I was going to say a house by the sea… but it probably wouldn’t be my first purchase. Instead it would likely be:

1. Pizzas
2. A salad
3. Booze
4. A video game
5. Clear my own debts, while also setting aside money for friends and family’s debt.

A new laptop and that's it. No need to make dramatic changes in my life, I'll keep the rest of the money stashed so I can live comfortably and not have to worry about financial troubles.

First I'd buy my own house from the bank. Next I'd buy each of my neighbor's houses going out three or four blocks and gift them to them, with the option to stay or move at any time in the future and sell them back to me at market rate. If they sell it back to me, take the cash and move, I put the property up for sale to the lowest bidder - ie, I would offer them to local families who needed it most, selling them for literally pennies.

I would then start gifting large amounts to local schools, with the rider that it has to go towards increasing salaries for all existing staff first, followed by creating a floating fund for supplies and meals so that no teacher or family in need ever had to buy them out of their own pocket.

After all that I'd start commissioning giant bronze statues of my favorite fictional characters and plopping them down on undeveloped land in the area, then building parks around them.

Near one of these parks I'd build a great big classically-styled movie theater that plays classic films for three bucks a ticket. Operating costs would be paid for from a fund set up to keep the place open and running indefinitely, with all ticket sales to go to local charities.

1. Surgery, fixing my phisical disability with the best doctor money can pay.
2. Instruction, get the most forward education to be sure my future is safe even without money.
3. Buying house, investing in a second as well.
4. Hire someone to make that money a machine to keep earning more.
5. Take a luxury trip around the world for some years.

A new house for my aging parents with no stairs.

$500,000,000? I would probably donate like 475m at least cause I'm not a fucking monster that would hoard the level of wealth. Then live more than comfortably off the money you get for having money until I die and pass that fountain of youth on to another family member.

1. Pay off current debts (est. 350,000 with my mortgage)
2. Build an elaborate gothic/victorian mystery mansion with hidden passages and various other secrets in a remote mountain location overlooking a small town (Budget 5-10 mil)
3. Setup accounts for managing my remaining funds for investing for return, various investments in small companies I personally like, donating to charity, and for living off of. All of these account should be setup in such a way that they can persist after my death without a defined next-of-kin (not really a purchase but I'm still spending money so w/e)
4. Continue to exist for a while, then hire a professional assassin to kill me in a very particular way I will have detailed ahead of time (est. Idk however the fuck much assassins cost)
5. The person who is able to piece together the clues I left behind in the wake of my murder will inherit my fortune. (note: this does not necessarily mean "solve my murder". I suicided by assassin, that'd be a boring answer.)

As for the "why", the only answer I can give you is because I would find it fucking hilarious

A house close to nature with a big garden for the kids and plane tickets to Europe to visit my parents with our 5 months old.

I'm enjoying this mostly because of how many people are reading it as $500,000.

Retirement accounts for myself and people close to me so we can live off the interest. Then probably a bigger house and a bunch of old cars

Well, I'd definitely get the lawyers and CPAs to make sure that bag is secure and protect my family's privacy as much as possible. After that...

• I'd hire a high-end architect to renovate my home.
• I'd hire a personal trainer to help my family get really fit.
• I'd buy a big vacation for our extended families.
• Buy a less family-friendly vacation for our friends.
• ~~Hire a therapist so I don't go insane.~~
• There's a small, vacant movie theater in my town. I'd buy it and get it up and running again.

Let's see. Kinda lame, but I will go get me some hardware. I want to get into self hosting and woth that much money, I'm going to order a high-end Synology NAS, but first I'll buy a house for my parents to live in (so I will have that hpuse as the postage address, duh), and set aside enough money to cover all of my living expenses at University plus some extra. Look through my options for starting a business or investing them, and if a business seems like too much work, I'll get a relatively small investment portfolio of about 50 Million, to cover all of my living expenses for life, which at a stable 3% annual dividend would get me about 1.5 Million p/a or just over 100k monthly. Of the rest, I'm leaving 225 Million for myself to try creating some businesses, invest in companies, organisations and projects that require it (1 million to the GNOME Foundation, 1 Million to KDE, 1 Million to XFCE, 5 Million to the team behind Cinnamon and Linux Mint, 1 Million to the Elementary OS team, 1 Million to the Nix and NixOS Project(s), 5 Million to Debian and 5 Million to Arch).
That leaves me with 205 Million of which I would like to use 5 Million to try out some businesses, see if anything works out, 100 Million to invest in making the Best Linux distribution for New users under a Company, with these resources giving me the ability to make something truly great, and to market it, to rival Microsoft, and to get Linix on the desktop to where it really needs to be, both for home users and enterprise users. That leaves me with 100 Million which, after all of these projects, I should hopefully be aware how to use to become a Venture Capitalist, but not for some profit-driven companies, but rather companies which respect a user's privacy and right to repair. Now, If you did the Math, you might have realised I still have about 225 million left. Of these 25 Million to my parents, to do with them as they wish (likely invest them and retire immediately) and 200 million for various environmental causes, because we really are killing the planet.

To actually answer the question:

Actual Purchases:

Synology NAS

Other Hardware, such as:

An M2 Mac Mini for its power efficiency,

A Framework Laptop for its modularity,

A High End System76 Laptop, to support an awesome company

A bunch of Raspberry Pies (the SBC not the food)

Some actual servers

Non-Hardware:

A house

An investment portfolio

Maybe a company

A lot of donations

200k in a high interest savings account. 100k in stocks and shares. 200k into a property

Well, first of all, I'd throw half of it into that project trying to create open source insulin.

After that: co-ops, co-ops, co-ops, and more co-ops! And some random open source / decentralized projects as well.

Lots of different stock so I can be a proper capitalist living from passive income.

Then see how much of an income that is and adjust lifestyle.

A house or nice apartment in this town. Private school for kids. Great bicycles. Still no car. BahnCard 100 for every family member.

Reinvest and donate the rest.

Don't. Tell. A soul. I can't deposit the money for obvious reasons, so there isn't much I can do. I could try money laundering.

Assuming it goes straight to a bank, and my security isn't an issue, I'm giving away 300m away to charity, environmental research, and family. I'll get someone to help me invest my money, because I know nothing, and use it to kick start a business or YouTube channel.

Sorry, can't really tell you 5 specific purchases I'd make with it.

First Thing? Putting aside stuff that would come first by being a technicality such as food I would have ordered anyway: Probably a Server Rack. I already have a Server but I made the mistake of using a regular motherboard which is biting me in the ass rn as I don't have as much RAM available as I'd like to.

Probably wouldn't change anything until I graduate.

I'd do a bomb-ass charity donation this winter for my local charity Christmas gift drive through. Probably dress up like Santa Claus to go turn them in too.

Edit: oh also I'd obviously pay off all my parents debts, (house, cars, etc) and set them up with 10-20M for retirement so they can just start now. And I'd pay for my siblings' college funds and set up trusts for them and any of their potential future kids so they have financial security for the rest of their lives. There's also some cool teachers and other folks I'd set up for life too.

I'd pay off all of my debts leaving about $200k left, and then I'd buy some small toys probably totally less than 10k, I'd renovate and repair my house a bit which would probably be another $30k. The rest would go into investments and some into checking for snowboarding trips next winter.

Half a billion? Put down a deposit on a house for my kid. He's turning 17, he might be able to pay it off in his lifetime.

:cries in Australian:

1. I would go on vacation to Hawaii with my entire extended family
2. I would establish a trust for my kids
3. Buy a cabin on a lake
4. Buy a nice boat
5. Give a big chunk to charity, specifically to help people in Venezuela

1. My own island
2. Engine swap, lift kit and two sets of new wheels for my truck

I don't know what else. Tools, building supplies.. maybe a backhoe. I basically already own everything I want.

Houses for the kids, a new truck, annuities for the kids & grandkids, remodel kitchen, a new porch.

New car for the wife. Something flashy and fun that she would never buy for herself since the Toyota probably won't die for at least another 10 years.

I would buy a helicopter, and hire a back country pilot to fly me to every mountain peak and glacier in my area

Probably pay off the condo. Maybe do some upgrades.

Travel with my wife somewhere for a 2 week long vacation.

Throw the rest in savings.

Fancy vacation, new clothes, an electric car, a big house and a warehouse for miscellaneous projects. Just a little celebration first and then get myself set up for the future.

• A nice house (preferably just barely outside the range of a strict HOA neighborhood so I can break all their rules and not have any repercussions and also so I don't gotta live in an apartment or rental home no more)

• Pay for the next quarter of college (so that I don't have to worry about financial aid and whether or not I have fucked up on that)

• A ref sheet commission for my fursona from my absolute favorite furry artist (because I just want one)

• Using the ref sheet, I'd commission a very expensive fursuit from a maker that does premium high quality fursuits (again, because I want one)

• Upgrading my computer and laptop for both school and for every day use would also be nice as well since I'd finally be out of the macrohard ecosystem and into the Linux ecosystem (unless I need windows for something in which I'd have a sandboxed VM running a heavily pre-modified copy of win10)

Buy Reddit and Remove the Powers of Mod.

House for me, homes/gifts for close family, maybe a nice laptop as well for work and gaming, stash the rest of it on a safe investment to live off the yield without worries.

i mean uhhh, id buy an island so all my friends can live together happily and whatever money is left id make non profits to fight global injustices

First five? I'd blow all I'd spend in one. A small farm. The rest would be saved.

I know I'll never realize that dream, but it's the only one I have left.

Hmm…a decent sized house, maybe 4 bedrooms. Electric car and corresponding electrical hookup. Solar power for the home with battery backup. I think all told that brings me to 5 things.

Between all those, I would have dramatically decreased my cost of living and I would have plenty left over to save back.