Here’s a quick question: what would you do if you were a billionaire for five hours?
This guy did the sensible thing (or at least I’m guessing he did): he reported the fact to the bank.
We don’t often get surprises like that—more often than not, we discover that the bank actually deducts from our accounts (of course, if they deduct by the billions, that’s a lawsuit waiting to happen).
But what would you have done if that were you?
I like his idea of depositing it in an interest-earning account. Nobody knows if the man would have given the interest to charity, but owning a bank account that can earn a monthly, even quarterly, interest of $7M is no joke.
As a matter of fact, a friend of mine and I were discussing what one should do if one actually won (sorry for the alliteration) any of the Philippine Lottery jackpots.
“If you place it in a time-deposit bank account with a 6% monthly interest,” says my friend, “the jackpot prize of P10M can earn you a monthly interest of P600,000.”
And the 10M is tax-free. That’s insane.
That, my friend, is a lot of money. A LOT of money. Now, how to make that 10M—that’s a completely different ballgame altogether.