$1M is the gold standard of wealth but what does one million dollars look like?
Yeah, it’s a good question. Most people will never see $1M so let’s discuss.
And best of all you can’t talk about what something looks like without SHOWING what it looks like. So blamo. I made an infographic!
We will look at what $1M will buy you in the 4 most interesting topics known to humanity.
What does one million dollars look like in rockets?
You can fly to the moon and back 5 times with $1M of rocket fuel.
Quick side note:
Joining the millionaire club isn’t that hard once you know-how.
Or if you already have a million dollars I can show you how to spend it.
Well, actually right now you can’t but SpaceX is on a warpath to make space travel affordable. The fuel to go to and from the moon is only $200,000 so you can make a few trips with $1M.
At present, you can’t get nearly that much mileage per dollar right now since rockets aren’t reusable and they cost a lot. But once SpaceX figures that little snag out. Off we go!
What does one million dollars look like in cash?
Have you ever wondered if the values carted around in briefcases in movies is realistic? It is!
Well, I worked it out!
Conveniently for my calculations, all bills are the same size and measure 6.14” x 2.61” x 0.0043”.
Even more conveniently, there is a whole system for carrying around huge wads of cash.
Currency Straps. They are even color-coded based on internal bills so you can quickly add up huge piles of money. Super cool!
I have plenty of money but I don’t think I’m ever going to need to buy one of those. Who has that much cash!?!? (Full disclosure: I knew a construction foreman who carried insane amounts of cash on payday).
So great we know the size.
If you stack up a pile of 1 dollar bills it’s 358 ft tall! Wow? How big is that?
It’s bigger than the statue of liberty!
She’s only 311 ft tall. 311 ft of immigrant freedom welcoming glory but nonetheless, smaller than a stack of $1 bills.
Then if you follow that through to the inner dimensions of a briefcase it fits easily in $100 bills.
Most importantly, it fits in the special metal movie briefcase everyone seems to have.
The zero Haliburton!
Yes, every villain has that for some reason and it fits a bit over 1M$ (actually can you work it out). It’s 18”x4”x13” so it actually fits 13,583 bill inside. I’ll take off 20% since I don’t imagine everything fits that nicely and you can fit $1,086,640 in hundreds! Yay movies are legit!
The briefcase costs almost $600 and can come with a payment plan so… I don’t know what’s up with that.
Definitely not a good use of your $1M if you have it.
What does one million dollars look like in gold?
Gold is kind of like cash, so what does one million dollars look like in gold? Surprisingly little!
Gold is worth a lot per oz.
It is also very dense.
So one of those gold bricks from the movies is incredibly expensive!
This was a bit of a wormhole to look up since there are apparently many types of gold bars. The stereotypical bar is called a good delivery bar and is worth a whopping $683,804.00!
It’s also a 25lb brick!
So if you ever see a villain hauling gold out of a bank, they are making big money!
If you kept the dimensions of the good delivery bar right and shaved off the top to hit $1M it would only be 2” tall! Neat!
What does one million dollars look like in houses?
Obviously you will get a lot of different mileage in the country regarding what one million dollars looks like. But I’ll use a state average just to make things semi-reasonable.
Where I live $900K will buy you a teardown on a detached lot. Gross right?!
So what does a million dollars look like? Somewhere nice, like Hawaii. Well, the average house in Hawaii is $636,451. That’s a lot for an average. Do they have a middle class over there?! Either way it’s beautiful. Lucky them? Maybe not, too expensive, I’ll just visit.
What does one million dollars look like in Burritos?
The all important metric of burrito weight. I love burritos but I don’t know what I would do with OVER 9 DUMPTRUCKS.
Your standard chipotle steak burrito is $7.50 and 17oz
If you wanted to spend your whole $1M on burritos (I really wouldn’t blame you) you would get a lot. 141,666 lbs of burritos.
The number ends in 666 so I assume that’s a sign that this is not a good idea but if you love burritos like I do you can power through that 666 to some guacamole glory.
Why did I use the $7.50 burrito when I could have bought more chicken ones? It’s simple. Steak is tasty and it will help my article not get dated. In 2023 when burrito prices have skyrocketed (invest in burritos?) I’ll just change the word steak to chicken and all will be well.
Also I couldn’t have made that Vegeta reference!
Anyways. That’s a lot of burritos. How are you going to carry them? Dumptrucks! Your average dumptruck can carry 7 tons.
Which voila is 9.4 dumptrucks of burritos.
Even though I’m tempted, I won’t order this many burritos. They won’t fit in my driveway! See you on the FIRE escape.
And now, the most important question. What does one million dollars look like to you?
TL;DR – What does one million dollars look like?
- just read the infographic!
- Over 9 dump trucks of burritos!
