If you won this amount of money, what would you do with it?

[Neomldn]

A close friend of mine recently won £50k as part of a competition she’d entered. Naturally I was hugely for her and asked if she’s thought about what she might do with it. I could only dream of having so much spare cash and can immediately think of a million and one things I’d want to do with it, yet my friend tells me she has absolutely no idea what to spend it on and will likely keep it for some time before deciding.

So my question is, if you had a spare 50k, what would you spend it on? Sensible or otherwise, I’m genuinely intrigued!

I'd pay off my car loan and my student loan. Then use it to sort out my kitchen (it's quite a big job because of the age of the house).

£2k on clearing debts
£5k decorating the place
£10k on driving lessons for husband and I and a second hand car
£5k on an amazing holiday
£11k on a gastric sleeve op
£2k on teeth braces
The remaining £15k in savings

Put an ensuite into the master bedroom, replace the windows, redo driveway and patio. Anything left over to stick in the holiday pot.

We have no mortgage (used as inheritance from Mum to pay ours off) so I think I would use some of it to get our kitchen done up and then go on a holiday of a lifetime type thing. And then I’d be quite boring and put whatever is left into savings.

Clear a credit card, driving lessons, trip to Disney Land, save.

We need quite a bit of work done on the house - new windows, new carpets, new fencing - so boringly it would mostly go on that. Anything left over would go on a holiday and/or into savings.

Every penny towards the mortgage.

I'd give my partner £10K, put £25K into savings which I would then use for my horse to go to a retirement yard for a few years which would be amazing. And with the £15K left go on a few nice holidays or a couple of luxury cruises for me and my partner.

Buy a house I've seen, but can't afford so I can get out of my rented damp hovel.

I'd pay off debts around £3k, pay for DD to do a crash driving course and buy her a car/mot/tax/insurance and then likely the rest would be tuition fees and my DD living at university until it ran out because she probably wouldn't get the loans etc if I had that sort of money in the bank.
Be money well spent though as she'd not have as much student debt when she's qualified I guess.

I'd be happy with £50 at the moment 🤣

10k holiday for big birthday
20k home improvement pot
20k long term savings and/or mortgage.

I agree that your friend is being very sensible. It's a tricky amount of money really - not life changing but enough to do something substantial with.

I think I'd probably use some of it for an amazing family holiday and invest the rest with a view to paying down the mortgage when it's due for renewal in a couple of years (currently on quite a low fixed rate so it'd make more sense to invest rather than pay off now)

And I'd love a small pet owl as per a PP.

£20k to see my son through his MFA. £10k on redecorating the house. £10k for my best friend and me to take our long awaited trip to India. £10k into the holiday pot.

Use most of it towards buying a house, save 5k or so for a rainy day.

This saying 50k isn't a lot of money...to some of us it would be life changing.

I'm a newly single parent with no chance of getting a big enough mortgage to buy somewhere. So I'm stuck renting for god knows how long now, money down the drain.

Just to say If this dilemma does impose itself on you in RL, the assessment for student loan is on your household income, not savings. It does include interest on savings but if you know of any account that will give a high enough income on £50k to preclude a student loan please tell us immediately 😉

Nice holiday, pay a chunk off the mortgage and maybe put £5k - £10k away as a savings buffer.

I’d clear all our debts, buy something for each of my kids, and then save the rest in a good savings account. Having money keeps you having money. Savings stop you being poor, but it’s so so so hard to build the savings when you’re poor!

I would buy myself a car and go on a weeks holiday. I would put the rest away as savings.

I'd take a year off work and be a stay at home mum.

A new secondhand car and the rest would go into the mortgage. And I'd upgrade my open fire to a woodburner.

Just moved house and have a long list of things we need to do.

I'd get new windows, new kitchen, new boiler and new bathroom. We'd have some change from 50k which I'd put in a maternity leave fund as we want to TTC in the new year.

50% for holiday, treats etc and 50% off the mortgage.

Rewire for the house - about 3k I think?

Replace knackered double glazing upstairs - 2k.

New boiler - 2k.

New bathroom (nowt fancy, just hate ours and it's old) - 6k.

New kitchen cupboard fronts (carcasses are fine) and new fridge - about 2k.

That's 15k. The rest I'd shove into the mortgage - 35k is roughly a third of our remaining mortgage so a decent chunk.

Boring! And not life changing in an obvious sense, but would be lovely.

I am 53 so it would go into my early retirement planning (I could perhaps use it to live off day to day while putting more salary into AVCs and save tax). Without looking into it in detail, £50k would probably let me retire at least 2 years earlier than I can currently afford.

Alternative would be to support ds(18) more through uni and reduce his debt burden or encourage him to reduce the 20hrs PT work he currently does evenings/weekends so he can focus on his studies more.

Holiday then house deposit