But the one I was most surprised about was how many people chose the perfect credit score. When they did, every time, the explanation was that if they had that, they could afford all the other things. It's just a fun game that is not realistic, but I do wonder in this theoretical offer whether you are guaranteed to keep a perfect credit score or if it only resets now and could still go down later.
It sort of reminds me of Homer's monkey paw, where he would wish for something but always get some cursed side result that he didn't expect.
How many of those people wishing for good credit wish for it because they have bad credit? But why do they have bad credit to begin with? Well, that's a misleading question, as nobody starts with bad credit. You can start with no credit, but not with bad credit. The thing is, everyone can have perfect credit. You just have to be careful what you buy, and when you do buy something pay it off. If you had perfect credit and bought a bunch of stuff you couldn't pay for, you're just going to lose it.
The car and the house both end up on the same road as the perfect credit. If you're buying something that you can never sell, that's always going to be a bad deal, especially if you can't ever own another car? At all? Even if that one gets in a wreck? In 20 years?
Free rent for 6 months and $10,000 could end up being close to the same, depending on where we are living. I'd be tempted to have the 6 months rent be in Hawaii or New York City or Barcelona. I could totally live in Amsterdam for 6 months. But either of those would be burned through pretty quickly.
Free groceries for 5 years would honestly save us something like $60,000. By the end of the 5 years, most of the kids would be out of the house, and it would be saving us less.
I think the only options that make any sense are the two truly unlimited ones. Unlimited airline tickets would be more useful now, although could continue being useful even when we're old. Unlimited medical care would be less useful now while we're all pretty healthy, but it has the potential to skyrocket in the long run. It would take some self-control to choose the free medical care, since we don't spend much on it now.
If I didn't have the self-control to pick the medical care one, the best combination of options would probably be the brand new home, along with unlimited airline tickets. If the home is paid for, who cares if I can't sell it. I'm assuming there is some choice in terms of how big or nice it is or where it is located. If I have no house payment, and I can fly anywhere anytime I want, that's a pretty good vacation every 2-3 months, with free airfare and a couple thousand dollars to pay for hotel or a cruise, which is freed up from not having a house payment.
Yes, forget old me and my future medical needs - free house and airline tickets it is!
