It started with platform userInfiniteMirrorssinviting people to share what they believe to be the things the super-wealthy do that the average person doesn’t even consider. Immediately, thousands started to send in their answers. Here are some of the most popular ones.
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A former client of mine, sadly, recently deceased, has/had two yachts moored in the South of France, next to each other.One was fast, one was slow. He’d take the fast one down to St. Tropez, and have the other one follow because it was more comfortable. He’d have lunch in one of his restaurants there, then relax on the slow yacht for the day. Sometimes he’d stay overnight, sometimes not. But he’d take the fast yacht back to home port.The captains would hand out thousands to get the best berths in St. Tropez. He literally used the yachts like his taxi.He would do the same to his house in Portofino, but that was usually a week or so trip.His recent passing made global headlines, to give an idea of the dosh. But to be fair, his tax contributions to the local economy literally changed the small port town he lived in. He created public parks, golf and tennis courts, a horse riding club, gym facilities, all well maintained, fully staffed with great summer programs for the kids; further works improved the roads, sidewalks, public beaches and walking/hiking paths; he bought a disused old church and turned it into a public museum, etc. He literally contributed so much to the local economy that they no longer charge for public parking anywhere, it’s all free, all year round.That’s how you’re supposed to ‘trillionaire’.
Buy out a company just so you can tweet what you want without fear of getting banned.
We got in touch with InfiniteMirrorss and the Redditor agreed to have a chat with us about their now viral post.“I’ve been working on my pilot license and was talking about doing a cross-country flight where we’d stop somewhere far away and get dinner, then head back,” they explained its origins toBored Panda.“In the aviation community it’s called the ‘$100 hamburger’ because flight time is so expensive and it had me thinking about ultra-high-net-worth people and how that might not even be a consideration to them, whereas for me (an ultra-low-net person), becoming a career pilot requires tactically considering every dollar I spend. So I thought, ‘wow, I wonder if rich people just fly to Paris for the night to get dinner and then come back,’ or something else as jet-setting.”
We got in touch with InfiniteMirrorss and the Redditor agreed to have a chat with us about their now viral post.
“I’ve been working on my pilot license and was talking about doing a cross-country flight where we’d stop somewhere far away and get dinner, then head back,” they explained its origins toBored Panda.
“In the aviation community it’s called the ‘$100 hamburger’ because flight time is so expensive and it had me thinking about ultra-high-net-worth people and how that might not even be a consideration to them, whereas for me (an ultra-low-net person), becoming a career pilot requires tactically considering every dollar I spend. So I thought, ‘wow, I wonder if rich people just fly to Paris for the night to get dinner and then come back,’ or something else as jet-setting.”
Own a Senator or two.
InfiniteMirrorss added that if you dig deep enough, you will find some responses buried in the discussion that also beautifully describe how leisurely life is for the rich. “Every day, someone takes care of every single want and need that they could possibly think of. As one Redditor put it, ‘that’s exactly it, they don’tdoanything.'”
Buying a home for their college-age children. Then they sell the house when their kid graduates. Sometimes this sale pays for college.AloneWish4895:I was a realtor for this. They would also have rent paying roommates during their college years. Sell the house and pay back all the housing and a lot of the tuition costs.
I live near Scottsdale with alot of wealthy people. They constantly remodel their vacation homes so there’s always great stuff. I bought a brand new Viking refrigerator from Craigslist. Still wrapped. It’s 8feet tall, 36”. The homeowners decided they wanted a double refrigerator instead. They’ve owned the home two years. Still haven’t stayed a night there. The refrigerator retails for $18K. I got it for $1,500.
So what does all of this tell us? The answer probably depends on the person and the emotions these statements evoke.“How abhorrent does it feel to someone that there can be such wealth and yet others struggle to find basic needs met daily? There is a distaste for the idea that so few people can have so much and in that sense, most people may dream of being wealthy themselves, yet vilify people who are,” InfiniteMirrorss noted.“It’s my understanding that wealthy people do not interact with the average person, and in fact, avoid it. What rich person (broad strokes here) would ride the NYC subway when they have their private driver take them from their home to their private jet to their private island with their private friends?” the Redditor addrd. “Poor people, fetishize, fantasize, and castigate the rich, and the rich..? I don’t think we cross their mind.”
So what does all of this tell us? The answer probably depends on the person and the emotions these statements evoke.
“How abhorrent does it feel to someone that there can be such wealth and yet others struggle to find basic needs met daily? There is a distaste for the idea that so few people can have so much and in that sense, most people may dream of being wealthy themselves, yet vilify people who are,” InfiniteMirrorss noted.
“It’s my understanding that wealthy people do not interact with the average person, and in fact, avoid it. What rich person (broad strokes here) would ride the NYC subway when they have their private driver take them from their home to their private jet to their private island with their private friends?” the Redditor addrd. “Poor people, fetishize, fantasize, and castigate the rich, and the rich..? I don’t think we cross their mind.”
I dated a girl from a super rich family for a couple years and every spring her entire family would go through their closets and donate 90% of their wardrobe and then go out and drop $20k+ on entirely new clothes for the year because they HAD to have the new season of everything. As some one who grew up wearing clothes till they fell apart and patching them if they still fit, this blew my mind, getting rid of perfectly good clothes because they were “last season” is just insane to me.
Years ago I read an article about someone whose business was keeping ultra-rich people’s cars ready to go - as in if you have a Ferrari in multiple cities they’d keep it fueled up, oil changed, etc and drive it around the block once a week or so, and have it waiting at the airport when the owner flies into town.CporCv:When I was a car mechanic, our shop would do this type of work for the richest clients. I remember doing a $800 oil change on a Maserati that was only driven 7 miles in 6 months. Insane
Live above the law.
Buying two $1,500 cashmere sequined short sleeved sweaters so that your tailor can cut up one sweater and make sleeves out of it because the top doesn’t come in a long sleeve version.Source: I used to work for a very wealthy retired actress who did this. I had to purchase the sweaters for her and schedule the tailor.
There are several single family owned Montessori schools. Like a family office put together an entire mini school just for their kids and their friends’ kids. It became a thing to do when the pandemic hit. Some of them are 100% mobile too, like teaching on the jet/all over the world.
My SIL’s cousin’s family is very rich. They have two basketball courts inside their house that’s how massive it is. Inside the house. They bought all the lots next to their mansion and built a park just for their family so they wouldn’t need to be near anyone. I got vertigo when I walked into the “gym” it was so large. My brain couldn’t handle that I was inside such a large space that was also inside a house and it couldn’t understand what it was looking at, and then it processed it. That experience is burned in my memory. I was looking for a bathroom when I stumbled on it.
I once met a man that bought a $5m+ house about an hour away from his actual house simply because his wife didn’t like him smoking cigars at home. He would only use the house to smoke in and have a party or two a year.
Summer (in the verb form).Illustrious-Salt-243:My first day working at a law firm a lawyer in the elevator asked me where I spent my summer. I said the same place I spent my fall, spring and winter
There’s a type of mega yacht that follows the main yacht and it just carries toys.
Having separate sets of clothing in each house so they don’t have to take more than carry-on luggage when traveling.quixoticali:I’ve heard of this but for expensive designer bags too - a client returned to buy another $8000 bag in the exact same size and color - - when a sales clerk asked if it’s for gifting since she has the bag already, the client replied, “No. This will be sent to my other home”
Concierge/private specialized medical care. If they have a special or chronic condition, say kidney failure, they’ll have a dialysis ward installed in their home with a private nephrologist etc. (or end up hiring someone who will end up donating an organ to them) or cancer treatments - set up in home, etc. or have an MRI installed in their home etc.
I actually know one, they haven’t been to a grocery store since mid 90s…
Flying to another country on a private jet just to eat dinner.acog:I just saw a video with Steve-O where he said he once flew to the UK just to have his favorite snack.
Starting a private space program.
I have several rich friends who are my age (50s) and don’t work. Their biggest perk is attending every concert and show and buying front row. Not just our area, but if their favorite band is playing across the country, they fly (with their kids) there and spend the weekend.
Hiring a stylist to curate new designer furniture for their house when it needs a refresh.justonemom14:This. The idea that furniture and home decor have fashions or seasons. That you might rip out the carpeting or tile and have it redone because it isn’t in style any more. It’s so beyond me that people waste perfectly good stuff, like lemme throw this couch in the garbage, because I’m tired of the color.
Buy the island instead of vacation to the island.PM_WORST_FART_STORY:Some billionaire JUST tried that in Duluth, MN. She then threatened to sue anyone who reported on it or asked questions. Then, after that caused public backlash and had the mayor wanting to talk to her, she is now backing out and tried to say she “had plans for the good of community.”
I used to do pest control for the wealthy, been in a lot of mansions. The one that threw me off the most was customer that asked, “Oh, did you get the panic room behind the bookcase?”The what behind the where?!Those people also had an outdoor, life size chess set on a travertine checkerboard, and like 3 pools with a rock bridge formation over the courtyard inside their house.
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Pay for kidnap insurance.kasant:I used to work in insurance and our company had pre-approved mercenaries on call to hire when someone got kidnapped. Rich people will also insure anything: legs, hair, other body parts. I’ve even heard about alien abduction insurance.
Ive been a chef for 20 years. I’ve dealt with this a bit. Buying out a restaurant for several days, in case they wanted to just “drop in” during their vacation with no wait times at all. We charged $50,000 per meal service they wanted to buyout. Made us $300k over 3 days. They never showed up, but went to our sister restaurant across the river… In miami: Bottle service is insane. We know this already, but you have no idea. Aside from paying $2,000 for a bottle of grey goose with mixers they will spend several thousand on Ace of Spades or Crystal and just throw $200,000 on the black card for one night of drinking. This extends to champagne, not just for drinking, but for the act of spraying on each other but on the scantily clad girls pretending to like you for 25% guarateed tip. This includes a special champagne menu with an assortment of “spray packages”. You can buy one bottle of DomP to drinkband spray around for $1,000 or you can order whole entire cases of Crystal JUST TO SPRAY ON EACHOTHER FOR $50,000 A CASE. Ive seen poolside bungalows order several cases for pool parties….
Girl in college was from an African country. Sweetest, nicest person. She asked to sit with me at breakfast one morning, fascinating conversation. Totally down to earth.Spoke to Her roommate later who described her life basically as Prince Akeem’s from Coming to America. She had pet Giraffe and Elephants, etc. I thought she was joking. She said she refers to home as “my father’s country"She then said let me tell you about last week. She decided she didn’t want to bum rides and wanted a car. The roommate described listening to her call her father and ask for a car and her father telling get go to the Mercedes dealership in 2 days (Saturday) I’ll arrange it. That weekend she drove her to the Mercedes dealership where the OWNER met this 19 yr old. He told her her father has arranged for one of every model they had, in every color they had. Whichever she didn’t choose they were shipping to him (the car haulers were waiting in the lot to load them). She chose the silver S600.They shipped 33 cars to her dad. Her ballpark math was somewhere around $1.5 to $2 million just for the purchase. This was the middle of America so getting 33 cars on international shipping vessel probably was a few bucks. All so she wouldn’t have to worry or make any real decisions other than to choose and drive away.
I do a lot of work for a ridiculously wealthy couple. One thing I saw that springs to mind is having a helicopter drop them off at the end of their driveway and having their car and driver waiting take them from the end of the gravel driveway to the house.It’s probably a 35 second walk. It took them longer to get into the car than it would for an ordinary person to walk it.
During Covid I worked as a Private Jet Charter Broker. We had a guy (a British member of the House of Lords no less) that explained that “sod the quarantine restrictions, I need to fly to Monaco every other week to ensure I keep my tax residency in Monaco and not in the U.K.”I also had someone who I’d regularly fly between London and Baku, Azerbaijan ask if they could take a short stop off in Dubai (which is very much not on the way) to get their passports stamped to ensure they maintained their residency there. They also once showed up with well over half a tonne of luggage that they described as “oh just some stuff we picked up shopping” you won’t be surprised to hear that they were very confused when we advised them that 27 boxes and suitcases of stuff won’t fit on an aircraft that we’d repeatedly told them only had space for about 10-12 suitcases.Finally, we had a Russian guy ask us to call his Caribbean Destination island airport and ask if they could ensure that his flight was not “randomly selected” for a Covid test as he didn’t have time to complete the quarantine if he had been positive. He didn’t care whether he had the virus, just that getting caught with it might f**k up his travel plans… in like July 2020.
Had a friends’ kids wonder “who are all these people on the plane?” because they’d never flown commercial before.
Once a really rich girl went slumming with my brother when he lived in NYC. He offered to get her a taxi at one point, and she said, “No, I’ll just take my dad’s helicopter.”Her dad’s. Helicopter.
TLDR: Man imported an ancient monastery door to use on his ranch homeI worked on a ranch just south of Crested Butte, CO(if you aren’t a billionaire, don’t even think about looking at buying a home there).The owner of the ranch bought the front door from a Tibetan monastery and flew it to the US to use as his front door on his main house. It was all ornamentaly hand carved, like 3000yrs old, approx 12' x 6' x 2', and weighed tons upon tons upon tons.Not even the cost of the door itself, but the shipping alone must have been astronomical. And this was just his front door on his main house. There must have been over 10 buildings on the property. I’ve seen/worked on many billionaire mansions all over CO, and this dude’s ranch is the nicest I’ve ever seen.
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I think a theme I’m seeing is “spending exorbitant amounts of money to avoid small inconveniences”.My boss would get his assistant to book flights. Then call every restaurant for reservations, then ask all his friends which restaurant is best, then cancel all reservations but the one he chose, then cancel the flights and book them closer to his reservation, then book multiple hotels, then ask his friends which hotel was best, then cancel all hotels except the one he chose. Then cancel and re book flights to be closer to his reservations. And he would book an extra day at the hotel so when he arrived he could go immediately to his room instead of waiting for check in time.He would spend thousands of extra dollars every time he went on a trip to avoid the minor inconvenience of having to A) be organized and B) wait for anything during his trip.Oh and C) he would pay his assistant 100 grand a year and not trust her to do something like “book me a trip to Berlin at the best hotel and best restaurant, make sure I don’t have to wait around for anything”
They call boutique stores ahead of time to say they are coming in on date x . The boutique high end store pulls every super expensive items complete with accessories on a rolling rack to have ready .I worked in a a high end store back in the day .If it was on sale - they pulled the sale tag off and literally tried to get rid of all the expensive items - think layering to up sell.
Have lobsters flown from Maine to Japan on a private jet to impress a client.
Have a person on staff for the express purpose of communicating to the rest of their staff. Cause you clearly can’t expect them to be talking to all these people directly.
Asked my boss what he’s doing for Christmas break…-family coming over for presents-in-laws coming over for presents-movie night-friend is driving our small yacht w our private chef to our island in the Bahamas for the week and were flying private to meet them…I bet they deny my raise when i ask too :/
Tailored clothes. I’m not just talking suits and fancier items. But tailored casual wear. Perfectly fitting t-shirts and jeans.
Most of my rich friends growing up always had stocked and organized fridges. Someone did all the shopping and kept everything organized.
My friend paid the fee to be able to have a personal escort for his family at Disney World that walks your group to the front of all the lines. I think that it was like $7500 a day.
Not ultra rich but I shared a apartment with some people in college, one of the roommates we had never came out of his room and his parents paid for an Indian granny to come every week and cook him a weeks worth of fresh food (and let me tell you, every time she came over all the rest of us were drooling and also kinda pissed because she took over the small kitchen for a few hours). He still ordered food delivery every single day, sometimes twice or three times a day and always had the best electronics. He never came out of his room, never talked to us and didn’t seem to go to class frequently. I definitely thought that kids family must be rich and trying to teach him how to “slum it” in a shared space
My friend was head of housekeeping for a rich family. Before traveling she would have to bring any clothing and suitcases to the dry cleaners where everything was freshly pressed, folded and tissue paper placed in between each item. Even the underwear.
Charter a private jet to take the family on vacation. More of a rich than ultra-rich, who can have personal jets. Once you’ve ponied up first class for parents, kids, and nannies, you’re close enough to the cost of a smaller charter. You pick your own travel times, skip the airport security mess, don’t have to wait in airport lounges, and can usually have your limousine drive up to the jet to drop/pick up your luggage.
Idk if it is well known but most customer service lines have a special line for rich people/celebrities. Just about every customer service line I have ever worked has a whole “VIP” department. I guarantee you they don’t get the slightest push back, the company will kill itself to make them happy. Also they get better service.When I worked at Directv, one of the VIPs called me. They had 27 tvs. I’m talking outside tvs, tvs in every shitter, shower tvs. With literally every channel, ppv included. Directv was pretty much paying them to have the service.
I know a rich guy who was telling me about the trouble he had with his jeweler… Guy had a personal jeweler to make him expensive watches…Also complained about how he bought a new car on a whim but forgot his 4 car garage was full of new cars… He lives in a mansion in North Miami. He also redecorates his house constantly. He has so much money he just does whatever he wants all the time, like spending 10k on hotel rooms.
Paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for golf course memberships. I photograph luxury homes in the most exclusive golf course neighborhoods in my state. I know of one neighborhood where membership runs 400k+ and there’s a wait list of people wanting to join.
My mum’s boss buys a brand new top of the range car almost every year and gives the year old one to one of his kids or family members.I jokingly asked for one. Truth is I doubt I could even afford the insurance let alone maintenence and fuel.
Their vacation homes are stocked with regionally appropriate attire. Mountain clothes, beach clothes etc. They also keep luxury vehicles at these homes that most people could only dream of owning and using as a daily driver.
They can make multiple high risk investments. If one in 30 makes it, then they are well in the black. I had a friend who started a successful business. He made some risky investments, one of which is currently paying out at $100K every year and is likely to double in the next 5-10 years. There were 20 or so that he lost almost all his investment, but in 3 years he has made all that money back. Now it is just profit.
Eat out for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. My daughter has made friends with a particularly wealthy family and the mother and the father are pretty much useless human beings. The dad works and does nothing else, The mom goes to the gym and does nothing else. Nobody in the family cooks so they eat out for every meal.
I have a friend with a private ski lift. Does that count?
I know several families at my college that paid recent education graduates to teach their kids during the pandemic. Basically full-time tutors, but just for two to three kids.
Ordering off menu. I have a friend who does this - clearly nice restaurants are up for this but I would never have thought of doing this until I saw it.
Hunt humans for sport on an isolated island.
A personal assistant.
Collect vintage Fender, Gibson, and Martin guitars. The desired instruments go for over $100k. Some of these folks have millions of dollars invested.
Making your own lakes for your hunting lodge community.Also maintaining the wildlife for said hunting community.
During the pandemic, I had a theater room added to my home. Mainly, it was because I thought the theater industry would be crippled. In some ways, it was, but not how I thought it would be.Still though, haven’t had a need to go to a movie theater in years. I’m actually really glad I did it.
Have boats with smaller boats in/on them.
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