21 ms·

What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)

• curtisszmania 1y ago
  [dead]
• Flamentono2 1y ago
  Wrong question, boring answer. I wake up every day with my best friend. We have been together for so long, we have regularly similiar thoughts on things. If i even want to know this, i want to hear the real people using their money in a way that i'm envy. There was a documentary on netflix about a guy who was diving in the ocean in front of his house and befriended an octopus. Besides this story (its well made), i had the feeling this person made it. Beautiful house, self care routine and the opportunity (which he actually uses) to use the ocean every day.
  • malfist 1y ago
    You don't have to read or engage with something you don't like.
    • Flamentono2 1y ago
      [dead]
  • jbverschoor 1y ago
    Resident Alien S02E06 octopus :)
• throwaway713 1y ago
  I saw that Reddit post a while back. It’s interesting, but I wonder how much it really applies to all of the super wealthy. There are certainly billionaires and centimillionaires who reject that lifestyle out of hand (I know I certainly would). The average person doesn’t know their name and they prefer it that way. Even the local billionaire near where I lived for a while was pretty modest, all considered (his kids not so much). I was surprised to see him and his family sit down next to mine at a restaurant one day. Could overhear him talking about the local farmers market and commenting about the tomatoes of the season haha
  • borski 1y ago
    What wealth buys you is the freedom and opportunity to make that choice. It’s not that you have to use your influence; it’s that if your local billionaire whose name nobody knew decided to make a phone call or two, people would still pick up his call. That isn’t true for your local plumber.
  • macNchz 1y ago
    There is certainly a wide spectrum in how people behave, and an important factor is also how they would like to be perceived by others. Rundowns on how wealthy people live will tend to overindex on the behavior of people who want others to know they’re wealthy. As an example, there’s a culture among what people refer to as "old money" families in the US northeast (with generational wealth from long ago), wherein they tend to avoid seeming outwardly wealthy or really talking about money at all…generally aiming to project an unpretentious vibe, eschewing designer clothes and driving 20 year old Volvos, but still spending vacations at long-owned family getaways worth tens of millions, flying first or charter, and send their kids to specific, expensive schools to socialize with others of similar backgrounds.
  • Loughla 1y ago
    The local billionaires here own a large family business. The founders (parents) were great people. They lived life poor for the first 50 years of their lives. They were super down to earth. The next generation are mostly good people. They're involved in politics at the state level and have some philanthropic organizations that really do good work with zero strings attached. The grandkids, who all have known nothing but having immense wealth are garbage humans. They're entitled, awful, mean spirited assholes. Every. Last. One. They frequent local businesses, and the number of times I've heard, "don't you know who I am" is astounding. The business mostly runs itself at this point, but I genuinely fear for the future in this area. There's already undercurrents of the family using its connections to bail out one of the grandkids when he was drunk driving. I believe the first murder will happen within the next decade. The grandparents would be absolutely horrified if they saw what their family was turning into.
    • martinpw 1y ago
• rco8786 1y ago
  > There is literally nothing you can't buy except. Love. I feel like Elon is finding this part out the hard way lately.
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  • junon 1y ago
    Given what we know about how he goes about making children, I don't really think love is the objective with Elon.
    • hshshshshsh 1y ago
      There are no objectives. Just conditioned patterns one adapt to survive childhood.
    • notahacker 1y ago
      You'd think he'd have enough accolades without shooting for the title of "world's most fecund incel"...
    • rco8786 1y ago
      I think everybody wants to be loved
  • thunky 1y ago
    And youth/health. Trump may think he's on top of the world but I bet he'd trade it all away to be 25 rather than on his last leg.
    • userbinator 1y ago
      Possible counterexample: Larry Ellison, although he's at least an order of magnitude richer than Trump.
  • fy20 1y ago
    I'd disagree, once you get wealthy (and it doesn't even need to be that much), you can: - schedule beauty appointments to fix how you look - go on coaching sessions to increase your confidence and how you socialize - take people out on dates without thinking "oh that's a bit expensive" - buy dating coaches who understand the psychology behind dating and successful relationships - buy therapists to heal your past traumas Love is still not guaranteed, but you can do a lot to increase your odds.
• HardCodedBias 1y ago
  I really like this post since it shows how very little there is for the wealthy to buy other than status goods. The life of the rich, other than status, is very much like the life of upper middle class. The same phones, the same digital entertainment, the same appliances in their homes. We have very few items for the rich to buy. Honestly, it is a problem it breaks incentives and it drives the rich more towards status goods which help no one since they are zero sum. We should have expensive products which actually improve lives.
  • Immortalin 1y ago
    > We should have expensive products which actually improve lives. Maybe the super rich should take up training LLMs as a hobby.
    • globalise83 1y ago
      That's literally the case already: each tech oligarch has their own toy AI company.
  • candiddevmike 1y ago
    Yet people still hate the thought of a "maximum wage" or limit to wealth. Everyone should have a life of comfort, not just those who won the lottery or were born into it.
    • andrewrn 1y ago
      The problem with a maximum wage is deciding what that maximum is. Outsides returns are what incentivize people to start companies. A earning cap will cap that incentive accordingly.
      • bjourne 1y ago
        Progressive tax scales solves that problem neatly.
• smitty1e 1y ago
  All that wealth is great, and may even make a difference if you catch cancer. Or not. One famous chap who is nailing it is Shatner. Strive to be spreading joy like that guy, whatever your means.
  • candiddevmike 1y ago
    Shatner has always been a jerk, the joy you're seeing is manufactured PR for a man who is worried about his "legacy" like any of the other older rich.
    • kstrauser 1y ago
      Does that make a difference to people outside his personal circle, though? An extreme example of this is Bill Gates, spending billions to cure diseases. Maybe he’s only trying to buy his way into heaven, but I bet the people cured by his medicine couldn’t care less about his motivations.
      • add-sub-mul-div 1y ago
        I agree in the case of Bill Gates. Shatner, however, is just some Hollywood (reported) asshole. I do lose respect for a celebrity like that even if I'm not personally interacting with them.
        • kstrauser 1y ago
          I get it, I do. My opinion on Shatner was that he was a jerk to his coworkers a long time ago. I don’t follow him super closely, but most people chill over the course of 50 years or so. I do hope he has.
    • mjevans 1y ago
      I don't know much about anyone, but the 1990s Star Trek captains were more my speed. Picard, Sisko (spelling), Janeway I hope none of them are bad people IRL, they didn't give that impression on the little screen.
• neilv 1y ago
  > There is literally nothing you can't buy except. Love. Sorry to sound so trite, but it is nearly impossible to have a normal emotional relationship at this level. It is hard to sacrifice for another person when you are never asked to sacrifice ANYTHING. Money can solve all problems for someone, so you offer it, because there is so much else to do. Your time is SOOOO valuable that you ration it. And that makes you lose connections with people. That, and being surrounded by fawning yes-people, and the drugs? In the worst cases (and there are a few, currently), you decide that you should be in charge of everything, democracy is a mistake, and that you are the person to destroy it. Who has time for love, when there's so much ego to give.
  • shiseiwon 1y ago
    [flagged]
    • latentcall 1y ago
      LOL
    • throwaway20222 1y ago
      First comment. No submissions. This is the first and only reply that you had enough motivation to make?
      • shiseiwon 1y ago
        [flagged]
      • notahacker 1y ago
        tbf, I thought it was a brilliant demonstration of something missing from the list of things that wealthy people can buy: the adulation of the easily impressed...
      • immibis 1y ago
        Sometimes people make new accounts when they want to say stupid things.
• azlev 1y ago
  With billions, can I be Batman?
  • Balgair 1y ago
    I'm going to honestly answer here. No, because Batman isn't a real person with real constraints. Sure, I mean, if you have a $1B, then you get to have a lab with gadget people making cool shit and you can buy a fighter jet and a personal submarine and you have the detective agency too. But you don't get the rogues gallery of super villains. You don't get new knees every week. You don't get to save your local city, because the problems are mostly the problems that the people cause themselves. And solving all those problems makes you a tyrant, not a hero. And even then, the problems are the same we've had since before history. This is why in the real world, we have philanthropy mostly aimed at education and the alleviation of extreme poverty and diseases as the main outlets for the billionaires. Because it's the only thing we think that works at all. I guess, if you really wanted to be Batman, you could fund yet another study that would state how best to give away dollars. But, without even having to look, I know that there are a few dozen of them out there already and they all pretty much say the same thing: that it's muddy and hard to discern, but maybe if you squint, education and making sure people have food and shelter. To be Batman, you already can do it. It's mosquito nets for the poor, it's giving that bum a $100 and an hour, it's volunteering with prisoners to get them to read, it's making sure your kids' classmates have a snack before the test, etc. So yeah, the real world Batman is a boring stressed-out Mom that's active in the PTA, her church/community-center, and local politics. Real World Bruce Wayne is Steve Rogers before the serum.
    • ericrosedev 1y ago
      I find GiveWells approach the most satisfying when I ask myself “how can I make my charity go the furthest”. https://www.givewell.org/ https://www.givewell.org/ I also highly recommend Famine, Affluence, and Morality by Peter Singer, it’s a perspective changing book. Also, great comment!
  • sien 1y ago
    Yes, in a computer game. Just like the rest of us.
• leftcenterright 1y ago
  So, no wealthy person is buying a physics lecture or investing in experiments to better understand the nature of this universe we live in? /s btw does anyone know if places like Fermi lab, CERN receive donations from the super-wealthy?
  • analog31 1y ago
    I don't think directly, but wealthy people occasionally "buy a building" at a university, or fund an endowed professorship.
    • auntienomen 1y ago
      Jim Simons did in fact fund Brookhaven national lab directly at one point. His foundations and friends continue to fund a variety of scientific endeavors. But we don't have too many scholar-turned-philanthropists around, unfortunately.
    • SoftTalker 1y ago
      Occasionally? It's very common. I guess for an individual wealthy person it might be occasional or a one-time thing.
  • cperciva 1y ago
    Government labs, not so much. But universities and independent research institutions, sure. For example, the Perimeter Institute is considered to be one of the top theoretical physics institutions in the world, and it exists because Mike Lazaridis made a ton of money from Research in Motion (aka BlackBerry) and decided that Canada needed a top tier theoretical physics institute.
  • lokimedes 1y ago
    I was part of the ATLAS collaboration at CERN. We had an annual collaboration meeting in Copenhagen, perhaps in 2012 or so. Poul Allen’s yacht was moored in the harbor, across from the venue. It as the high point of CERN hype, and we knew that he was a patron of the sciences. So a delegation (our spokesperson etc.) was sent with some ATLAS merchandise to greet him, and perhaps suggest a sponsorship of some student activities. Allen was a uniquely generous person when it came to science, but historically, science is a gentleman activity for men og free time, so it surely happens.
• InMice 1y ago
  index funds?
  • coolcase 1y ago
    Index funds and wait 70 years. Can't beat it :)
    • InMice 1y ago
      Dont have to wait that long but the longer the better I guess
• busymom0 1y ago
  One of my favorite lines from the tv show Billions is: > Chuck Rhoades: Walk away. > Bobby Axelrod: I should. But then again, what's the point of having fuck you money, if you never say, fuck you. https://youtu.be/upfyoQdc_r4 https://youtu.be/upfyoQdc_r4
  • steveBK123 1y ago
    They never, ever walk away.
• deleted 1y ago
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• steveBK123 1y ago
  Having worked at a few 100~1000 person companies run by billionaires, this tracks. Most of the difference in lifestyle is the quantity and quality of housing they can afford, and having people to take care of problems for them. But they ALL universally have messed up personal lives with multiple messy divorces, embarrassing affairs, NYPost Page Six appearances, etc. The one thing you'd think it gives them is freedom, but they all pretty much end up working til they die so I don't know. I'm not sure if the money breaks something in their brain, or their broken brain is what leads them to chase the money. Likely some of both! There's some level where you can afford 2-3 nice residences, flying private, and not lose your damn mind. I've seen some of the billionaire's lieutenants achieve this balance. Basically being able to be fabulously rich but anonymous. Like the Bill Murray quote about people who want to be rich & famous should try just being rich first. I think these guys I've seen are probably in the bucket the reddit OP marks "Net worth of $30mm-$100mm". Adjust that upwards for inflation and also to account for many of these people being in VHCOL areas so maybe it's like $50-200mm.
  • TMWNN 1y ago
    >The one thing you'd think it gives them is freedom, but they all pretty much end up working til they die so I don't know. From "Requiem" by Robert Heinlein, 1940 <https://archive.org/details/Astounding_v24n05_1940-01_dtsg0318/page/n79/mode/2up?view=theater https://archive.org/details/Astounding_v24n05_1940-01_dtsg03...>: >"What? You are old D. D.? But, hell's bells, you own a big slice of the company yourself; you ought to be able to do anything you like, rules or no rules." >"That is not an unusual opinion, son, but it is incorrect. Rich men aren't more free than other men; they are less free—a good deal less free. I tried to do what you suggest, but the other directors would not permit me. They are afraid of losing their franchise. It costs them a good deal in—uh—political contact expenses to retain it, as it is." >"Well, I'll be a— Can you tie that, Mac? A guy with lots of dough, and he can't spend it the way he wants to."
  • bombcar 1y ago
    Those who know how to handle wealth never become billionaires because once they have a few million they retire and do what they want to do.
• deleted 1y ago
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• ubertaco 1y ago
  I think much of human history (not just recent US history, but that's a prominent example on folks' minds these days) proves that the biggest differentiator that the wealthy can buy is complete immunity from any sort of legal consequences. Even if you don't already live in a high-corruption society, you can either spend some of your wealth introducing that corruption (which pays dividends), or you can just go somewhere else that's already high-corruption and bribe your way into immediate permanent residence. Live in a democracy? Just buy public opinion by leveraging your wealth into a highly-profitable propaganda network, which will also give you an appealing platform for opportunist would-be government officials, who will then owe you, making your bribes cheaper. Maybe you can even just directly blackmail or entrap them along the way, so you don't even have to pay. Live in an autocracy? Buy enough weaponry and PMCs to insulate yourself or even rival the government itself, or just buy the autocrat's favor directly. Live in an oligarchy? Psh, your work is already done. Just use the system as it's designed: to be exploited by your vast wealth.
  • pjc50 1y ago
    Sam Bankman-Fried believed this, and it turned out not to be that simple. But it's very noticeable how the US is trying to set up a system of protected Party insiders.
    • isleyaardvark 1y ago
      The reason he got in trouble in the first place was when it turned out he didn't have that money.
• ofcourseyoudo 1y ago
  This is a great answer. But I'm curious what the answer would look like if every strata in it was not "things you can buy" but "things you can do with the money" ... if the "IMPACT" section was delineated at each level. One of the things I envy the most about my rich friends is their capacity to be generous. They can materialize their compassion on a regular basis without having to balance their budget. I'd like to see what that looks like at each of these wealth levels. (One funny thing I noticed is that I have multiple friends with virtual personal assistants now, at middle class levels of weath/entrepreneurship... definitely not a rich man's thing anymore.)
  • canucker2016 1y ago
    Automation is for less wealthy rich people - so the company can serve more users. When you are rich, you get a real person who speaks your language well and has the authority/power to get things done. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-net-worth_individual https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-net-worth_individual
    • loa_in_ 1y ago
      That's an opinion, but I would rather have a va
    • bluGill 1y ago
      Even wealthy in the US tend to have much less servants than they would have in the past. Labor is too expensive, and the large middle class has made automation just as good and sometimes better. Sure I could hire someone to turn on my lights - but the switch on the wall works well and isn't much effort (compare to the lamp lighter of the past which did work that would be annoying).
      • canucker2016 1y ago
        Note, I and, I assume, the parent commenter weren't talking about home automation. "Virtual personal assistant" to me meant a computer program that could understand speech and carry out a limited set of actions based on that speech - the computer equivalent of a human personal assistant/secretary.
• canucker2016 1y ago
  They watch just-released films on the day they're released in their home (cost $35K buy-in, $500 per film). see https://www.theverge.com/2015/4/7/8361475/prima-cinema-luxury-movie-watching-furious-7 https://www.theverge.com/2015/4/7/8361475/prima-cinema-luxur... They have a current star singer perform a private concert for them (so this was probably a corporate event, but I'm sure centi-millionaire/billionaire have hired her to perform) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyonc%C3%A9_2023_Dubai_performance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyonc%C3%A9_2023_Dubai_perfor...
• dctoedt 1y ago
  Brings to mind the famous Joseph Heller quote: "At a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island, Kurt Vonnegut informs his pal, Joseph Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel Catch-22 over its whole history. Heller responds, 'Yes, but I have something he will never have … enough.'" https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/10651136-at-a-party-given-by-a-billionaire-on-shelter-island https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/10651136-at-a-party-given-b...
  • DoingIsLearning 1y ago
    This is arguably not very scientific but if we didn't have the media fascination around the power and influence that billionaires carry, we would like come to accept that rationally it is a mental disease no different from Plyushkin's syndrome. You won, you can provide for you and for your whole bloodline if you so choose. You can choose your adventure, go fully epicurean or fund Humanity impacting projects. Yet they keep going and going unable to exit the carrousel.
    • jfil 1y ago
      Survivorship bias... Maybe we never hear about the people who made their fortune and quietly exited the scene?
      • DoingIsLearning 1y ago
        Fair my issue is not that there are no Joseph Heller's in the world, my issue is that due to the inherent power and influence, we as a society, have a huge reluctance in considering people like Bezos, Musk, Buffet, Slim, Arnault, as just suffering from some variant of a mental health hoarding disorder.
• canucker2016 1y ago
  You were a fast collegiate-level runner, became a wealthy financial adviser, who now has three sons who are doing well in high school long distance running. What do you do? You convince one of your old running buddies, who now coaches elite runners, to coach your son. The son sets the national high school indoor record for the 800m. Son decides to go pro after graduating high school. Then Covid19 hits. Access to outdoor 400 tracks is limited. What do you do? You build an 8 lane 400m track with running surface to match the quality at the site of the Word/US track and field championships. Cost: ~$4M You hire the best coaches for your kids. Coach needs a place to stay nearby - no problem, buy a townhouse for him to stay at. etc. see https://www.letsrun.com/news/2025/05/how-josh-hoey-went-from-also-ran-to-world-indoor-champion-part-i-a-coaching-odyssey/ https://www.letsrun.com/news/2025/05/how-josh-hoey-went-from...
  • dehrmann 1y ago
    Is there any scenario where a pro runner can gross $4M in lifetime running earnings?
    • lazide 1y ago
      Maybe, but this is one of those ‘if you need to ask, you can’t afford it’ type scenarios.
    • danielbarla 1y ago
      Sure, through sponsorships and adverts. But like all such things, it's an extremely limited number of people who have the right combination of talent, training, perseverance, looks/charisma and probably luck to get that amount.
    • bemmu 1y ago
      But that's the thing, if you'd no longer need to think in money-constrained terms, then instead you'd just want to make something happen in the world. It doesn't need to have a financial return, because your finances would be solved already. Suppose you have more than enough money for you and your family to live out their lives without needing to worry about that. Now that's solved, you can move on to what you actually want to happen in your life, such as helping your kids become pro athletes.
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• thomassmith65 1y ago
  [flagged]
  • ahahs 1y ago
    Was looking for this comment. The whole response reads like a cheesed up, swaggered out, smug essay. It's so clearly trying to illicit strong emotional response. I read this years ago as a teen and ate it up. Wiser more adult me knows how garbage and fake the entire response is. Reddit is known for this.
    • thomassmith65 1y ago
      The author's boast that he/she, despite being a run-of-the-mill person, has befriended one out of every hundred American billionaires is a red flag. I closed my Reddit account years ago. To be on that site is to be forever stuck in a middle school cafeteria.
• hello_computer 1y ago
  organs, children, private investigations, professional harassment campaigns, & assassinations
• rasz 1y ago
  Was this posted because of incoming HBO's Mountainhead? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27cN2_k0JF0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27cN2_k0JF0
• kazinator 1y ago
  Is the answer to the question buried in there somewhere? The top comment mentions some things wealthy people buy, but nothing ordinary people don't know about.
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
• florbnit 1y ago
  It’s funny how emotional responses questions like this become on part of the people answering everything but the question. If some one asks in a sports forum what the best exercises are that pro tennis players do that novices don’t know about you wouldn’t expect the majority of answers being in the line of “Tennis players never experience true love! If all you have is tennis you’ll be depressed!”
  • ludicrousdispla 1y ago
    For many tennis players, love means nothing.
    • alexey-salmin 1y ago
      So it does for many ordinary people. Money can't buy happiness but nether could the absence of money. It's not really a good argument against money.
      • Cipater 1y ago
        https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/word-origin-of-love-in-tennis https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/word-origin-of-love...
        • alexey-salmin 1y ago
          Ah, funny, thanks. I guess it's one of these things that rich people know and I don't.
      • huhkerrf 1y ago
        I'm pretty sure the person above you is making a joke, because "love" equals zero in tennis scoring.
      • Black616Angel 1y ago
        What? Money absolutely CAN buy happiness. What do you even talk about? Probably all of the current problems in my life could be solved with money.
• femto 1y ago
  > Money can solve all problems for someone, so you offer it, because there is so much else to do. Anthony Pratt is worth a few billion dollars and acknowledges the above with his quote "being rich is my superpower". [1] https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/being-rich-is-my-superpower-tapes-reveal-pratt-s-pursuit-of-the-powerful-20231017-p5ecwv.html https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/being-rich-is-my-...
• ArthurStacks 1y ago
  This as usual is just financial mortals speculating on what wealthy people do.
• sfeng 1y ago
  What so many people fail to realize is the true purpose of money is to avoid having to spend time with people you don’t like, or do things you don’t value. So if you have a $400/million per month job, but you have to have meetings all day long, you’re not really rich. Similarly, no offense to billionaires, but the ones I’ve met have been someone manic and misanthropic. If you are using your access to spend your time with them, you are not really rich in my book. True wealth is being able to spend all your time doing things with and for people you love. It sounds trite, but the truth is many people miss the opportunity to jump off the train and enjoy their life while they can.
  • bluGill 1y ago
    A few years back I took some mandatory training. As part of this we were told to write down our personal goals which we all did. Then the trainer said something profound "I can tell you are engineers - mostly I give this class to executives who get mad when they do the above exercise. They realize their goals are things like spending time with family and yet instead of going home after this class they will be getting on an airplane to get to their next meeting". I would love to have a private yacht, or whatever other symbol of wealth you can dream of. I have plans for what I would do with a house more than double my current house in size. However it isn't worth going into upper management to get those things.
• BLKNSLVR 1y ago
  This was the most demonstrative part for me: PERSPECTIVE. The wealthiest person I have spent time with makes about $400mm/year. i couldn't get my mind around that until I did this: OK--let's compare it with someone who makes $40,000/year. It is 10,000x more. Now let's look at prices the way he might. A new Lambo--$235,000 becaome $23.50. First class ticket internationally? $10,000 becomes $1. A full time executive level helper? $8,000/month becomes $0.80/month. A $10mm piece of art you love? $1000. Expensive, so you have to plan a bit. A suite at the best hotel in NYC $10,000/night is $1/night. A $50million home in the Hamptons? $5,000. My issue with this level of 'earning' is, it feels entirely like stealing from them would be justified since they're most obviously stealing a whole lot from the rest of the world. What products can I buy that don't filter up some percentage into these billionaires bank accounts?
  • AndyKelley 1y ago
    Products that are produced by employee-owned, co-ops, or non profit businesses. Even then, however, those organizations will have operating expenses - for instance renting a building. The only meaningful way to get the money circulating back through the economy is taxation. Or, if that doesn't happen enough and the disparity becomes too great, war and/or collapse of society will chaotically and capriciously redistribute wealth, restarting the cycle. The French Revolution comes to mind.
    • opo 1y ago
      > The only meaningful way to get the money circulating back through the economy is taxation. Scrooge McDuck is a fictional character. Rich people don't have all their money hoarded in a pool of gold coins - excess money is invested back into the economy.
      • AndyKelley 1y ago
        An investment is a measure of wealth. It's a credit, which is someone else's debit.
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
• alexey-salmin 1y ago
  The referenced reply is dull. It's very pretentious but just reiterates common knowledge, it doesn't convey any useful information. For example I wish someone told me about the existence of Miele kitchen equipment before I accidentally rented an apartment of a well-to-do woman. She renovated it for herself but then rented out when circumstances changed. Similarly it took me a long time to realize just how much better the veneer wood furniture and doors are compared to laminated chipwood. Price is 3-4 times higher but it lasts 5-10 times longer and is much more pleasant to use. Unfortunately you need years to notice such long-term differences, unless someone tells you. And I'm basically learning to be lower-middle class here. I'm sure there are similar things to know in higher stratas and I'm unlikely to live long enough to find out naturally even if I happen to get the money somehow.
  • Aardwolf 1y ago
    > Miele kitchen equipment That's... pretty standard in Europe
  • socalgal2 1y ago
    Worst experience I've ever had was with a Miele dishwashing machine at an AirBnB in the Netherlands. I like my Miele vacuum cleaner though
    • nickd2001 1y ago
      What happened to that then? ;) We bought a Miele dishwasher to replace a Neff which broke down after 10 yrs (probably 16 yrs worth of "official" usage) due to a silly design fault that caused it to leak. Thought a fairly basic model Miele worth a shot, as because it a stupid built-in, there's extra costs getting it installed, so longer it lasts the better. So far, it seems to clean to fairly similar standard to the Neff. Key thing is how long it'll last. Not made in Germany anymore , says made in Czech. Might be fine. But think they've cut some costs. We also own, assumingly, a "Tesco Value" microwave which cost £22 in 2006. Fairly ugly. Has just 2 controls - power level and time. Absolutely hammered, used every day for 19 years, still works fine. I kind of worry whether after this time it will emit more microwaves out into the open so I stand back even more when using it ;)
• hcfman 1y ago
  What would be great if these ultra rich people started to associate success not just with money but also with being a decent human being and giving back. Because just having shit lots of money is not my definition of being successful. Ultra rich should make giving back a structural part of their lives and businesses.
  • ctchocula 1y ago
    What you're talking about sounds a lot like the post-scarcity world that Gene Roddenberry envisioned in the Star Trek universe, where everyone has enough to live on, so social status is attained by prestige and doing admirable things (i.e. working for Starfleet). However, there's a lot of work to be done getting from here to there.
  • bluGill 1y ago
    They generally do. However decent human being and giving back are not well defined terms and so they will often strongly disagree with whatever definition you happen to use.
• KolibriFly 1y ago
  And yet, for all that freedom and power, the end note hits hard: emotional connection and authenticity become the rarest luxury.
• Elaris 1y ago
  I thought this article would tell me about things that wealthy people buy that those of us who aren’t as rich would never even think about. But in the end, it mostly talked about things that are somewhat obvious like how wealth brings access, influence, and luxury. It was interesting, but not as surprising or revealing as I expected. I guess it’s something we can all imagine to some extent, even if we haven’t experienced it firsthand.
  • InfiniteLoup 1y ago
    >I thought this article would tell me about things that wealthy people buy that those of us who aren’t as rich would never even think about. In case you want to look those up, I know for sure that FaceGym masks were popular with the affluent demographic for a while.
• nayuki 1y ago
  That particular Reddit comment [2015-01-13] overlaps with a recent Graham Stephan video that explains what life is like at each order of magnitude of net worth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAPhN6o3e3o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAPhN6o3e3o (19m57s) [2025-04-28]
  • urbandw311er 1y ago
    As in: you’re saying he just copied it for his YT? Or as in we should watch it because it’s interesting
• macleginn 1y ago
  Debrett’s Guide for the Modern Gentleman should give some pointers.
• EvanAnderson 1y ago
  Through some odd circumstances I found myself receiving a lot of catalogs and sales solicitations for a reasonably wealthy person. Most of the stuff was what you'd exoect-- expensive furnishings, clothing, home goods. The two that were most interesting were the travel-related (guided trips in exotic locales w/ profiles and resumes of the local guides), and oddly specific and highly-focused catalogs (gardening, specific types of home goods). The one that really stands out was a catalog with hundreds of different brushes-- each with a very specific purpose (and many with carrying cases and other accessories). I had no idea there were so many different brushes.
  • tmcz26 1y ago
    Do you remember the name of the travel guides/companies? That would actually be interesting.
    • EvanAnderson 1y ago
      Ugh. We threw away a ton of stuff. I'll see what I can find. (A change-of-address had lapsed. We let the recipient's family know and they're keeping it updated now, so the torrent has, sadly, stopped.)
    • tuumi 1y ago
      This one comes to mind. It was quite expensive and Uma Thurman's father was involved when I used to get the catalogs 20 years ago. They have private and custom tours available. www.nomadicexpeditions.com Some others. www.nomadicexpeditions.com www.geoex.com - Digging the 22 day train trip through the Silk Road for $50k How about around the work via private jet? https://www.smithsonianjourneys.org/tours/around-world-private-jet/itinerary/ https://www.smithsonianjourneys.org/tours/around-world-priva...
  • JKCalhoun 1y ago
    Yeah, post the company name — because I'm picturing instead a company posing was a company for the rich and famous. Do we remember The Sharper Image catalog?
• TheAceOfHearts 1y ago
  One of the things that isn't really mentioned here is that extreme wealth and power lets you bring your special interests to life even when they wouldn't be particularly practical or economically viable. For example: did you know there was a large community of animators in North Korea because it was a special interest of Kim Jong-Il [0]? Another example is how inheritors of the Walton fortune helped build tons of biking infrastructure in an Arkansas City [1]. I wish more ultrarich people would compete on building thriving communities, instead of maximizing their own personal luxuries and walling themselves off from the world. Silicon Valley is a bit of a deranged version of this, where different companies create their own little kingdoms of community for employees, while the broader community ends up being rather dull and uninviting. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_animation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_animation [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/us/how-an-arkansas-city-became-an-epicenter-of-the-biking-world.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/us/how-an-arkansas-city-b...
• _rpxpx 1y ago
  A very good explanation of why millionaires should be taxed out of existence. What an utter waste. I can't believe people still parrot the line about markets being "efficienct".
  • sokoloff 1y ago
    Does anyone seriously argue that mere millionaires shouldn’t exist? That’s a level of wealth that permits only around $50K/yr in retirement, assuming it's 100% liquid/investable. If a retiree had a paid-off house at the median price level, they'd have less than $30K/yr in retirement if they had to remain "not a millionaire". Nearly 10% of Americans are millionaires (at least at the household level, not necessarily per-person). It's around 6% for UK and France.
    • _rpxpx 1y ago
      But those numbers aren't meaningful in a scenario in which that revenue were redistributed in social housing, public healthcare, and national insurance. I don't think the world needs, or can carry, any millionaires. Public affluence--public luxuries--like housing, libraries, schools, universities, trains, parks, museums etc, do far more for human welfare, and far less ecological damage.
  • brettermeier 1y ago
    Downvoted by greedy billionaires...
• shenenee 1y ago
  Great. More Reddit nonsense
• Havoc 1y ago
  Almost more interesting to me how much permanence that comment has. Think I’ve come across it 3-4 times now To me that suggests rich people buy privacy and the only info available is some random reddit comment
• Cthulhu_ 1y ago
  > RESPECT. The respect you get at this level is just over-the-top. You are THE MAN in almost every circle. Governors look up to you. Fortune 500 CEOs look up to you. Presidents and Kings look at you as a peer. This was the one that made me question the whole post. I don't for a second believe this respect is genuine. This isn't about the person you are, but the money you could spend on whoever's kissing your ass. I mean if you can delude yourself into thinking it's genuine I'm sure it can be enjoyable, but I for one am confident anyone "up there" is scheming something. Political and economic chess. I'd rather just be wealthy enough but unknown.
• Koshima 1y ago
  I’ve noticed this as well. It’s surprising how often the true value of certain high-quality items isn’t obvious until you’ve experienced them firsthand. It’s not just about status, but often about longevity, comfort, or simply a better user experience. For example, things like handmade leather shoes, solid wood furniture, or even high-end kitchen tools like Miele or Sub-Zero appliances can feel like overkill until you’ve actually used them. Then you start to appreciate the craftsmanship, the reduced hassle, and the longevity they offer. Curious if others have had similar experiences – what’s one “expensive” item that genuinely changed your perception once you owned it?
  • mathverse 1y ago
    The thing is if you are wealthy you do not notice these things. They are just there. The luxury / highend items become a commodity. That's the minimum standard that you expect wherever you go. Also these things are not really that expensive compared to 5-10M person. Try Bora coocktops
  • detourdog 1y ago
    My theory is that the appliance market has developed a low cost tier of products that are poorly developed and produced. This tier of products have minimal quality standards and the thinking is the the consumer will replace it or move. I had to purchase appliances for apartments and the first wave of products were breaking within a couple of years. I ended up purchasing appliances from high-end European companies in the second wave of appliances and haven't had issues for 3 years. The original ovens had 3 out of 5 failures before people moved in. 2 of them broke because the flimsiest plastic door latch protruding about 1" from the door broke. The doors of the oven could be removed with no tools. The company said they could send me new doors for a cost and that I could schedule a video call with the factory to learn how to re-install an oven door.
    • bluGill 1y ago
      Appliances have several different class and price is not a good indication of what class things are in. Cheap apartments want the cheapest appliances that will last and those people have the accountants to figure out what those are. However right next to the cheap appliances that last are cheap appliances that won't and often there is nobody that will tell you which is which. The you get into the mid range, where again there is junk and good stuff right next to each other. At the highest prices quality goes down just because there are not enough sales to figure out what is going to break and update the design in the early part of the sales cycle to fix issues.
• mathverse 1y ago
  I find the most interesting bracket the 5-8M one where almost anything highend / luxury becomes a commodity.
  • Cthulhu_ 1y ago
    Another related interesting one is that rich people don't wear brands anymore - brands are for normal people, they're advertised to look like they are for the rich but their prices are still in range for a lot of people if they put some money aside. This starts with iphones and airpods and goes to Louis Vuitton and the like. The tech billionaires don't wear anything branded or flashy besides their $1M watches, just good and well fitting clothes.
    • mathverse 1y ago
      The definition of rich is not a tech billionaire though. It is literally anyone that can afford the LVMH and co. It is definitely aimed at rich people just not billionaires. But yes these brands become commodity from a certain point...although one has to be rich to be fully dressed in those clothes and change / rotate every day.
  • snowwrestler 1y ago
    You think that happens at wealth = $5 million? One high-end luxury house costs more than that.
    • mathverse 1y ago
      I am thinking liquid not net worth.
      • snowwrestler 1y ago
        Yes, exactly, a person with $5 million liquid can afford to buy maybe 1 luxury home. Sure they probably already own a home, but 2nd homes are not uncommon luxuries. As a reminder you said “almost anything highend / luxury becomes a commodity.” Or look at this way: $5 million throws off $200k/year (pre-tax) with a “safe” pull rate of 4%. Ok so now you want to buy a luxury car, that’s over $100k. You’ve spent most of your annual income on one car. Hardly a commodity! $5 million is enough to sustain an upper class income in most metro regions. But a long way from commodifying luxury.
• elorant 1y ago
  Wealthy people usually get concierge services. You go to a museum as a regular folk, it’s overcrowded and there’s like 20 other people looking at the same art piece you’re looking, trying to get a better shot from it. You visit as a wealthy individual, you get a private tour after hours with a dozen others when the museum is empty with a trained guide who can answer any questions you may have. You can view any art piece at your own pace from every angle you like. This goes on for pretty much every public service out there.
  • DamnInteresting 1y ago
    I have some married friends who worked at Disneyland for years, and they have stories about wealthy park visitors and the escorted, line-skipping, side-loaded experience they have at each attraction. They are often shuttled around through dedicated parts of the underground tunnel system, and enter rides through alternate entrances, often experiencing the attractions entirely out of view of the gross public.
• rsynnott 1y ago
  > Worth $10mm-$30mm liquid (exclusive of value of primary residence). At this level, your needs are met. ... I mean, I think your _needs_ are met at a far, far lower level than that.
• o0o0o 1y ago
  I'm not from the US so I'm just curious why would anyone prefer to spend their time with a senator or president?
  • sumedh 1y ago
    The rich and powerful businessmen in your country are doing it too with the politicians in your country to have favourable laws for them.
  • mikedelfino 1y ago
    Most likely for lobbying purposes. You might want to support or block a bill, resolve an issue that affects you, or push for legal changes or permits that benefit your business. It's about influencing decisions that have a direct impact on your interests. And it doesn't even need to be business related; sometimes it's just like calling the building manager when something is annoying you and you're bored.
  • al_borland 1y ago
    Generally for the influence it can give them. If you don’t like how something is happening if your city/state/country, talking to those people can give you the power to get it changed. Having friends in high places can also help if you happen to run into legal issues. Though there is growing scrutiny around this.
  • snowwrestler 1y ago
    The other answers are practical (e.g. lobbying) but I’ll give a less practical angle: proximity to uniqueness and power. There are only 100 U.S. senators at a time. In contrast, Forbes estimates there are about 900 billionaires in the U.S. alone this year. And it is extremely difficult to become a Senator. Many very rich people have tried and failed to win election to the U.S. Senate. It’s not as straight forward as success in business. Politics is somewhat like magic. It’s extremely difficult to predict what is going to attract votes when. A lot of very confident rich people have been humbled this way. Politicians are also demonstrably popular in ways the very rich are not. You only become a Senator if hundreds of thousands, to millions, of individual citizens vote for you (depending on the state). Congress overall is unpopular, but individual politicians are fairly popular to their own constituencies. Again, this is not something you can just buy, and many very rich people are thirsty for this kind of public validation. Finally, Senators have real power, at least collectively. If enough Senators agree on something, the police will make you do it. Rich people want to shape those decisions if they can, yes, but many also like the feeling of being “close” to that kind of power. Since most will never have it themselves. The above goes for the president even more. And for many state governors too.
• elzbardico 1y ago
  Inflation sucks. This is from 10 years ago. Multiply all values by some factor that I am too lazy to estimate, but a good bet would be to try to follow asset inflation rather than consumer prices inflation.
• notsydonia 1y ago
  You know how a person on 'average' income might sometimes browse retail sites as displacement activity, while waiting for something/someone or a side-quest etc? Ultra-wealthy people also do that but they're trawling through Sothebys or Christies - eg: https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&-manuscripts/book https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&-manuscripts/b... They don't have time to read - say - a lengthy biography about a Civil War general but they can purchase their diary or letters - people who are interested in wealth preservation, especially across generations, are trained to disdain the ephemeral. They like primary documents and depending on their age/interests, cool stuff like first edition comic books or vintage niche Chanel clutch bags. As impulsive or indulgent as it may seem - eg: I just saw a counterfeit version of Dante's Le Terze De Rime on there for $159,000 USD - the purchase are all investments and as such treated as a tax deductible by your team of accountants. If you purchase a bottle of Romanee St Vivant as an investment but (whoops) drink it - that $16,000 is a business loss. Or maybe a trust fund loss. And once you start spending at a certain level on sites like those and others, there are extremely nice people who would like nothing more than to invite you to private showings, arrange a private briefing to bring you up to speed with whatever topic you'd like to learn more about or help you select the right gift with which to blow the mind of a business rival or someone you're courting. I thought that reddit piece was weird. Why would the ultra-wealthy mess around with 'masstige' kitchenware appliances? They wouldn't even have a brand on their dishwasher - it would be commissioned by an architect or interior designer quietly maintained at regular intervals by an appliance engineer who has been either supplied-by your core op-secs team or thoroughly checked out by them etc etc.
  • esperent 1y ago
    > They wouldn't even have a brand on their dishwasher - it would be commissioned by an architect or interior designer quietly maintained at regular intervals by an appliance engineer I'm not sure that I buy this. It's not simple to make a bespoke appliance like a dishwasher that's better than a very high end mass produced one. Where did you get the idea that this happens from?
    • JKCalhoun 1y ago
• oytis 1y ago
  > Your time is SOOOO valuable that you ration it. And that makes you lose connections with people. Damn, that's me, and I am not even worth a million.
• ccppurcell 1y ago
  You too can live a life where you can buy whatever you want. All you have to do is change what you want.
  • amelius 1y ago
    Advertisements are constantly changing what I want ...
    • nixosbestos 1y ago
      [dead]
      • amelius 1y ago
        If ads didn't work, they would not be a multi-billion dollar industry ...
      • bluGill 1y ago
        Not always. I have a mouse problem, none of the existing mousetraps are a good solution. If an ad can tell me about a better mouse trap I'll want it and that is a good thing. Mouse is of course a generic thing above where as technology marches on once in a while it would make my life better if only I know about it. Now when ads make me want a "pet rock" that is a bad thing.
      • alickz 1y ago
        Happens to us all The mind is an open wound susceptible to unhygienic memes like advertising and social media Even now you and I are exposing our minds to all the thoughts in this thread. It's impossible for us not to, it's the reason we're here in the first place So if advertising doesn't change your wants and desires then the problem is you aren't noticing how unhygienic your mind is getting
        • nixosbestos 1y ago
          Nah. My possessions fit into three boxes. I buy the same shampoo and conditioner and bar soap I've bought for over a decade. I don't buy things and when I do I research them for hours before buying. It is actually possible to exit the consumerism treadmill. I mean I bought a keychain last year that I put on my backpack, and the vendor had it out on a table. I guess that counts but that's basically the only impulse buy I've made in the last two years. > So if advertising doesn't change your wants and desires then the problem is you aren't noticing how unhygienic your mind is getting I genuinely don't understand what this means.
• coolcase 1y ago
  They buy politicians
• geye1234 1y ago
  As St. John Henry Newman put it: "Contemplate the objects of this people's praise, survey their standards, ponder their ideas and judgments, and then tell me whether it is not most evident, from their very notion of the desirable and the excellent, that greatness, and goodness, and sanctity, and sublimity, and truth are unknown to them; and that they not only do not pursue, but do not even admire, those high attributes of the Divine Nature. This is what I am insisting on, not what they actually do or what they are, but what they revere, what they adore, what their gods are. Their god is mammon; I do not mean to say that all seek to be wealthy, but that all bow down before wealth. Wealth is that to which the multitude of men pay an instinctive homage. They measure happiness by wealth; and by wealth they measure respectability. Numbers, I say, there are who never dream that they shall ever be rich themselves, but who still at the sight of wealth feel an involuntary reverence and awe, just as if a rich man must be a good man. They like to be noticed by some particular rich man; they like on some occasion to have spoken with him; they like to know those who know him, to be intimate with his dependants, to have entered his house, nay, to know him by sight. Not, I repeat, that it ever comes into their mind that the like wealth will one day be theirs; not that they see the wealth, for the man who has it may dress, and live, and look like other men; not that they expect to gain some benefit from it: no, theirs is a disinterested homage, it is a homage resulting from an honest, genuine, hearty admiration of wealth for its own sake, such as that pure love which holy men feel for the Maker of all; it is a homage resulting from a profound faith in wealth, from the intimate sentiment of their hearts, that, however a man may look,—poor, mean, starved, decrepit, vulgar; or again, though he may be ignorant, or diseased, or feeble-minded, though he have the character of being a tyrant or a profligate, yet, if he be rich, he differs from all others; if he be rich, he has a gift, a spell, an omnipotence;—that with wealth he may do all things."[0] There is a reason that money specifically, and not sex or knowledge or socializing or other good things that can get out of hand, is worshiped as a god by so many. [0] https://www.newmanreader.org/works/discourses/discourse5.html https://www.newmanreader.org/works/discourses/discourse5.htm...
• sublinear 1y ago
  I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say "being rich" is not a personality or set of preferences. Lavish spending is still seen as pointlessly insecure by anyone on any budget. Many things are good enough for anyone. Relevant Andy Warhol quote: "Sometimes you fantasize that people who are really up there and rich and living it up have something you don’t have, that their things must be better than your things because they have more money than you." https://core100.columbia.edu/article/excerpt-philosophy-andy-warhol https://core100.columbia.edu/article/excerpt-philosophy-andy... Also worth pointing out that we are commenting on reddit posts. Reddit is the last place anyone should seek advice beyond how to do something or find info about hobbies.
  • Invictus0 1y ago
    Warhol must really be lacking in imagination. I live in a college town and none of my friends here can afford to buy a comfortable couch or chair. The difference between the trash on Wayfair and something of higher quality that might cost a few thousand dollars is night and day.
    • sublinear 1y ago
      Not sure we're talking about the same topic? I'm pretty sure just about everyone has stuff from Ikea.
  • resource_waste 1y ago
    >Lavish spending is still seen as pointlessly insecure by anyone on any budget. I seen and lived this until I got my wake up call. I was regular upper middle class, I would laugh at people who thought I was poor for having an Android because I could easily afford a $1000 iphone, I just didnt want it. Then I got into philosophy and inevitably Stoicism, where I found happiness within. Then I read too much philosophy and realized the promises of such ethical philosophy were harmful to my own well-being. I went full Nietzsche and realized that spending money was a demonstration of power. As Thomas Hobbes says: 'Fame makes more fame, power makes more power.' Thus, pointless lavish spending does have a point, its to demonstrate power, which grows power. I genuinely feel like 30+ years of my life I was tricked into a religion of modesty against my own interests. Meanwhile, the people I mocked, rappers/rich people/etc... had the right idea. Or at least right in my current set of Values. (And if you disagree with my values, prove I'm wrong, best of luck, there is nothing backing pure reason, and if you want to be an empiricist, we have peacocking)
• jl6 1y ago
  The richest people I know don’t have work-life balance, they have a supercritical work-life fluid.
  • dhuk_2018 1y ago
    Can you further explain this?
    • hnthrow90348765 1y ago
      Basically it's their personality, but they don't do like 8-12 hours/6 days a week of drudgery work like building web apps on a deadline for someone else - that shit's draining. But if I'm putting money to work knowing my (rich) life is secure and more in control of my destiny, it's empowering for a lot of people to stay connected to it 24/7 even though it's "work".
    • jl6 1y ago
      At high temperatures and pressures, some substances are neither liquid nor gas, but a fluid with properties of both. Whereas most people work to live, and prefer boundaries between the two, worklife is an intertwined way of being. Brunch with your business partners, afternoon shaking hands on a golf course, dinner with a senator, placing bets on Wall Street, a penthouse suite at the resort hotel where you’re keynoting, hosting a fundraiser at your home…
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
• bane 1y ago
  Grew up poor, made it a little in life - could maybe retire now. The things I and the people I grew up with don't know how to do at all can be shocking. People who grew up similarly and ended up in middle class seem to be similar unless they put real time into it: - how to buy stocks, what ETFs are, what a 401(k) is, etc. - hiring people to clean your house, do yard work, etc. - traveling out of the country, or in many cases, how to take a plane to a part of the country that's too far to drive - how financing works, ranges from personal credit cards to mortgages, and thus what TCO means. The number of people I grew up with who were fine with 12% on a car loan and what that meant to the final cost of the car is flabbergasting - how to buy high-quality (expensive) stuff vs brand recognition (expensive) stuff some anecdotes: - a friend of mine recently did retire after 30 years in the government, wanted to buy stocks, had no idea what a brokerage was - another guy I know, an airline pilot who grew up in a broken home and ended up with a business degree, figured out how to buy stocks, but didn't know what index funds were or that they exist outside of his 401(k) - perfectly middle class people who will spend all weekend cleaning their house and doing yard work, and hate it, who thought hiring a cleaning person and lawn mowing guy would be too expensive ($35k-50k/yr) - a lot of people I know are afraid to travel to non-English speaking countries even if they've been outside of the U.S., they can't fathom that you can get by in most places with English, a translate app, and pointing and smiling. Even tourist friendly places with plenty of English signage and English speaking help like France or Japan are unfathomably exotic
  • jjice 1y ago
    I find this super interesting and something I've thought about a bit in the past. All of these things combined are relatively simple. You could give a decent breakdown of each bullet point within an hour each, with room to dive in deeper if needed. Now with the internet and all the great resources out there, the access is there for most people (in a place like the US) to learn about these. I think the main problem now is that these are "unknown unknowns". People don't even know to know what a 401k or similar is and thus don't know that there's something to dive deeper into there. That missing piece is very hard to solve. I've had it myself where I run into something in my career, for example, where I'm introduced to a concept I wasn't aware of that I now use to underpin serious decision making about something like application architecture. Had I never had the opportunity to initially find out about a problem/solution, it would've made it notably harder to get better. All the things you lists are things I personally associate with familial education. Most of those things were taught to my by my family, having grown up in a middle class home. If my parents hadn't had the opportunity to learn about those, neither would I. It's a familial/potentially class (depending on the situation) based learning opportunity, purely based on the education your family was able to receive (whether formal or not). School is also a place to inject these concepts (personal finance specifically), and I did have a great experience with the personal finance elective at my high school when I was in 9th grade. Tangentially, I don't think that's a perfect solution (but still important) because teenagers will absolutely ignore/tune in the info out. When people say they wish that had learned how to do their taxes in high school, I agree in principle and I do think it should be taught, but I also believe most teenagers (at least around me growing up) wouldn't have payed any attention. It doesn't mean we shouldn't teach it, but educating a teen is hard.
• mark_l_watson 1y ago
  Five or ten years ago I listened to a podcast that featured an ex-butler of a billionaire family and he talked about ‘his family’ and their friends who were also very rich. The ex-butler said that the quality of the food they ate was perfect, extremely flavorful 100% nutritious meals. I can kind-of get this: the town my wife and I used to live in had two very expensive restaurants that served simple, totally delicious healthy food and I can imagine how wonderful it would be to a skilled chef serve you three meals a day like this.
  • Suppafly 1y ago
    There are middle class versions of that where you pool with a handful of friends and family and have the chefs meal prep for you. Or you can provide room and board to a culinary student and have them cook meals for you.
• mattlondon 1y ago
  For me, it is paying extra for the wall-time and experiences, and less about the material things. Not saying I am "super wealthy" but we've paid a lot (but no obscene amounts) for a few things that felt kinda like "rock-star" treatment. Anyone can pay for these. One example is my wife and I flew to Venice for a long weekend and hired a speed-boat to transfer us from the airport to our hotel. We literally walked up to the pier, threw our carry-on bags in the back, jumped in and roared off. I have this enduring memory of seeing some of the people who were on the same flight as us lining up and waiting for the water-bus thing as they watched us just speed off into the literal sunset. It wasn't crazy-expensive but totally worth it. Another was we paid for an "escort" at an airport in Peru - they met us at our hotel, took us to the airport in a taxi, basically pushed us past the huge lines of people waiting for check-in, argued in Spanish with someone behind a desk, and then pushed us past more lines of people until we got to the front of the line for security where we said goodbye and waited for our cattle-class flight. Again, this was not a huge amount of money but saved a bunch of time and stress. Generally speaking, tl;dr, I find paying a little extra for not having to wait for things at airports and hotels and theme parks and that sort of thing is what makes the every-day difference for me. Getting wafted past the lines of people waiting for things or someone just sorting shit out for you so you don't have to are the day-to-day things that being in the top 95-98%ile of the population wealthwise makes all the difference. You save the time, and get that little zing of excitement/awkwardness as you are taken past the lines of others waiting.
  • Suppafly 1y ago
    >One example is my wife and I flew to Venice for a long weekend and hired a speed-boat to transfer us from the airport to our hotel. We literally walked up to the pier, threw our carry-on bags in the back, jumped in and roared off. Not as fancy, but my wife and kid met some friends in chicago, and the friends sprung for a water taxi to get them all from one side of town to the other. It's not even that expensive, but not something we'd just spend money on vs walking a bit and taking a train or bus.
• anon-3988 1y ago
  I would love to say that I would not do any of these superficial things but I have clearly raised my standards of living after earning good wages. Thankfully its not "linear", I think. But I think I am self conscious enough that I am always asking if I should really be doing or buying stuff that I can perfectly afford. Do I really need that new phone? I have a perfectly serviceable phone, what do I really get from these stuff that is totally within my mean. However, it is more nuanced than that. For example, I think VVIP SHOULD be taking private flights instead of commercial ones. Should CEOs of big companies really be sharing flights with literal whos across the Atlantic? Probably not. But should these private jets have indoor tennis court or whatever it is they have? Also probably not.
  • Suppafly 1y ago
    >Do I really need that new phone? I have a perfectly serviceable phone, what do I really get from these stuff that is totally within my mean. I always wonder how rich I'd need to be to just buy a new phone. I always get the step down models and use them for years, only upgrading when they stop working well or I get forced to upgrade when they change network technologies. I could afford to buy any phone I wanted right now, but it seems like such a financially dumb decision.
    • anon-3988 1y ago
      Well, my phone just randomly died the other day. Now it works again. The charging port is also getting less reliable (have to push in a certain way). Is this useable phone? Yea. How much more annoying should it get before I could justifiably get a new phone?
      • Suppafly 1y ago
        yeah that's about the point that I consider it broken enough to get a newer one. except I'd probably deal with the wonky charging for a month until it got to the point I couldn't wiggle the cable enough to make it work and it finally stopped altogether.
• jbs789 1y ago
  It's probably obvious but the more they have then the more they spend (as a share of total spend) on appreciating rather than depreciating assets. The appreciating assets often aren't visible - stakes in companies for example. (But sometimes they are, such as real estate.)
• canucker2016 1y ago
  Build a custom home for an estimated $50M, list the house for $~30M, sell for ~$10M after 12 years on the market. see https://finance.yahoo.com/news/michael-jordan-sells-massive-luxury-170018203.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/michael-jordan-sells-massive-...
• rcbdev 1y ago
  The one thing I have learned here is that Americans seem very obsessed with Miele-branded appliances for no apparent reason. Did they somehow strike marketing gold an entire ocean away? Why not Bosch, Siemens or Elektra Bregenz?
  • mixmastamyk 1y ago
    Marketing yes, and exporting only the high end. Like Mercedes… Americans are mostly not aware that they also sell cheap busses and taxis in Europe.
  • em500 1y ago
    Maybe there's a bit of a Steve Jobs effect, who was publicly known as a Miele fan. (https://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-washer-dryer-2011-3 https://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-washer-dryer-2011...)
• canucker2016 1y ago
  Tom Cruise buys a white chocolate coconut bundt cake for each of his (mostly famous) friends each year - https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/dec/15/tom-cruise-decadent-cake-christmas-a-list-friends https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/dec/15/tom-cruise-deca... If you're in the Los Angeles area, you can visit the bakery yourself or if you're in the USA, you can order a cake from them - https://www.goldbelly.com/restaurants/doans-bakery/white-chocolate-coconut-bundt-cake https://www.goldbelly.com/restaurants/doans-bakery/white-cho... N.B. No affiliation with Tom Cruise, Doan's, or Goldbelly.
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• emilycole0 1y ago
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