If you could add a zero?

[FlayOtters]

Shamelessly posting here for traffic - interesting hypothetical question came up at a work event last night:
"If you could add a zero to any number in your life, what would it be?"
I eventually settled on my salary but answers ranged from 'number of languages I can speak' to 'number of years I'll be alive' and 'number of weeks annual leave I get'
So.... where would your 'zero' go?

I have fantasised about that more than once 😄 If I could put my house and garden somewhere like Crouch End, Barnes or Belsize Park it would be like winning the lottery.

To my savings/investment pot, so that I could help my kids to buy property.

Salary - it would give me time to enjoy all the shit I’ve worked like a fucking dog for…

I'm on a small pension, so upping that from around £1K a month to £10k would do me nicely thanks! Haven't had a holiday in 8yrs and have always fancied a cruise......

It would be income. Definitely.

Love this thread! It's interesting to see how you start off thinking monetary/personal benefit and then swing towards loved ones/humanity after reading some of the really touching responses.

If it could be absolutely anything I'd go for something that would contribute to peace / global health (Miss Universe over here 😂) like number of countries with truly humanitarian leaders, or number of cures for life threatening illnesses.

Salary as I could retire very early on that. Days leave is tempting as I would actually have to retire at all as I wouldn't actually work but salary wins as would be able to do loads of nice stuff with all the money.

I guess adding a 0 to house price would mean I could sell and retire early but no one would buy a house for that much. We only have a normal 3 bed terrace but it would then be over 3m so never happening!

And you couldn't quite manage to work out OP meant to the "end" of a number, given all the context clues? Poor comprehension or just a bored, lonely, pendant?

OMG yes, this!

The number of good days I have a month.

I have a chronic illness and lately have had back to back flare ups, so going from maybe 2 good days a month to 20 sounds like a dream!

My height so I could be really tall and crush my enemies.

No, I’m self employed so if I could keep my clients I’d add a zero to my hourly rate but I feel like that’s cheating so I’ll just say the value of the hosue.

🙄there's always one

Absolutely the number of properties I own. One to 10 is a big leap and I could sell 9 of them.
That would be far better than a zero on my salary.

Days I actually take leave. I officially have the days. Just never feel like I can take them. (My last actual almost holiday was 2017, but real holiday was more like 2011 (despite all that went wrong).

I'd be wary of adding multiples of 10 onto my life or that of my loved ones unless I was able to have very specific terms and conditions attached which guaranteed good health and independence right up until the end. Living for ever won't be fun otherwise. Not to mention that adding 10x onto someone's life could be tricky unless they've the financal means to support themselves for that long.

Salary seems the obvious answer for me. All the other things like adding it to annual leave/house value/pension value wouldn't be worth the same as the money I'd be able to save by working for a few more years with 10x my salary.

Nah. If you own 10 properties and sell 9 then that means paying CGT. Much better to have the one property worth 10 times as much and sell that tax free quickly before mansion tax comes in.

Salary. £480k PA would be rather nice thanks very much 👍 I’d pay off the house ASAP (probably within 5 years), add massively to savings, then go part time for about 5 years before retiring at about the age of 55/56.

My house value.

Salary. It would take me from just about 6 figures to just about 7. One year of that even after stonking amount of tax I would pay, I would be able to double my pension pot and retire into luxury.

And start adding a 0 to my number of cats, holidays, charity donations etc.

I think I might go for number of hours in a day. With the proviso that this didn’t affect the passage of time in any other way. So it wouldn’t mean that I’d live 10 times longer; it would just allow me to fit in more stuff.

I'd add a zero into the number of square metres that is currently woods/fields, or at least not built on, maybe with a tiny % of that to build high quality roads. Not only would it be beneficial for wildlife, health and wellbeing but the country would seem a lot less crowded! Presuming no comparable population increase.

Can't seen to go anywhere at weekends or school holidays without everywhere being so busy.

People saying salary - you realise you’d then still have to work it’s not a great choice unless you love your job. I’d go for house value then I’d have millions to retire with

That’s the thing about saying we’d add a zero to our houses. In the real world, technically, we all could add a zero to our house tomorrow, but it won’t sell for that. But we can’t just add a zero to our salary.

This. Not losing anymore precious time from my family. My youngest was a baby when covid was brought home from school.

If I can't add it to my savings, I'd add it to the number of wild, free orangutans in the world.