Today is National Be-a-Millionaire Day. The premise of the occasion is to encourage people to start saving and investing now, so that one day they might have a million bucks or more.
If, at the age they are now, the sixth graders in my class could somehow save a couple of hundred dollars a month, they would be millionaires by age 50 (assuming an average 10% return on their investments), but the question of the day today was, What would you do with a million bucks?
We listened to The Barenaked Ladies singing If I Had a Million Dollars for inspiration as they considered their replies, and I was a little bit surprised and moved at the number of kids who would give a lot of the cash away to charity or people in need. Many would choose to save it for college, or give it to their parents or family. Of course some would use it for games or clothes or cars, but in general, it seemed like that amount of money was too large for most kids to even imagine spending it all on themselves.
"I really wish a million dollars would fall into my lap!" one student sighed at the end of our conversation.
"Yeah, but it would probably break your legs," said his buddy, not really joking. "Especially if it was in coins."
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