My cousin, through work, has access to the search history of a Fortune 500 CEO and noticed it was full of exactly what you’d expect: searching a liquor store site for their most expensive wines, private jet bookings to small private islands, that sort of thing. Yeah, yeah, we all knew that! I’m not talking about luxury experiences and displays of power.
But what are the strange parts that regular people wouldn’t guess?
For example, someone on reddit recently posted that their job is to duplicate a wealthy person’s home items across multiple cities. Clone their house meticulously so their boss just travels with a phone. It’s pragmatic but egregious.
Months ago I ran across an interesting trick for quantifying the purchasing power of a wealthy person vs an average person, by scaling down their net worth (or salary IDK I’m not a money-ologist) then compare the thought process you’d undertake when purchasing an item of equivalent value.
So to get in the mind of a billionaire, lets say you have a net worth of $60K, so divide 60,000/1,000,000,000 to get 0.00006. Now how much does a jet cost, let’s say 1.5 million, just pulling a number out of thin air. Scale that down using the 0.00006 multiplier we get just $90. So a billionaire puts about as much thought into buying a jet as you might purchasing an OK pair of shoes or a water flosser. Not quite trivial but also not something you’re likely to mull over for weeks.
But let’s reverse that. What’s something you wouldn’t think twice about bying? Maybe a $2 candy bar from a vending machine? Divide that $2 dollars by .00006 to get over $33 thousand dollars. That’s a pretty common yearly gross salary for a lot of skilled workers, and a billionaire treats it with the same care you’d treat with a $2 vending machine purchase.
I’m into ham radio, which can be a deceptively expensive hobby. Some of the other guys in my local club have a significant amount of money, or at least a lot more money than I do, and that really does effect how they think and act. They’re all perfectly nice and helpful people, but sometimes they give advice that simply isn’t useful for a guy in my tax bracket. “Just get a resonant antenna” or “just put up a tower” they say, as though I have the land for a massive HF antenna with ground radials or a 40 ft tall mast. Bruh I live in a single-family home in an HOA.
Prof G followed this methodology to explain that to elon musk, spending 300 million dollars on the midterms is the same as a person who has a million dollars, going out for a 300 usd dinner. or me going out to buy a sausage in the corner butcher shop.
fucking scandal.
Depends on what kind of rich person were talking about. I’ve always thought it was interesting how money worked for them.
There are the, I guess insecure rich. Often inheritance/trust fund kids, they are concerned with money, appearances, details.
One time, I met someone who was self-made rich. Not medium rich, but routinely on richest people in the world lists rich. That dude was serene as fuck. Ce across like a perfectly regular dude, except for (1) things always went his way. Like he’d say “I prefer this to happen” and five dudes show up out of nowhere and make it happen. (2) The only times he was not serene was when it came to the details of his work. Then he was the most meticulous motherfucker I’d ever met.
also on some post on the subs, a user who was working as a "nanny"mentioned a rich family threw out expensive clothes they bought that day for just photo op/school picture, in the trash and they either cut it up to prevent people from pickin up the clothes from the trash and forbade employees from taking it. they treat it as a single use clothing item.
That’s just evil.
Where I live we don’t have mega-wealthy people like in the US but broadly speaking you can’t usually tell a rich person from a middle-class one. I have a handful of wealthy customers but they live in houses that are only marginally larger than the other ones in those neighbourhoods and they tend to drive the same cars as everyone else too. Not uncommon for one to change winter/summer tires themselves on the driveway instead of having someone else do it for them.
There’s one owner of a big company that hangs in the same boating circles as my parents and you simply could not tell that they’re wealthy if you didn’t know. They don’t have the biggest and nicest boat and they just perfectly blend in there with everyone else.
I think culture plays a role here just as much as being wealthy does. Displaying your wealth simply isn’t as much of a thing here. The people who do that are usually the ones who just pretend to be ones but actually aren’t. Most would just feel embarrassed standing out.
It’s like that in much of the American South. No one wants to be accused of “putting on airs”, it’s tacky to flaunt wealth.
Middle-aged white guy came into my last job wearing worn out jeans, a worn out Polo and beat up loafers. “Must be a manager or something, everyone seems to know and like him.” Nope. CEO.
The rich guys at the beach often look homeless.
Norway?
Also famously Swiss.
Like, having someone consult you in a VIP meeting room about your 2000 $ shoes. It’s a thing.
I think the most strange part of people who live wealthy lifestyles is all the mass rape, pedophilia, torture of trafficked people, mass starvation of the masses and belief they’ll magically live forever as AI versions of themselves
strange parts that regular people wouldn’t guess
You misread the topic
I once read about a fellow who owned a yacht and never once sailed on it.
If he wanted to go someplace he’d send the yacht there and then fly in. He had a great place to stay.
The other story I remember is a rich woman was going bankrupt. The lawyers asked her what the bare minimum she could live on was. $40,000 a month was her idea of roughing it.
My sister runs in billionaire circles. Her daughter was invited to a birthday party along with the rest of her class (2nd grader I think it was). The parents had rented a 737 to take everyone to Disney. My sister said no haha
Paying 30k for a fully decorated Christmas tree.
Not strange enough? I don’t know, it’s all fucking strange to me!
I got invited to a thanksgiving dinner feom an extended family thing that was being put on by a wealthy person in the family I barely spoke to. It was at a private cabin that was larger than any house ive ever lived in. There was an entire chef team making dinner including appetizers that people brought around on tiny trays. I was dressed in a tshirt and jeans and being waited on hand and foot the entire time. This “cabin” had artwork taller than me on the walls and a big centerpiece fossil as you entered the door. There was a TV that only popped out when you flipped a lightswitch.
The dinner was amazing but i also felt so weird not helping with anything. I also kept worrying about how none of the staff could eat the food? Like? You’re here on Thanksgiving cooking for another family some top quality food and you aren’t even allowed to eat it?
The whole thing wad awkward and made me self conscious but the rich side of the family acted like the chefs and waiters didnt even exist.
I really can’t imagine being such a dick to my staff who are kind enough to work a holiday. I’d be friendly, make sure they got food and breaks etc.
I remember working in a hotel that wasn’t as fancy as it thought it was. We did weddings and used to eat some leftovers etc, I once mentioned to a well off wedding guest about having eaten some of the same meal they were eating she was pissed I was allowed to do it. I politely pointed out I can’t advise guests on it unless I’ve eaten it.
That’s the thing that trips me up most. The seeming need to up every part. Even things that can’t possibly get better from paying more for them get blown out of proportion. It’s probably just losing connection to how much money something should cost
Paying 30k for a fully decorated Christmas tree.
Especially strange to me, as I assumed decorating the tree was part of the experience.
They consume, they do not create.
Not only paying for the tree, but paying someone to bring it, set it up, and come back to take it all down later.
I know someone that was doing this as a side gig for a while, no 30k jobs, but I think she did over a dozen trees in like 2023.
the christmas tree mustve had gold and diamond ornaments on it.
not that weird or super rich but I know someone who gives private swimming lessons to peoples kids in their own pool in their garden
I think a lot of the things they can and do afford for themselves is just this: privacy.
Private booths, private lessons, private jets, etc.
Private pool lessons is nowhere NEAR private jets…
My brother is nowhere near private jet rich, but his kid gets lessons in backyard pool in the neighborhood…
Apparently banks don’t like it if you make $300k in cash withdrawals on a monthly basis. I know of someone who likes to keep that much in a safe at home for “walking around money”. I guess it really messes up a bank to have all their cash on hand disappear in one go.
Another strange thing is home photoshoots. There are whole magazines dedicated to photoshoots of rich people’s homes. It’s usually ads for their interior decorating vanity business, but sometimes it’s just to show off.
There are whole magazines dedicated to photoshoots of rich people’s homes. It’s usually ads for their interior decorating vanity business, but sometimes it’s just to show off.
Those are ads. They’re flipping the house.
Surprisingly no. They still own the place and have put WAY more into fixing it up than it would ever sell for.
The right bank could do that on a regular basis, but yeah not without some kind of standing agreement on paper. They’d definitely want to be able to plan for it. If it’s a smaller location 300k could easily clean them out, jesus.
The photoshoots thing is particularly strange to me. I don’t like any strangers seeing into my house, let alone a whole magazine’s worth.
I heard of an individual that would use hand towels as disposable wipes. They would just buy new ones and throw out the dirty ones instead of washing them.
washing them.
…having them washed. Rich people don’t wash shit.
This, actually. At my last job, I worked for some filthy rich people. Somehow, doing laundry got brought up, and I was complaining about how it felt endless to the owners, and they agreed. “The worst part is having fold everything!” I said. The one owner tells me that she doesn’t actually have to fold anything because she has a service that washes, dries, and folds all of her laundry. She was complaining about having to put it away… ONLY putting it away…
not as irritating as a post on the sub a while back, a person was a maid/nanny of sorts, and they were forced to throw out new clothes they bought the day they were wearing it, its only for a photo op thats about it.
I’m poor and I don’t wash shit, I just flush it! ;-)
Savage. I prefer my turds polished.
Only the filthy rich.
Yah thats not just a rich people thing unfortunately, I know someone that refuses to wash their underwear. They just buy new ones once a week and discard the old ones daily after wearing them…just bizarre.
They probably just sell the used underwear. Surprisingly, there is a market for that.
Makes sense…yah and its quite a big market too.
I know a couple of rich people. One of them hired a state senator as their attorney.
It’s totally on the up and up for the most part, but there is the implication that this puts influence in the senator to vote in favor of their second employer.
Like these rich people also run their own business and their business is funded by a billionaire, so they’re using billionaires’ money to fund their own lifestyle while also using that money to hire attorneys and senators to help their lifestyle continue.
Funding a family because they had an affair with the wife that produced a child.
Asia?
