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 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.
Image credits: squegg
#3
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.
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
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.
#5
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
#6
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
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
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.
#8
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
#9
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
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
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
#11
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.
#12
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
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
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
#14
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.
#15
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.
#16
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
#17
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
#18
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.
#19
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
#20
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
#21
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.
#22
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.
#23
Guns forged from meteorites, rare world artifacts, and $5000 an hour escorts.
Image credits: IllbaxelO0O0
#24
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
#25
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.
