Terry Kahn, an Indianapolis man who worked for the Veterans Administration for 30 years, must have pinched every possible penny in order to amass the millions of dollars he had at the end of his life, CBS News reported. With no immediate family members to leave the money to, he decided to give it all away to charity.
Kahn did not leave a will, so it was up to his attorney, Dwayne Isaacs, to figure out who would get the money. Isaacs went about calling local charities and asking them, “What would you do with $1 million?,” said Emmy Hildebrand, CEO of Helping Veterans and Families, an organization that was among the recipients of the funds. Some of the other recipients included Teacher’s Treasures, a non-profit that supplies teachers and schools with much-needed school supplies at no cost, and Coburn Place, which provides safe housing and other support for survivors of domestic violence. Of course, some local charities were in disbelief and did not listen any further to the offer, missing their chance at the pot of gold.
It makes sense that this offer was hard to believe. Who would expect to one day get that call? People often think or joke about what they would do if they won the lottery or inherited a truckload of money, but what if it really happened? What if you really received a call with someone asking you, “What would you do with $1 million?”
Non-profits or other businesses regularly have strategic plans for how they would spend the grant dollars or donations they seek each year. They devise well thought-out budgets with staffing costs, administrative costs, and operational needs. I am sure the recipients of the funds knew exactly what to do with the money and were beyond thrilled that someone was finally standing at their doorstep ready to hand over those much-needed dollars.
The whole scenario makes one wonder how a VA employee was able to save up that much money in the first place. As the cost of living rises from year to year, and there is always a new thing to buy or even a home repair to fund, how could one man have saved millions of dollars? Isaacs told CBS News that Kahn was incredibly frugal, driving the same Honda and living in the same home on the south side of Indianapolis for years. He did not even have a cell phone due to what he considered to be an unnecessary expense.
Depending on the level of education, a man in the U.S. is projected to make between one and three million dollars over an average lifetime, according to the Social Security Administration. For the average woman in the U.S., her average lifetime earnings are expected to fall between a half million to just under two million dollars, with varying ranges based on the education she attained. These statistics indicate that many of us are given the chance to find out what we would do with a million dollars. Though it may take our whole lifetime, we do have the chance to use the money we earn to show what matters to us.
Choosing to save millions of dollars only to give it all away seems counterintuitive to the typical American lifestyle. Was there not a yacht available for purchase? Giving away that much money to charitable causes who support people that are essentially all strangers, says so much about the giver. As hard as it is to believe, it seems that Kahn valued other people’s needs ahead of his own wants, or maybe he just did not want much at all. Perhaps, he was someone who truly enjoyed a simple life and gave away the money just because, in the end, you can’t take it with you.
As we consider how we divvy up our own pot of money, however much or little it may be, the choices we make show our values. Whether we spend our money on family, shopping, travel or education, we are all currently spending our million dollars. We are not required to save every penny, nor must we give it all away. Outside of paying taxes, no one is telling us what to do with our money from day to day, but our daily financial decisions show what and who we value.
