a non-profit high tech eco commune in Argentina or a similarly climatically stable place with features inspired by FM 2030's book Upwingers in regards to future living

300K go to anti-militarist causes

500K go to various vegan groups

200K go to building school projects in developing regions

1M are invested into a photovoltaic power station from which I will extract a $6000 rent p.a. max with the rest of the proceeds going to a fund for disabled people and disadvantaged youths

Last million:

100K for travels

100K for a communal homelab that provides hosting for FLOSS and anti-conservative politics

200K for hackspaces

250K for unions, they better have some conviction though

350K for cruelty free research on rare diseases

Put it with rest of investments. Wait a year till capital gains kick in then probably retire on interest.

Exchange them with euro.

5mill could pay a lot of poor people to hurt rish people...

I would buy a brick house on top of a forested hill. My nearest neighbor would be a 20-minute drive away.

I would work on my magnum opus of tabletop rpg rules, which I would convert into a video game.

I would commission art and fund the construction of shrines to the four tezcatlipocas.

Fund owl habitat preservation.

I would retire.

I'd buy a moderately nice place in the city I want to libe in, provably 1mil absolute max, depending on property taxes. I would then invest the remainder, ensuring that with relatively stable investments I could live comfortably on the interest going forward, with the interest covering property tax and my expenses.

Put it all on red

Exchange it for Euros

Pay off our mortgage, pay my wife’s student loans, give my parents $1M, buy my sister in law a home to live in rent free, save the rest for my baby girl, 50k invested for all my nieces and nephews, and have another baby.

Immediately invest a million into China directly for Chinese citizenship, then 4 million via wealth management companies so I and my children can live off of dividends for the rest of time in China.

Even 1% dividend monthly on 4 mil is $40,000 a month.

Pay my mortgage and invest

Hire a fiduciary and pay off my debts, which I think currently is just my mortgage.

I wouldn't quit my job straight away. I like my team and I'm learning rapidly having them around.

Travel more, and invest in my hobbies, picking up a couple others that currently are out of reach.

The remaining 14.5 million would grow.

Firstly pay tax. Then donate atleast 30% of remaining amount. Then put remaining amount in mutual funds which can generate better alpha and do work that I enjoy or like and retire when I feel like

Start a vegan commune.

Pay off the house, and all debt, buy a Slate truck and a 30 year old Subaru. Install solar and a battery. Build an Earthship. Buy tools and other supplies at auction. Invest the rest. Shelter those in need. Tip well. Hunker down and prepare.

If the US had universal healthcare then I'd already retire. As is, $5m isn't safe to retire with health issues/needs

I'm moving to Europe.

Get 3 week early access to the episodes of a youtube series

Retire. Don't like my job. Tech is circling the drain.

Other people posted some details but essentially if you're not an idiot you can park that in safe investments and live a happy life.

I get so frustrated when I read about people who like win a few million, blow it on like stupid cars and houses, and end up poor again. Just don't do that.

Move to China

i'd fund a militia to start guerrilla warfare against the bourgeoisie.

No I didn't.

Invest in opening a chain of actually good pizza restaurants in San Francisco.

Own a house, then business as usual

Buy a plot of land with a nice view and construct one of those nifty passive houses. Also get my teeth and knees fixed, put together a nice home lab, and go travelling. Split the surplus between retirement savings and donating to causes I find worthy.

Get set for retirement and give away a few million. I don't need that much money, and it could really make a difference in other peoples lives

Probably the first thing I would do is to exchange them for gold-backed currencies.