May or may not have solved half of my life problems with a $5 scratch card ealier tonight :inshallah-script:
500k isn't going to make the revolution come any faster. Save your money. Take care of yourself. Make sure it's not going to disappear in a few years. Get your education and investments sorted out. Use the breathing room to read and develop your politics. Then when your money is making money, sit down and think about who you want to support.
This was my thought. 500k, while a lot of money, isn't even "never work again" money. It's more like a good safety net if you lose your job. I guess I don't know anything about investment, maybe a smarter person than me could spin 500k into "never work again" money. I think I'd need something in the 2-4 million range to feel comfortable not working a day job. Then again, maybe a more frugal person than me could make it work.
Regardless, 500k definitely isn't "jump start a revolution" money.
maybe a smarter person than me could spin 500k into “never work again” money.
You mostly can't. 500k is life changing money, but the best you could really do is probably something between "retire 20 years early" and "only work the next 10 years".
OP should use 10k to 30k as a downpayment on a mortgage, up to 10k for things like a laptop, 5k as a downpayment on a car (if OP didn't already have good versions of those), pay down all outstanding credit card debt, and put the rest in diversified assets like stocks etc.
OP could use the 500k to be resilient to layoffs, and to start an early retirement. Now is a good time to plan your life out tho, to max out the utility of the 500k. Buy a $50k to $150k house in the middle of nowhere, instead an equivalent home costing $400 near a place with jobs. Then get a remote job. The threat of homelessness is now 10+ years away, instead of "this weekend", so can you often hold out for a better employment opportunity. Make sure fiber internet is available, or fast enough internet, even if you have to get an expensive business plan with $10k "last mile installation fee", so you can actually qualify for the remote job.
Now you can also start a leftist podcast/youtube channel. You basically would have at least 2 years of runway to churn out content before you really need a patreon/sales to cover your monthly expenses.
OP should use 10k to 30k as a downpayment on a mortgage, up to 10k for things like a laptop, 5k as a downpayment on a car
Why would you buy stuff on credit when you can buy outright? It's just giving extra money to capitalists. And 10k for a laptop? I'm budgeting 2k-2.5k for a PC that I hope to have for a good long while.
Living in the middle of nowhere is a terrible idea, unless you have a very clear plan for living off the land and enough people to do it with. Humans are dependent on other humans to live, and in this age that means accessing markets. I wouldn't live more than 10 miles from a sizable town (20k+).
Why would you buy stuff on credit when you can buy outright?
why would you pay off a loan with a interest rate that is probably much lower than what you can get from a variety of mostly safe investments?
And 10k for a laptop?
"things like a laptop", plural, possibly not even a laptop
Agreed to do those things, except you don't have to wait until they're all done. Set a budget of an amount you're comfortable and willing to contribute monthly or yearly.
Don't tell anyone. Seek legal counsel. Find a structured way to support a cause you like over time. A local one one would be good.
Just a consultation shouldn't be very expensive. You'll probably need the services of one anyway if you want to work out an agreement for sustaining support for a food bank or something.
onward towards a communist revolution, one flipped house in the burbs at a time
Literally pay an effective activist 60k a year to do whatever they think is important.
Buy a house, put it in a land trust, lease it out on a 99 year lease well below market.
Bankroll an effective activist group.
Aet up a mutual insurance plan that covers tickets, bail, loss of housing, loss of job, so that comrades can organize with a safety net.
Establish a permaculture farm that gives the food to a free groceries program run by comrades.
Create a library for things other than books: tools, seeds, mills, lathes, 3d printers, bikes, camping gear, meeting space
Buy a house
Aaaand you're out of money.
I do like the Idea of bankrolling activists
OP can use 10k to 30k as a downpayment, use the rest to float, also avoid expensive houses/expensive areas, if you don't mind permanent unemployment because no jobs there's plenty of places with good sub $150k houses.
:this: We can't quite do a communism without wiping away the current system, we probably won't be the ones to do that it's going to happen though in one form or another and the best thing we can do within the imperial core at least is this, mutual aid and mass line tactics to catch libs as they become alienated as the system itself unravels. If they don't have anywhere else to turn we will see well off libs, cops and fascist paramilitaries fully merge into a new state that can much more easily supplant the existing one as their goals are more in line than with the people that will be on the receiving end of the resulting violence.
We are desperately in need of demonstrating practical alternatives.
But seriously if you've hit it big get some financial education. Even the slimy financial consultant your bank likely offers is better than nothing. Making the money work for you is going to have much more of an impact than blowing it in a few years.
For example, interested in a house? It's almost certainly better to take out a loan than to pay cash.
If you seriously won this large sum of money congrats, but you're not going to implement anything close to world communism—500k isn't even enough to retire on in the states. Pay off any immediate debts, take out like 10k and spend it on junk and shit you want, and then sit on the money for at least a few months. I would highly recommend going to a fiduciary financial advisor (one that charges a fee rather than a percentage of your invested assets, you'll get better and more importantly unbiased advice) to figure out your goals with this kind of money. Depending on your age, invested properly 500k is more than enough for a great retirement, and in the meantime you can take low stress jobs that cover your cost of living without having to worry about saving for the future since that 500k will grow to 2 million or more over 20+ years. I highly highly recommend not spending any of this except for that little initial amount to blow off the steam of winning and going to see a financial advisor as soon as possible. Congrats comrade!
Sign up to my Marxist-Leninist-Maoist (MLM) organization and I’ll teach you how to become your own boss
take care of yourself, invest as much as you can, read more theory since you have some more free time
My first suggestion is if you don't have housing that you own, take care of that first. Use what you have after to do things people suggested here
