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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.

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...

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.

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

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.htm...

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!”

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-b...

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/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.

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.

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.

The richest people I know don’t have work-life balance, they have a supercritical work-life fluid.

I find the most interesting bracket the 5-8M one where almost anything highend / luxury becomes a commodity.

> 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.

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.

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?

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-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_perfor...

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

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?

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.

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-...

Was this posted because of incoming HBO's Mountainhead? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27cN2_k0JF0

Debrett’s Guide for the Modern Gentleman should give some pointers.

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.

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-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-cho...

N.B. No affiliation with Tom Cruise, Doan's, or Goldbelly.

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".

> 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.

They buy politicians

> 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-...

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.)

With billions, can I be Batman?

> 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.

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?

organs, children, private investigations, professional harassment campaigns, & assassinations

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?

And yet, for all that freedom and power, the end note hits hard: emotional connection and authenticity become the rarest luxury.

This as usual is just financial mortals speculating on what wealthy people do.

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.

Just wanted to share my experience—Reviva0 on Telegram helped me recover $180,000 that I lost to a fake crypto trading platform. I honestly thought it was gone for good, but their team came through for me. Super professional and legit. If you’ve been scammed, don’t lose hope—reach out to them. Grateful doesn’t even begin to cover it.

Great. More Reddit nonsense

> There is literally nothing you can't buy except. Love.

I feel like Elon is finding this part out the hard way lately.

> 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.

index funds?

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.

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.

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

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.

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

I'm not from the US so I'm just curious why would anyone prefer to spend their time with a senator or president?

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...

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.

You too can live a life where you can buy whatever you want. All you have to do is change what you want.

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 (19m57s) [2025-04-28]

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.

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.

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.

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

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/us/how-an-arkansas-city-b...

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.)

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.

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.