I think we all have some form of this list, even if it's just vague "pay off the debts, nice house, nice car, world cruise" thoughts which occasionally drift by when we pay the bills.

Some of us, though, have detailed, written lists of exactly what we'd do with half a million dollars... or ten million... or ten billion. (Mine currently goes up to just under one trillion US dollars - I have some plans for global infrastructure investment.)

At assorted logarithmic levels, some of my entries are:

Four figures: repair the car or get a replacement second-hand one; get some minor repairs done on the house.

Five figures: superannuation; fairly new car; shed full of tools and making-stuff toys.

Six figures: pay for the nephew's future education; pay off mortgage or buy moderately nice house.

Seven figures: buy rather nice house or have one custom-built; cautiously invest in some minor product ideas I have; some donations to various conventions and fan works; minor philanthropy.

Eight figures: send money to many artists whose work I have enjoyed for free over the years; invest a little more in some longer-term product and service ideas; medium-level philanthropy; pay for three fulltime professional music production studios - one to follow filkertom around, one to follow seanan_mcguire, and one to occasionally give the other two studios a couple of days off, because otherwise they'd be working 24/7/365 just to keep up.

Nine figures (top 1000 richest people in the world): six-figure grants to various scientific, educational and medical institutions; small investments in new inventions.

Ten figures (top 40 richest people in the world): establish a couple of foundations and funded think tanks for the progress of science, education, and really cool stuff; investments in bringing disruptive technologies to market; buying and distributing stuff from Dean Kamen and people like him.

Eleven figures (top 200 companies in the world): attempt to tilt global policy at least a couple of percent in the direction of improved education and general access to basic resources for the majority of the world population; politically influence repairs to things like educational and IP systems.

Twelve figures (top 20 companies in the world): invest in long-term high-cost projects like new energy resources; see if something can be done about boosting general interest in space again.

Thirteen figures (approx GDP, top 10 countries in the world; global annual international trade): pay off all global international debt. Could also cover the cost of the Iraq invasion, but where's the fun in that?

Fourteen figures (GDP China/USA/EU, global GDP is about 14.8): really only thrown in for comparison; feel free to speculate.

(I can speculate assorted business plans which might end up producing eleven to twelve figures maximum; beyond that I'm not really sure. Such a project would probably be world-notable, but not necessarily world-shaking unless there were deliberate moves in that direction.)

So, what things would YOU do with Lotto levels of money?