Spend a Trillion

What it is

Spend a Trillion is a shopping list with one trillion dollars at the top and one hundred things to buy, from a banana for a dollar to a moon colony for eight hundred billion. Buy a racehorse, a vineyard, a superyacht, a sports team, an airport, a thousand schools. Watch the balance. Find out how long it takes to move, and how little each purchase does.

How to play

Every item has a price, plus and minus steppers and a Buy one button. The counters at the top show money left, money spent and items bought. Buy whatever you like, in any quantity, and use the minus stepper if you regret it. A cart and a reset button sit in the header, and a light-and-dark toggle. Your cart and balance are saved in your browser, so the spree survives a closed tab.

What makes it different

The catalog is built to teach a scale. The site's own guide makes the point: one percent of a trillion is ten billion, so everyday purchases barely move the bar, and the challenge is understanding how large the number really is. The prices are illustrative, the site says so, and the point is the gap between what feels expensive and what is. It loads nothing from anyone else, which is rare for a page this size.

Why it is on Bored

Spending money that does not exist on things you cannot have is useless twice over, and this is the version of the idea with the biggest number, which is the lesson. No download, no account, no ads.

Tips

• Start with the cheap items, that is where the intuition breaks
• Buy a hundred of something ordinary and check the bar, then check it again
• Reset and try spending it only on ordinary things
• The guide under the catalog is short and worth reading

FAQ