Amulet Coin Money Challenge 2017

This week I ended my third decade of moving around the sun.  I am now 30 years old, and my biggest concern about turning 30 is whether I need to change my age in the Rockstar Finance Blogdex.  There’s a huge debate in my head if it will smokescreen my potential future audience from finding me, but that’s a discussion for later.  (Although, if you have an opinion, please voice it in the comments below or on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. ;))

I wanted to start a new tradition to celebrate the beginning of my new year and I came up with the Amulet Coin Money Challenge!
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This challenge originates from me thinking about how most of my personal finance related stress manifests from my inability to use my money the way I want to.  Whenever I get a large sum of “extra” money, my debt, savings or investing usually extreme speed the paycheck before I can use it the way I want to.  The Amulet Coin Money Challenge is a super training exercise that ignores speed and lets me think about what I want my priorities to be for my money.

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​How It Works
Let’s imagine that I was just given a specific amount of "Amulet Coin Money."  The amount of Amulet Coin Money is the exact total with taxes and other fees taken out first.  The charm of Amulet Coin Money is that I must spend it in one year or the rest must be return.  This means I cannot save it, invest it in stocks, bonds or retirement, nor use it to pay off any debts.  For the inaugural Amulet Coin Challenge, I want to start at $1 and go through the first seven powers of 10.
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Let's see how I would spend the Amulet Coin Money this year?

Amount: $1
This is an easy one, because I already do this.  I would give my $1 as a donation to the BiRequest discussion group I attend at the LGBT+ Center in New York City.

Amount: $10
Another easy one.  I like to use $6 to buy myself lunch at work and donate the leftovers to BiRequest.

Amount: $100
At first, I thought I would take a day off work to work on my design portfolio, but then realized that for $100 it doesn’t make sense to lose a day’s pay when I wouldn’t finish it the same day anyhow.

So instead, I think I would use the money for just going out to dinner with some friends and buy some art books from movies, tv shows, and video games to add to my collection.

Amount: $1,000
As of today, I would use about $750 to enroll in a small business class at FIT.  That would cover instate tuition, books, and materials.

After completing the class, I would use the leftovers to start paperwork for registering my design business with the state, purchase materials for a jacket I designed two years ago and never finished or I would refer to my prior answers.

Amount: $10,000
I would start by enrolling in the small business class.  Originally, I thought I could find an office space and start-up my own business, but the rent would cost too much to team up with other start-up costs.

So instead, I would use the leftover $9,250 to take a three-week hiatus from work to design and build five costumes for my portfolio.  Although I would lose approximately $1,800 of wages, I could still use the Amulet Coin Money to pay bills that aren’t debt, savings or investing related which would cover about $1,100.

To physically create the five costumes, I would use about $2,750 for fabrics and materials, $1,000 for a model, $1,500 for a good photographer, and $1,000 for editing.  That would leave a nice $1,900 buffer for other costs that I haven’t thought of and other surprises.

Depending on how much was available after the portfolio shoot, I would like to use the leftover money to buy a better laptop or take another business class.

Amount: $100,000:
I would start by purchasing a professional class laptop, desktop, wireless printer/scanner and upgrade all of the software that I use.

Then I would start researching how to produce my own production based on Shakespeare’s play, Two Gentlemen of Verona.  I adore a concept I used when I designed the play as a class project in graduate school and I really want to see it come to life.

In order to produce this play, I would want to hire a writer, director, designers, running crew and actors.  I would like to rent the theatre for at least three weeks, for at least a six-show run.  Hopefully, I would earn some real money back from the ticket sales and shadow sneak it towards my debts.

Amount: $1,000,000
My fiancé and I have been talking about this one a lot lately.  I would buy a three-bedroom apartment in our current neighborhood.  The closest three-bedroom apartment is about $740,000, but there is another one a couple subway stops farther for $500,000.  Then use the leftovers based on my earlier answers.

Using the Amulet Coin Money to purchase an apartment would be wonderful.  We would no longer worry about paying rent or a mortgage each month and could redirect that money towards other financial goals.  With a three-bedroom apartment, we could each have our own office and they could easily transform into children’s bedrooms as they needed to.  At this current moment, our careers are based in New York City and this Amulet Coin bought apartment would easily buy us five to eight more years here to ingrain our roots in the industry.

Now Use Reflect
Something I find interesting about this exercise is that it seems to point out I would like my money's speed priority to be working on my career, although I am also thinking about our future family.

So much happens over the course of the year that affects how I see and use my money.  I wonder what changes the next year will bring.

Let’s Chat:  How would you use $1,000,000 in Amulet Coin Money?

Further reading:
Rockstar Money Challenges- Rockstar Finance