A few weeks ago, while we were having our Valentine’s Day dinner, my husband asked me what I would do with my money if I was extremely wealthy. I said, after buying a modest house and modest car and setting enough aside that I could live comfortably off the interest for the rest of my life (so I could write fiction full time), I’d participate heavily in charitable actions. But not by actually giving money to charities, instead I’d keep my eye out for news stories like this one, where society has either let someone down or a family has stumbled upon a patch of insurmountable bad luck and I would anonymously give them the money that would once again improve their quality of life. As I explained, that would be a million times more meaningful to me than some stupid $10,000 handbag or a lot of the other dumb things the tremendously rich waste their money on.
