Let’s be real, financial stability is incredibly important. Sure, your relationships and health might be your top priorities, but if you’re constantly worried about paying your bills, it’s going to cause you a lot of stress and anxiety. But once you’ve got the essentials covered, what do you actually buy when you start earning decent money, your investments pay off, or you win the jackpot?
Well, some folks have so much spare cash that they come up with ludicrous ways to spend it. In a fascinating AskReddit thread, internet users revealed what they’ve personally witnessed well-off people do with their vast amounts of wealth. Check out their experiences below. Household Chief of Staff? Private parks? Decorative food? That’s just the start.
#1
In Beverly Hills, rich guy buys the home across the street worth tens of millions of US dollars, had it razed then built a private park, because the home was blocking his view.
Image credits: Advanced-Prototype
#2
I did some work at a guy’s house who had an underground parking garage installed under his library so he could have more guests over. It fit eighty cars. Eighty. .
Image credits: jkcappy
#3
I worked for a wealthy lady who had a really beautiful yard, so nice in fact it was in Better Home & Gardens magazine. What she had was a banana tree that was in a larger planter, and because I live in Chicagoland the tree couldn’t survive the winters. What she did was have someone remove it from her yard every winter to store in a greenhouse, and then bring it back out when the weather was nice. I don’t know the cost, but I can’t imagine it being very cheap.
Image credits: zanitok
Even if you happen to be ridiculously wealthy, you have to be wise about how you spend your money. If your spending outpaces your earnings, eventually, you’ll end up bankrupting your household. So, realistically, you can do two things. You can earn more cash (ask for a raise or promotion, get a better job, take on a side hustle, monetize your hobby, rebalance your investment portfolios, etc.). Or you can cut back on (some) non-essential spending.
That being said, you can (and should) allocate some cash to be spent on the quality things you enjoy, guilt-free. But if that wrecks your budget, you’ve got to rebalance your priorities. If you’re into landscaping and gardening, by all means, invest in your luxurious backyard. Or if you’re really into gourmet food, go ahead and get high-quality ingredients for your next dinner party. But don’t do so at the cost of generational wealth or your future self’s peace of mind.
#4
This isn’t even that expensive but the concept struck me. Decorative food. I watched an AD video about flea markets. A suggestion was to style a large bowl with fresh artichokes. As if someone would just regularly buy 10 artichokes to fill this huge bowl as part of their ongoing kitchen look. .
Image credits: hermanshermitz
#5
Guns forged from meteorites, rare world artifacts, and $5000 an hour escorts.
Image credits: IllbaxelO0O0
#6
I just worked a wedding and they spent 400k on flowers at the venue. They were at this venue for 4 hours.
Image credits: THE_DANDY_LI0N
At its core, your budget should help you reach your financial goals, whatever they might be. Forbes suggests that you reframe how you think about budgeting, seeing it as something that frees and empowers you, rather than limits you.
There are 4 main ‘pillars’ of creating a budget:
- Know your exact income, from all sources
- Document your monthly expenses, including essentials (rent, mortgage, utilities, food, travel, insurance, clothing, etc.) and discretionary expenses (entertainment, memberships, subscriptions, etc.)
- Figure out how big your debts are
- Create your budget strategy to match your financial goals
#7
Have a friend that rents a 108k USD per year apartment in the high rise over his gym because he didn’t feel like using the gym’s toilet, showers and locker room. Literally uses it maybe 2 hours per week.
Image credits: Livinincrazytown
#8
I was at Burning Man last year and some billionaire really wanted pizza from his favorite pizza place in Italy. So he had them fly in something like 5,000 pizzas, the restaurant crew, and a pizza oven. He then got on the oven and made pizza for everyone.
Image credits: trivial_sublime
#9
I know a person who works as a travel planner for a billionaire. They aren’t just making reservations on Expedia. They travel to the locations in advance to select just the right hotel and restaurants and arrange absolutely every detail of every day of the trip in advance.
Image credits: jayjaym
A couple of budgeting methods include the 50/30/20 rule and the 70/20/10 rule.
In the former case, you divide your income into 3 main categories. You then allocate 50% of your income to cover your needs, 30% for your wants, and 20% for your financial goals.
Meanwhile, the latter method means that you spend 70% of your income on essentials, 20% on savings or investments, and 10% on debt repayments or donations.
Again, choose what works for you and your specific lifestyle.
#10
I sometimes work for a family who have 10,000+ employees. They have a a driver, live in chef, house maids, 24/7 security who sit in a room with CCTV day and night, multiple gardeners who live in outhouses and various other staff. However that is nothing to what my sister does for a living, she is one of five PAs to a Saudi prince and one of the richest men on earth. I am a sole trader living in a little 3 bed in the East of England eating into my overdraft each month and when he heard we were having a kid, he bought us about £5,000 worth of stuff and Hermes toys for the baby costing about a grand each! Yes they went on eBay hah.
Image credits: Peloquinn
#11
For job related reasons a few years ago I happened to be part of a project of complete renovation of a luxurious hotel suite that a Russian oligarch had booked.
He liked the place, but didn’t like the room. He spent around 300k euros to have the suite completely redone.
For a 5 days stay.
Image credits: itsnotblueorange
#12
My cousin who works in engineering submarines is old me that there are billion-dollar luxury submarines for sale for billionaires that want to sit out the apocalypse in style. I think about that a lot.
Image credits: provocative_bear
What is the most ridiculous thing that you personally know someone wealthy has spent their money on? What would you do with your cash if you woke up extremely rich one day?
What are some budgeting tips that you’d give someone who is completely new to the job market?
Share your thoughts in the comments at the bottom of this post.
#13
Renting out the entire area around the great pyramid of Giza and closing it all down to tourists so one can throw a 3 day party only for the ultra rich.
Image credits: jdlech
#14
Drill a road through a mountain to have their very own private road out of the city into their own underground garage and their home on top of that mountain.
Image credits: iamagermanpotato
#15
A Saudi crown prince bought a $450 million dollar Leonardo Da Vinci painting and hung it up in his $580 million yacht.
Image credits: stickytack
#16
Garde Robe. Basically cloud storage for clothing. They catalog and store your wardrobe and then ship it to wherever you are when you travel. They’ll choose climate and event appropriate attire and even provide themed clothing as needed.
Edit: Apparently it’s part of another company called Uovo now. https://ift.tt/B0oYlSx.
#17
A “Household Chief of Staff.”
Not a butler. A logistical CEO for their personal lives who manages the pilots, the yacht crew, the multiple estate managers, the nannies, the art curator, and the person who makes sure the fridge in their fourth home is stocked before they arrive.
They’re buying a complete insulation from the friction of reality.
#18
Knew this one dude who bought a vacant piece of land in the Hollywood Hills just to pour asphalt over it so his guests had a valet parking spot right next to the mansion we were throwing a huge party at. The asphalt had just a few days to dry before cars started showing up. It came close to the wire and the guests in their exotic imported sports cars never knew.
EDIT: Also, same guy would have sushi from Japan (from the Tsijijki market) flown into the U.S. and before eating it would need to see a certification that the fish was caught no more than 15 hours prior. He would also pay the restaurant (can’t mention what restaurant specifically or even where) tons of money to close down so he could eat the sushi in peace alone with his wife.
The guy was an a*****e btw.
#19
Child care for their autistic children. I dated a woman a decade ago who was a PhD in child psychology, and she made a literal fortune being a baby sitter for ultra wealthy kids on the spectrum. Just to take an ad hoc FaceTime call (if the kids were having a meltdown when she wasn’t there) it was $500 every 15 min (took multiple of these calls daily – sometimes a dozen different 5-10 minute calls in a day from the same family), billed in fi at the start of the first minute of each 15 min block. A 16 min call was $1k. It was $1,000 an hour for her to be 1:1 with the kids (and folks had her booked out for months – to watch their kids on weekends, date nights, etc) and she had a racket where she had a “play group” and would get all of them together in a pack and each kid was $500/hr and she’d have 10-15 of them.
She was amazing with kids and had an incredible way of dealing with extreme cases, but she was making $4-6 million a year, which was pretty ridiculous for playing board games most of the time.
#20
24/7 nanny coverage per kid, with 3 kids. They had 12 total nannies on staff +/- at any given time to cover weekends, holidays, days off etc. I used to work at their kids private school in the IT department and they hired me to do some IT stuff at their home as well as tutor one of their older kids. Instead of paying me cash, they would forward my email bill to the family office in NYC and I would get an overnight FedEx package with a check every week.
They also got divorced and bought mansions next to each other for the kids sake. The mom found one for sale that she liked, and then went to the neighbor directly next door and made them an offer I guess they could not refuse.
I have dealt with many high net worth people and they are usually d***s and so are their kids. This particular family was unfazed by their wealth. They were the nicest, most down to earth people, and their kids were awesome! Before doing some work for them, I knew the kids from school and you would have never known how wealthy and privileged they were. They were the nicest, most humble, helpful kids with a crazy amount of empathy for their age. They were an old money family, very old money, and I think it just never bothered them. They did a great job raising their kids, as is evident by the fact that you would have thought they were still married, as they attended all school functions together, talked to each other, etc. I only found out they were divorced when I was helping their son for the first time and he said he needed to run to his dads house to get something.
The private school I was working at needed to raise $10 million for an expansion. This family offered to match all donations, up to $5 million. Not only did they match every donation, even after crossing $5 million, they also donated another $10 million to the school, so over $15 million total out of their pocket to the school.
We only found out about their donations a few years ago. At the time, we were told it was an anonymous matching gift and an anonymous donation. They did not want anything named after them or any recognition at all while their kids were still going to school there.
#21
I used to work for a privately held company run and owned by one individual who was earning $ 2-3 million a year. He asked me if I was interested in making extra money running errands for him.
One of the “errands” was to measure the built-in bookshelves in his massive new house, then going to Barnes and Noble to buy enough books to fill every inch of the shelves. The only prerequisite was that the books had to make him appear well-read and intelligent. He gave me a credit card and I spent 6 hours loading a U-Haul with $11,000 worth of books. After that, I spent an entire weekend arranging the books on the shelves.
He called me back out a couple of weeks later to “rough up” the books because it was obvious they had never been read.
All in all, he paid me around $ 5,000, plus meals while I was there, to make strangers think he read a lot.
#22
I grew up with a kid whose dad bought 100 acres of farm land because he liked the look of the agriculture license plate more than the normal one in our state.
He was a pretty humble kid and I always thought they were just farmers until I showed up to his house the first time and saw that his pool house was bigger than my house. That’s when I learned that my friend was the heir to a fortune 100 company.
#23
My friend is a boat captain for one client. Extremely fancy sailboat. 12 months per year salary, Boat is in the water 6-7 months. Oversees the maintenance of the boat year round, in the spring gets it launched and in a slip. When called, prepares it for a cruise, including hiring crew, which will live on a separate rented boat during the cruise when at anchor.
#24
I overheard the owner of the company I was working at telling one of his friends that he just bought a “dinner car”. As in a luxury car he only uses to go out for dinner in. The way he made it sound was like he thought everyone had one.
#25
In my country, a billionaire’s youngest son is fond of animals. For him, he got private zoo created on hundreds of acres of land. Animals from all over the world are present in his private zoo.
Also, for the same son’s wedding he got Justin Bieber to JLO perform in his private event.
He hired every big name singer from our country to sing live in background . It was like Spotify but live. Singers were performing their hit songs live. Veteran musicians with ego the size of moon , entertaining guests like props.
#26
A women I know was telling us that she’s getting too old to go up the stairs in her house. Figured she would downsize, nope!! She got an elevator installed on each side of the house.
#27
My brother is a pilot for a really rich guy and they will send the plane to do errands like an Instacart delivery person. Guy just doesn’t seem to trust FedEx, so he just has the flight staff go pick things up. i.e. My wife wants this dress, can you go to NY to pick it up for her?
Oh, and I met a dude once that had 100 people on his personal payroll. About 25 of them were in the family office, but between PA’s, house managers, cooks, cleaners, drivers, landscaping, construction (yes, that is a thing), flight staff, PT’s, tutors, coaches, etc. s**t adds up. I remember him saying that it was like a $10M+ a year payroll. Just to manage his life. At one point, I think that it was Eric Schmidt, in an interview said that he had over 300-people on his personal staff. That was peak Google, so maybe that has been scaled down a bit.
#28
My son’s godfather is fairly wealthy. He didn’t come from wealth, but did a hell of a job when he was given the right opportunity. He’s got to be worth 30-50 million. Private doctor, private banker, multiple homes, and a rather impressive collection of classic cars. But he is low key. I could afford the house his wife and him live in. The amount of free stuff he gets though is amazing. His various businesses have about $250 million in annual sales, it’s not uncommon for him to be invited to some deal in Maui or Tahoe for what essentially is a sales pitch.
#29
One of my friends is a private jet broker. She mentioned someone booked a private jet to fly a Turkey, yes the bird, to Dubai for Thanksgiving.
#30
A “friend” bought a small island (on a lake) in Maine during covid so he could throw naked party. I was so shocked and amazed by the level of the stupid wealth that I actually joined one weekend out of curiosity. I learned later just the food and drinks cost close to 100k that weekend. Recently they totally disappeared from the face of the earth and idk what happened.
#31
I got invited onto a superyacht owned by a billionaire in Italy. While I was a lunch guest in the afternoon prepared by his private chef, I saw his fuel bill at Marina Porto Antico that was **€**158000.
#32
Racing horses. Millions and millions of dollars just to have a very small percentage of having a competitive horse.
#33
Family offices.
They hire a team of people to manage their wealth. An office with their own investment bankers, lawyers, accounts, financial planners etc.
I was approached as a junior/mid-level lawyer to join. I wasn’t that interested so I asked for a good pay bump – I think it was around ~USD280k per year not including bonus and perks. This was some years ago. They agreed. Imagine how much the more senior bankers, accountants are getting paid.
And then imagine being wealthy enough to pay for an office full of them.
#34
Spent 30 million to line the banks of a river so his guest wouldn’t get their feet muddy when they went swimming.
I’ve told this story before but my brother worked for a fireworks company. This billionaire hired him to do a private show. That alone was $28K.
#35
Lady gaga once bought a $50,000 ghost detector. $50,000
Celine dion literally has a humidifier that cost over $2 million to protect her vocal cords
We have absolutely NO idea what else these insanely rich people can/or are buying.
#36
Time they buy time:
Think of all the things you do (we will exclude work) in a week that take up your time.
Grocery shopping, preparing food, cleaning your house, driving places, going through an airport, laundry, dropping kids off places and picking them up etc and so on.
They have people to do this for them which frees up their time. They just focus on work or things they want to everything else’s is just handled.
#37
I used to do landscaping on one of the 12 holiday homes of a billionaire. He was only there once or twice a year. He still had a full time crew of 6 guys maintaining it. He also really loved pine trees but didn’t like pine cones on the grass, so I was paid $17 an hour in 2012 to pick up pine cones all day long.
There was also a tree that a bald eagle nested in for many years that apparently blocked the view from his bedroom, so he tried getting us to cut it down. When my boss thankfully refused, the billionaire hired someone else to do it, and ended up getting fined a huge amount after the fact. But the tree was still cut down.
D******d.
#38
One thing rich people spend their money on that you might not realize is hiding their wealth. And, they often do it for their extended family. It can be a business under a shell corporation, or an investment fund run through a series of other operations.
Family members contribute money in one way or as another to a business or charity that moves the money around the world anonymously. Detailed records are kept about who contributed what and how much their investment is worth.
It’s not criminal activity they are hiding, it’s the identity of they owner… the source. On paper, this one family member is “only” a millionaire, but they have control of hundreds of millions in wealth of various forms all around the world.
Someone might be just your average cardiologist in the US, but they and their family owns a large portion of a factory in Taiwan through a holding company. The holding company is mostly owned by an investment firm, who is owned by another private equity group, that’s mostly owned by an anonymous group in a trust… for example. It can get very complicated.
They don’t directly pay taxes of the wealth or income, and it’s not attached to them directly so it’s very unlikely they will lose it if they get divorced or some other financial catastrophe.
#39
Support staff and luxury goods that make TV luxury goods look cheap and paltry by comparison. The ultra wealthy have 24 hour concierge access that gets them the best seats at the best restaurants or events on the planet. They fly private and have fleets of luxury cars at their disposal. Best part is their entire world moves with them from one estate to another. Duplicate wardrobes and a team brings their essentials from one place to another so they don’t have to adapt their expectations for different locations. Just top level everything from security to private chefs to executive assistants. Plus lawyers and investment advisors as well as public image managers to protect their reputations and public image. .
#40
The richest person I’ve known (about £0.5bn personal net worth about 15 years ago) owned a completely separate house purely as an address to put on official forms, so that his real home address would never be disclosed.
#41
There’s at least one divorced couple that flies their dog between countries weekly on a private jet as part of their joint custody agreement.
#42
I heard about a sultan with a heart condition who ‘bought’ a healthy 25 year old man from his parents who had the same blood type and heart size as the sultan to live a life of luxury (or at least comfort) until the sultan needed that heart.
The guy couldn’t be too far away from the plane that would race him over to where the sultan was at any given time.
Yeah, THAT amount of money.
#43
My fiancé’s parents flew the six of us from Detroit to Cleveland on a Thursday evening to eat dinner then back the same night. The amount rich people fly to do mundane things is insane.
Edit: The flight was a private jet out of a private airport if that wasn’t obvious.
#44
Concierge Medicine. For about 5k a month I have doctors that I can just go see as a walk in or call any time day or night. They send a phlebotomist to my home or office once a month to take labs, I get whatever imaging or treatments I need basically immediately without needing to wait for anything. it’s basically the finest bespoke healthcare money can buy.
#45
Live in servants. Buddy has a house in Cabo with 3 full time servants to keep the house repaired, and magazine looking at all times. Also every bedroom had a hamper that we called the magic hampers. You put dirty clothes in and within 24 hours your clothes come back clean and folded.
#46
It’s also about what they don’t spend money on. I’ve read and seen documentaries about quiet wealth, which is one of the aspects where you find the difference between millionaires and billionaires. I’ve seen this in real life as well, when I worked at a fancy place.
Millionaires will attend banquets and gatherings with a $100K gucci handbag and flaunt it around. The billionaires don’t carry bags, because their butler has it, and many of them wears clothes with no brand.
#47
I used to work for an insanely rich family and they bought the piece of land next to them for $10 million just so nobody else could build on it and they can maintain the good view that they get from their house.
I also was the “manny”. I got paid $2500/week to live there and act as the father the kids never had. There was a “nanny” that did all the cooking and cleaning and got paid less than me. I didn’t have to cook or clean.
#48
My wealthy mate and I compared cashmere jumpers, mine from uniqlo, £90 and his from The Kooples, £900 ( I actually got mine in a half price sale.) They were exactly the same. This goes for literally everything from groceries to cars.
#49
Policies that keep the middle class from ever getting out of the debt trap, preventing politicians from enacting laws that give us socialized services like Healthcare, public transportation, affordable housing…
#50
Worked in finance in a HCOL east coast city. Had a client that bought the penthouse with a top floor garden so he didn’t have to go down to take his dog out to potty.
#51
Build a house in a foreign city for their child to live in during college. After child graduates, sell the house.
#52
Inspector here. I’ve seen 18 bedroom 18 bathroom houses. One such house had a full size inground pool in the basement year round with gym and sauna, a movie theatre , concession room for candy and popcorn machine , full size lounge, bar area, a secret wine cellar, 3 guest bedrooms w/ baths, chefs kitchen with a dumwaiter, 3 utility rooms, 3 Elevators
a sub basement with a 15ft hi ceiling
they said it was going to be a ballroom with crazy projectors on ceiling to project onto all the walls to make it look like your outside or paintings…. My mans built a subterranean holodeck ballroom.
This was his basement.
He bought the house behind him, knocked it down and put another in ground pool with a pool house and paid the utility company to bury the poles and wires
One guy had two chandeliers in the Dining room they cost $150,000 each they installed them. He didn’t like the color, sent it back to the company paid $50k each for an acid bath to change the color of the metal.
The most recent house I saw had about
4500ft of LED Tape light for cove lighting every room hallway everywhere. Electric bill will be insane. These are people that 50k, is a drop in the bucket for them.
#53
We were in Disney a few years ago. Happened to be there on my bday and we wanted to splurge and buy an expensive bottle of wine. $100 bottle is an expensive bottle to us. There was a $7000 bottle on the wine list. We asked the server if anyone ever buys it. “Yeah, a table of 4 bought 3 bottles last week.” I think she said they were businessmen so likely a write off but still that’s crazy. .
#54
Husband and I just took our honeymoon cruise (we splurged on a fancy cruise company, and had a credit so it was hella cheap) there was a couple by us on the deck talking about their excursion to be helicoptered to a glacier, and then be pulled by sled dogs (at this point I was trying to get my husband’s attention b/c WTF)
When we booked the cruise, I saw that excursion. It was around $3k a person and they had a family of at least 4 people.
#55
Its not really spending like we think. Sure, fuel for the yacht or the jet might be a few hundred thousand a year, maybe a few mil if its a 150’+. That’s chump change.
They like to throw parties. Usually fundraisers. A millions to help build infrastructure somewhere. Fundraisers for politicians, like the governor or president, or president of foreign countries. They will hire what most normal people consider rich, like a famous musician, to come play to help bring more people to raise more money for their goals.
Or… not just a month long private vacation in a far away country, but also weaving in royalty, politicians, and important people. Not your Instagram influencers. People you have never heard of, because they want it to be that way. They like their privacy. And in my experience, they are not flashy.
#56
A service to pack and unpack clothes before you even get to the destination.
#57
Had a client install heating coils under their driveway in Aspen.
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