The idea of the MoM slapping you with unexplained wealth orders is fairly depressing.

 

There's a simpler way that amounts to the same: there's no demand for Muggle currency. I think it's clear from the books that wizards consider fiat currency/paper money worthless - I doubt the goblins or any wizard wants to exchange wizarding gold for Muggle money.

I imagine that the Ministry forces the goblins to make available a certain amount of wizard gold for exchange with Muggle currency, to facilitate Muggleborns, but that there's no natural demand for Muggle currency. So if you try to buy gold with Muggle money above a certain amount, you're just not going to find anyone willing to enter into that contract - at least, not at the absurdly low rates that the Ministry forces the goblins to sell galleons for.

 

The thing is, the economy in canon is a mess.

I for one don't see much demand for wizard gold, either; the only thing I'd really want to buy from the wizarding world is potions and healthcare, besides one-off purchases like a wand or a broomstick. I wouldn't want to eat out only at Leaky Cauldron, I wouldn't want to confine myself to the housing market of Hogsmeade or Diagon Alley, and I certainly wouldn't want to limit my wardrobe to whatever Madam Malkins offers. Sure, magical pranks and sweets might be fun, but not really on the long run. The media is shit, and although Quidditch might be fun to watch once or twice, I don't really follow sports either.

If need be I'd buy/steal my gold from the muggle market, and sell it to the goblins as bullion.

 

There's plenty of demand beyond potions, healthcare, and one off items like wands and brooms. Food (both eat out and supplies for your house), clothing (I don't get your point about Madam Malkins, you need to get your clothes from someone unless you're going to make them yoursel ), specialist magical skills (to do things to your house, your land, or yourself that you can't do), books (to learn new and useful magic, or just for entertainment), media (there are newspapers, magazines, and journals), and transport (floo powder and the Knight Bus both cost).

And you're assuming that the goblins would be interested in muggle gold, it's just as likely that they mine their own gold and wouldn't trust a wizard not to sell them something fake.

Basically I don't see how you would expect to live in a society and not spend any money.

 

My point is that the muggle world is right nearby, and the muggle economy is far more developed than the wizarding one. I see no point in eating shepherds pies in Leaky Cauldron if I can just walk to the muggle London and have pretty much infinite alternatives available to me. Same with housing, fashion, media and entertainment. And with apparition being a thing I see no point in either floo or bus.

A wizard living in the muggle world is a king; a wizard living in the wizarding world is a peasant stuck in the 19th century.

 

Being around people like you is a thing. Freedom to use magic for whatever, whenever. For example your shepherd pie cools down a bit too fast. In the Cauldron you slap that plate with a warming charm and go back to enjoying it. In the muggle world you get to continue eating cold shepherds pie because you can't go casting spells in the middle of a restaurant without risking getting seen.

And why would you consume muggle news media? It would leave you totally ignorant of what was going on in the wizarding world.

When you're sick? Drunk? Have kids with you? Carrying home things that can't be apparated? There's also a range limit, the fact that it comes with a chance of losing a limb (or potentially your head), and you can only apparate somewhere you've been before. And finally you're assuming that you'd be able to apparate. In a world where large number of adult wizards cannot manage a shield charm, its reasonable to think the same issue may apply to other really useful pieces of magic.

Could you just take a second and run through exactly which parts of a wizard living in the canon wizarding world are reminiscent of a peasant living in the 19th century? Because right now that reads to me as an absolutely ludicrous statement that has no basis.

 

Somethings you just can't buy. While the politicians use their billions to summon Beelzebub for a scrap of Immortality you can sit pretty in a very robust and interesting world with creatures and sights you wouldn't want to miss. I'd hope there'd be a bit more to it than Rowling Canon (because of how inconsistent it is) though I'd still take it.

I mean, would you rather have a bunch of money that eventually will be unable to fill a void you are inevitably going to create (genuine human affection, loyalty etc...) or would you rather be virtually omnipotent (sans "making food" or making Magic itself) given you dedicate yourself and spend enough time working on it. AND live in a world where Dragons, Phoenixes, Merlin and Skele-grow exist? I'd just take the Skele-grow.

Plus, in the Magical World, the average Joe from the Muggle world can be seen as pretty smart. Hermione is seen as the brightest witch of her age, and literally all she does is verbatim regurgitate what's in a textbook off-memory. Suffice it to say, if you just keep your head down, avoid trolls and are already doing pretty good in school in the muggle world you'd be capable of a lot more than the average Wizard even without Harry Potter's potential.

 

The problem with this is that you assume they have the kind of access and knowledge of the muggle world we do: they don't though.

Take Purebloods/Half-bloods, they have no real education regarding the muggle world and what is available. Even if they are aware of the options, and want to visit one of Ramsay's or Blumenthal's restaurants because the Leaky Cauldron sucks, how do they pay for it. There is no canon indication that I'm aware of that you can even convert wizarding currency into Muggle currency.

Muggleborns as well are effectively limited. They enter the world as 11 year olds. They exit Hogwarts with no useful skills or qualifications in the Muggle world and no ability to rejoin the muggle world short of minimum wage drudgery.

And why would anyone trade the benefits of magic for that because you can maybe afford to go KFC or McDonald's instead of being stuck with the Leaky Cauldron.

 

Increased lifespan on top of being back in a young body?
Can't spend money if you're dead.

I'd happily make that 10 billion on my own by legally acquiring thrashed out cars and using my practiced-to-perfection repair charm to resurrect them. One Hemi Cuda to sell, one to stick in my garage.

Hell, it sounds like such a fun way to make money, I'd have one ebay account to buy broken toys, and another to sell my 'miraculously well-preserved' ones. Why, yes, I am selling a G1 Jetfire with all the parts and, no, the plastic hasn't yellowed; lucky me, I guess... Of course that comic is mint condition, do you even have to ask?
And it's all low key enough to keep the authorities off my ass.

Also, my tea leaves told me to invest in something called Bite Coin? Bits Coin? Whatever it is, I'd better buy a few hundred as soon as they're available... and dump them when the time is right.

Scourgify alone is such a mind-boggling quality of life booster that it's a no-brainer. And if I study the expansion charm really hard, I'll be able to store all of the puking little monsters in a suitcase Shangri-La of their own. I choose you, suitcase cat!

That's not even taking into consideration my new walk-in run-in park-a-fucking-jet-in closet library.

A charm to make the temperature NOT Hell on Earth? Please and thank you.
Add in a few other basic charms and I have a climate-controlled, library taking up less space than my computer desk.

While I've never partaken, myself, a giant hydroponic garden under Fidelius would come in handy once Ohio passes legalization that doesn't include bits meant to bend double and furiously fuck the average citizen while making corporations and rich athletes even richer...

Transfiguring vegetables into pizza would change my life for the better on such a fundamental level that it can scarcely be calculated.

There are so many painfully mundane ways to use something as fantastical as magic to improve one's life that it is just silly.

I'm sure there's a spell for separating Lego without using one's teeth.

 

Legotus Separatum

A bastardized mutilated corpse of some no-name Legionnaire commander from the ass end of Britannia shows up ready to be assembled. The cloak is the instruction manual. Your legos remain steadfastly connected.

 

Yeah, I'm going to have to go with magic. It's not like I'm sticking around the Wizarding world. I'm a muggleborn in a racist, bigoted society that just tried to genocide me and doesn't lock up escaped criminals, Quisling collaborators, and insurgents who engineered a terrorist attack on a high school. The Head of Muggle Torture got a full pardon for squealing like the pig he is. As soon as I get my Hogwarts Diploma I am out. Maybe I get a mastery in Potions or Enchanting or something on the Continent or in America, but there is no way I am spending one more second than required being involved with the magical UK.

I'd still live a moderately wealthy lifestyle and I'd never work another day in my life. I know we can't duplicate galleons, but what's to prevent you from duplicating muggle money? And it's not like you even need to do it and deposit it in a bank. That just draws unwanted questions. Just duplicate it as needed. Need $40 for dinner? Geminio. Need $900 for rent? Geminio. Need $5000 for a used car? Geminio. Sure the bills and coins will tarnish and rot faster than the originals, but that's why muggles replace paper money and coins to begin with. A central process facility taking a shipment of cash from a bank who accepted a deposit from your landlord who took your rent from you isn't going to get suspicious that some older bills are starting to fade, tear, and rot.

Let's face it. The muggle world does so many things better than the Wizarding world. I want to live in a place with electricity and iPhones and GPS and cool cars and movies and music and proper education. If I need something done with magic, I'll figure out how to do it myself. If my kids get a Hogwarts letter, then we'll do the same thing over again. Reap the benefits and then get the fuck outta dodge.

 

Hum... The money is certainly far more convenient, just quickly set up what I want and live a pretty good life from there.

HP magic as something I know and can do is pretty tempting, if it was just being back to 11 years old it would be my choice despite the myriad problems in that and all the people I would lose(even if I wonder how much worse I would actually take this compared to what I think). Living in the HP world is a dealbreaker though, way too much bullshit I don't want to deal with.

 

This is a super hard decision but I would have to go magic here. It would be cool knowing a fantasy type world we read about was real

 

It truly shocks me that a Malfoy would choose magic over muggle money...shocked I tell you!

 

I'd choose magic. Hopefully I could still make use of certain things from the muggle world when on break etc, and maybe the magic world has answers to certain diseases etc that the muggle world does not.

 

I would choose money straight away. I love HP and its world, but my love for travel is even greater. I love trying out new things, exploring, meeting new people. With almost limitless money, I could travel every day of the year if I wanted to, I could afford life abroad. With so much money, I could explore the entire world and not give a damn.
Magic is awesome, but it could only fulfil some of my fantasies. As a wizard, I would still have to earn tons of galleons to achieve my greatest wish: to travel the world and enjoy life. Alternately, I could work hard to become a powerful wizard, apparate all over the world while discreetly stealing from muggles and making them provide services for free. And hope that I won't get wizard-nuked by magical law enforcement. That would not be exactly ethical or something I would actually do, but that's a realistic option.
But what's the use of hard work if I can get something instantly, no questions asked? Muggle money it is.

...how Slytherin of me?

 

But being magical would allow you to travel for next for next to no cost and next to no time, and would give you access to magic whilst you're travelling in order to make your life so much easier?

 

According to canon, I would still have to be able to afford basics like food, medicine and basic necessities unless I was willing to commit acts that are morally wrong: stealing from muggles, casting imperius curses, confundus charm and memory charm. Since, I would not be willing to do that, I would first have to become a talented wizard to make most comfort easily available. And what is the guarantee of that? Conjuring armchairs out of thin air is awesome but what if I was unable to conjure anything? What if my extension charm sucks? Not every wizard is talented, some are hopeless. Perhaps I would become as talentless as Umbridge. I would still have access to magic, but I would be severely limited and would have to buy most necessities.
The limits of apparition were never fully explained but according to JKR's comments, apparition becomes harder, unstable and more dangerous over larger distances. You would have to afford a decent broom (which are very expensive) or secure other means of travel. Traveling long distance via broom is not exactly comfortable and you have to avoid being seen. Floo network is also never explained but I imagine that you can't just use floo network to travel the world, I always imagined it as a way to travel inside the country and only within magical households, which means that you are limited. Even the magical world has its limits.
Either way, I would have to work hard and a have decent paying job which would limit my ability to travel for most of the year.
With 10 fudging billions, I could travel every day of the year, stay in 5 star hotels if I wanted to and not care about anything else.

Bonus arguments:
Some war is about to happen, perhaps a world war? Pssss...let me move to a mansion in some isolated country. I can even convert my money to land and gold as a way of security.
Pandemic? I wouldn't even care. Let me live like one of those rich celebrities in a literal mansion while saying that everyone should "stay the f a home". Yeah, it is easier to "stay the f at home" when you live in a mansion and are able to order anything to arrive at your front door.
Another great depression is coming? I am secured. But what about possible massive inflation? That brings me back to buying huge areas of land all around Europe, along with gold. Money secured.

Now, people here have posted very good reasons why they would choose magic over money and I do agree with them. However, personally, almost limitless amount of money would benefit me much more than magic.

 

Its interesting, your decision is heavily informed by a fear that you'd be bad at magic, whereas mine is formed around a belief that I'd (at worst) be pretty decent at it.