Some people play the lottery “because it is fun to dream.” I’ve never really liked this whole “pay for the privilege of dreaming” thing. I can day dream about being rich just fine without 649’s dreaming fee.
Something I’ve done a number of times in my life has been to sit back and seriously consider what I would do with my time if I was financially independent – rich enough to not have to work, but not so rich that I’d be out buying exotic cars*. After I have a few things listed, I figure out how can I do those in a limited way now, while still working and not yet being gloriously rich.
One of the things I’d love to do if truly gloriously rich would be do buy up as-yet-undeveloped land around my town and turn it into conservation / low-environmental-impact recreation areas (ie hiking and bike trails). Now, without tens or hundreds of millions of dollars lying around, I’m not going to be buying any plots of land any time soon. But, there are organizations doing exactly that, and I can support them.
I’ve rebalanced a bit of my spending, spent some time researching which charities are effective (Charity Intelligence is a good place to start), and am now donating monthly to Nature Conservancy Canada. I’ll never be able to point to a plot of land and say “I saved that”, but I do get some satisfaction knowing that I’m doing something towards a cause I care about.
I’m not posting this here to say you should support NCC, or any charity for that matter. I’m posting to say: if there’s something you’ve been putting off, look at how you could do it now. It’s amazing how many Big Dreams have smaller can-do-today alternatives.
* And for the record, I’d totally own an exotic car or two if I could. Instead I have a motorcycle; much of the same fun, smaller package.