Go ahead and look over my shoulder if you want to, I'm just working on my list -- what I would do if I had $300 million dollars.

First of all, I would take care of me.

I would pay off my house and get a couple new cars ($300,000). I'd put in a batting cage, buy a new motorcycle and a pair of four-wheelers ($20,000).

I would like to buy a cabin somewhere for about a million. I would like an awesome stereo system for the office in my house ($10,000).

It might be fun to randomly stuff $1,000 in cash in my co-workers boxes at the office ($30,000), and can you imagine how much fun it would be to leave a $40,000 tip the next time I go to Outback?

I could give UVSC $5 million to build a new baseball field and call it Dave Nelson Field. While I'm at it, I could donate another $5 million to the Provo Angels for their new stadium and call it W. Keith Warner Stadium.

What am I up to now, $11.4 million?

I know what would be fun. I could see if Jazz owner Larry Miller would go for this: I'd offer to pay the entire team's payroll for next year if he would keep former Southern Utah forward and Provo High School star B.J. Chandler on the roster for the 2003-04 season so he could play in the NBA.

That would be about $35 million.

I could buy myself a new wardrobe ($500) and one for my wife ($50,000). I could buy everyone lunch at the new concession stands at Cougar Stadium. If there were 65,000 fans at $10 each, that's only $65,000.

I could hire myself a math tutor ($100) so I could add up how much I was spending, because lunch would be $650,000. Whatever -- $65,000, $650,000, what's the difference?

But now I'm stumped. This is getting tough. I've just got out of debt, bought everything I wanted and had some fun, and I've only spent $47 million and some change. I still have $253 million dollars left.

Fortunately, there is still enough left over to lend Mike Tyson some money.

In case you haven't heard, the most controversial figure in boxing history filed for bankruptcy this week. The estimated $300 million he's earned is gone.

How can someone blow $300 million?

Easy. He had to have a few essentials, like a pet tiger. The care alone for his pet was $8,100 a year.

He spent $410,000 on a birthday party. He should have stock in the phone company he used, because he spent $230,000 on pagers and cell phones.

There was the $65,000 for limousine services and he had to pay the person he hired to answer his mail ($100,000 a year). You didn't expect him to do that himself did you?

Then there was the souvenir he brought back from Las Vegas. He saw a gold chain that he just had to have. Price tag -- $176,000.

The list goes on and on, like the receipt of the family at the grocery store that always ends up in front of me when I get in line. But Mike Tyson isn't the only celebrity to treat money like Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels in the movie Dumb and Dumber.

The tab for Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston's wedding was about $1 million. The flowers alone were more than $70,000 and the big night wouldn't have been complete without a $20,000 fireworks show.

It's hard to tell what Ben Affleck spent on Jennifer Lopez's engagement ring, a rare pink diamond (valued between $1 and $2 million). He also spent $1 million on her birthday and $500,000 in one weekend on a shopping spree.

So what's wrong with people spending money on what they want? It's their money. They earned it. No one gave J. Lo a thing. Remember, she's still Jenny from the block.

Certainly those who strike it rich deserve to splurge. They deserve to live life to the fullest, to reap the rewards of their struggle to the top. This is America.

But I'll tell you what else is America. Last weekend I heard about a Utah couple who adopted an orphan brothers from Ethiopia who were eating grass to survive.

John Huntsman's contributions are well known. With his fortune, he created the Huntsman Cancer Institute. Larry Miller not only built the Delta Center, he gave BYU more than $1 million for the baseball and softball complex, David Robinson, the recently retired center for the San Antonio Spurs, has donated more than $9 million to date for the Carver Academy, a school for underprivileged kids.

But it doesn't take millions of dollars to make a difference. Sometimes a contribution can be as simple as a person like Chuck Barber opening his door to some minor league baseball players who are struggling to make ends meet while they chase their dream.

The concept of squandering fortunes is as old as the story of the Prodigal Son, but there is also some evidence of people who have used their money to purchase something they can take with them when they die.

In the movie Schindler's List, Oskar Schindler risked his life and went bankrupt to save more than a thousands Jews from torture and death in concentration camps.

He was just one man, but he saved thousands of lives. Still, he was a drinker and a womanizer, who at times spent his money carelessly.

In the movie's dramatic conclusion, a haunting realization confronts Oskar Schindler. The man who saved so many could have saved even more.

We all have our own expense account, and no two people have the same balance, but one day it will matter to us what is on our bank statement under withdrawals.
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