A million dollars. Technically, the definition of "millionaire" varies with each local currency, but a million dollars is "the" goal for many people. There are different ways to determine if someone is truly a millionaire or not, however, let's imagine the subject has a million clean dollars in their bank account. What could they buy around the world with that money? Depending on the region, they could become a local cattle emperor... or live in an 8 by 8 apartment.
Every time someone asks me what I would do with a million dollars, I give the same boring answer... and that is that I would try to retire. I imagine our readers must be thinking: "Lisandro, you can't retire with a million dollars," but note the word "try." Would I succeed? I estimate the process would require moving to another country with much more favorable costs and interest rates. And believe me, those costs change. The rankings of the most expensive cities in the world repeat year after year, and to tell the truth, we don't see big shifts. Despite its terrible reputation, New York is not the most expensive, but rather it appears in the ninth place. The city-state of Singapore is the one that puts the most pressure on your wallet, followed by Hong Kong and Zurich. If we want our million dollars to stretch as far as possible, maybe we should distance ourselves from those cities...
It's no exaggeration: According to the information presented in this video, a million dollars isn't enough to buy a 70-square-meter apartment in New York. Let's raise the stakes a bit: How about a private island? Unfortunately, there aren't many offers within that budget, but if you're willing to move to Belize and do some cleaning, Sunset Caye is yours for $945,000. A boat, then? No, if we've learned anything from those fake TV shows with auctions and pawn shops, it's that boats are black holes, and a million dollars barely buys a yacht from 2001.
Castles in Scotland cost more than a million, and then require a fortune in maintenance. What if we just drink that million? Well, I don't know about the whole million, but a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon Screaming Eagle from 1992 has been sold for $500,000. Changing the scene, anyone who wants to place some bets on the possibility of achieving immortality can pay $200,000 to the Alcor Foundation for body cryonics, and add four family members for the full amount. In summary: a million dollars buys us many things. Now, the question is... How do we get it?
