Saw a photo asking people to choose 3 of 8 hypothetical things offered.
- $10,000 in cash
- Free rent/mortgage for six months
- Perfect credit score
- Unlimited ainline tickets for life
- A brand new home, but can never sell it or move.
- Free groceries for 5 years
- A brand new luxury car, but can never sell or own another car.
- Unlimited medical care for free forever
Saw thousands of comments and wanted to see which one is actually the best to pick.
First off, the no for everyone pile.
Number 7, the luxury car.
Car values depreciate heavily and are improving rapidly with things like electric and self driving.
A $300,000 Lamborghini will be really cool in 2022, but cut to 2032 and it’ll look like something a 19 year old buys on Facebook Marketplace.
Number 1, $10,000 cash
Nice offer, but not worth the other things here.
This is really good for people in crippling financial issues.
Number 3, perfect credit score.
Really good thing to have, but the issue is the only people who’d want this are people with bad credit scores.
If someone is granted a clean slate with a perfect score, they’d like ruin it pretty quickly again. Also, no one in the top 20% of credit scores would take this versus the other things.
Those are the three which I believe no one should take, but here are the ones worth something, just not to me.
Number 5, Brand new home, but can’t sell or move.
Not a lot of info on this one. If it was house in the mountains of St. Bart’s, I’d 100% say yes, but I’d just get house in area the person currently lives in all paid off.
This is really great for someone who is 50+ and has his/her life figured out, but besides that, I don’t really see it holding much value. Obviously the money saved can let someone vacation/travel more often, but feels like too much of a handicap.
Numbers wise, this is the strongest one on the list, because if we went by the average home cost, it’d be a $300,000+ gift that factoring in interest, would save a person tens of thousands yearly.
Number 2, Free rent/mortgage for six months.
This one is probably very valuable to a person living in San Francisco or Manhattan, but the average monthly mortgage payment is $1,487 and the average rent is about $1,100.
To the majority of Americans, this is just not worth as much as the other stuff here. If someone has a $3,000+ a month apartment/mortgage it works, but useless out of that.
Finally, the three I picked.
Number 4, Unlimited airline tickets for life
This is likely the most valuable thing here.
There was a man named Steve Rothstein who in 1987 paid $250,000 for an unlimited flights pass that allowed him to fly whenever he wanted for free, anywhere.
Paid $250,000 for it and flew 14 million miles, costing the airline a reported 21 million dollars over the 25 years he had the pass, before a loophole cancelled it.
The guy saw more of the world over almost any person alive and would just casually do things like go to Maine for a lobster roll, phili for a cheesesteak or even take people as his guests to funerals/weddings they couldn’t afford to go to.
An unlimited flight pass would be a 20 million dollar gift to the right person.
Number 6, 5 years free groceries
The average person spends $387 a month on groceries as a single individual.
That’s $4,644 a year.
$23,220 over five years
Worth more than $10,000 in cash/six months rent.
Less complicated over the house/car deal.
Way better deal over the credit score.
Number 8, Free healthcare forever
Health insurance costs $456 on average for a single person.
After that, copays, deductibles and out of pocket healthcare bills exist.
My dental bills on four root canals and one tooth replacement post insurance came to $15,000.
Just a safety thing to get.
Final thoughts
Thought the question was amusing and found it fun to see literal thousands of people answer a different way.
A little of this is opinion and everything sees worth differently, but I think for 80%+ of people, these are the best options for three things no one is offering anyone.