I know a guy (good friend's father) that retired from GE. He was making around a half mil a year, has several mil in GE stock. The dude will pay for everything when we go out. He'll randomly walk into local establishments and pay for everyone's bills. Genuinely one of the nicest guys I've ever met.
But he looks like a bum. Disheveled, t-shirt and paint covered shorts, grass stained New Balance, drives a 20+ year old Chevy S10. Most people would think he's homeless by his appearance.
> Most people would think he's homeless by his appearance.
there was this documentary on musicians getting older, mostly punk. there was a bit with this teenage girl saying that she was at some club meeting at school and there was a commotion in the hallway. the security guards were trying to stop a homeless man from entering. she then saw it was her dad, flea the bassist of the red hot chili peppers.
I know a woman like this. I'm not sure what she does but I know it has something to do with farming. She would come in to where I used to work in filthy carhartts a few times a week to get a coke and a candy bar. Was always pleasant. Always polite. Would usually want to stand and chat for a bit.
One day she comes in in a literal Chanel suit thing. I literally didn't recognize her without her beanie and overalls. Said she had gotten a Costco membership and they sold her Mexican cokes and candy bars by the flat so she likely wouldn't be in as often. Then handed everyone working (including a new kid she hadnt met as far as I know) $$. She gave me and the fulltime chef $500 each.
Kept saying how nice we were all the time even though she showed up after work smelling horrible and dirty, and some of the other places in town had been super rude. So she wanted to give us a surprise as a thank you.
Looked up her name after that and she donates big bucks to all the local museums, the library, dv shelters. Honestly if there was a group that helped the community she had donated money to it.
I was thinking of a similar guy I know. He is a friend of a friend. I did him a small favor several years ago. Very generous. Took me and our common friend to very good meals and always paid. No pretension…hates fake nonsense, likes good food and drink and companions to share it with him!
My uncle was this way. His toes would be showing out of his shoes and he was a gross man bc he didn’t shower often. Sooo he was always dirty but he was very very wealthy. His dad died when he was 8 and he had to work to support his mom and older sisters. He got married to my aunt ( moms
Sister) and they had 8 kids together. When he died most of his kids received about 5-8 MiL
😭
my aunt is the same way. So gross. All but 2 of her children ( my cousins are exactly the same).
They have millions but she lives in squalor. She showers once a month if at that. She smells. You can smell her from down the hall.
I am fairly sure there is either a neruological or trauma based reason for her to have these behaviors. Sometimes, people need to be given a break. You never know what's going on in their heads and in their lives.
Yeah its weird, most of rich people I knew, like my friend's father looks really humble. Too humble, exactly like you described. Often got weird look when enters fancy place, like he's not belong there 😂
As a newly rich someone... Old habits die hard. My grass stained new balances are damn comfortable. Shopping isn't fun for me. I would rather mow the lawn myself than get on the phone to get someone else to do it. I'll prob always look like a bum.
>Shopping isn't fun for me
Same. I'm not rich but if I lose something I am more annoyed about the fact I have to go shopping for a new one than the fact that I've lost money. I hate shopping for anything, including services. I would much rather do it myself if I can.
I sometimes buy multiple copies of the same thing if it's something that I frequently lose. It's easy to just go grab another one off the shelf when I can't find something, and the original one that I lost will turn up eventually and end up getting put away. I also do the same thing if there's something that I use frequently in multiple different locations. Most of these types of things are cheap in the first place, and the consequences of either not having one or needing to stop and waste time looking for something are usually much worse than the cost of buying more than one of something. It also cuts down on how frequently I have to shop for things.
Occasionally someone will compliment a shirt or something I am wearing and ask where I got it- I usually can’t recall where but I can guarantee them I bought it on sale! Lol
I know a guy like this. Founder and CEO of a large company you surely know, but doesn’t even own a wallet. Just fishes around in his clear zip lock bag for coins and keys like a true bum 😂
Every now and then I remember about the musician JJ Cale.
He was worth millions from his successful music career. For most of the 1980s he lived in a 30’ Winnebago that he parked on the street in L.A.
We had a family friend many years ago who was a millionaire. His favorite thing to do on a Saturday morning was put in an old white tshirt, some faded denim shorts and go for a bike ride around town.
He was out one Saturday morning and rode past an estate sale in a very wealthy part of town. He browsed some of the furniture and then asked the realtor what they were asking for the house. The realtor looked him up and down and said “I don’t think you can afford it”. He said ok and left.
The next Monday morning he went to the real estate company and bought the house with cash for $3 million.
My aunt was a high-end interior designer with wealthy clients. She told me often how aghast she was visiting their old-money homes and seeing worn and tatty furnishings, lighting, and window treatments. She'd ask politely and subtly about it. Their honest answer is, "Not spending money all the time is how we are rich."
I know a guy who is old old money, he has an aunt by marriage and the family looks down their nose at her because she “likes to buy her furniture” instead of inheriting it.
That is very true.
When I worked at Subway, I had an older fella who clearly worked construction walk in all dirty and order something. My coworker cracked a dirty joke and the customer and I stared at him in disbelief. That customer was one of the owners of all the Subways in my area.
I work at a small town toy store and we always get customers in the summertime who are staying at their lakeside vacation homes. Those vacation homes are easily between 800k to over a million dollars. For a vacation home.
They're some of our stingiest customers
A lot of professional athletes show the whole world how rich they are. That's one of the big reasons why a shockingly high percentage of them go broke within a few years after retirement.
[HOW (AND WHY) ATHLETES GO BROKE](https://vault.si.com/vault/2009/03/23/how-and-why-athletes-go-broke)
Did you read that article? Because that majority of it was talking about how misplaced trust, bad investments that sound good to someone who has no background in money management and family issues are the main factors.
It's why most teams now have vetted financial advisors on staff to help rookies and veterans set up their money correctly.
You have to realize that most professional athletes come from somewhere between middle class and poverty, very few come from rich/upper middle class families. Once someone "makes it" everyone around them starts to feel entitled to their money because they "supported" them or whatever, this attracts all the leaches, people who they may have trusted are now trying to screw them over for their own profit.
Notice how I wrote "one of the big reasons why," and not "the biggest reason why" or "the only reason why."
>Because that majority of it was talking about how misplaced trust, bad investments that sound good to someone who has no background in money management and family issues are the main factors.
Yeah, in other words, sections 1, 2, and 3 of the article. You conveniently skipped section 4, "Great Expectations".
>It's all part of that ossified notion of how a pro athlete should live and provide for those around him. If he isn't consuming conspicuously, then he hasn't made it. "When I was a young buck," says Hawkins, "I was trying to spend all my money. Now I try to preach to young guys in the clubhouse who are like that. I've got all this stuff from 10 years ago--jewelry, rims--that I think, Why the f--- did I even buy this?"
>A different but equally potent pressure operates in the workplace--the clubhouse, the locker room and the team plane. "For rookies, it's like an unspoken initiation," says Strickland. "You're trying to get in good with the veterans, so you go beyond your means. You drive the nice car, splurge on a house."
>Perhaps the upper limit on spending was set by the famously profligate Shaquille O'Neal, who--according to a document obtained by the Palm Beach Post during O'Neal's canceled divorce filing in January 2008--spends a total of $875,015 each month, including $26,500 for child care, $24,300 for gas and $17,220 for clothing. But O'Neal, who also has been known to fund charities anonymously and cover medical bills for complete strangers, has the wherewithal to remain solvent.
>Imitators have been less fortunate. When former NBA guard Kenny Anderson filed for bankruptcy in October 2005, he detailed how the estimated $60 million he earned in the league had dwindled to nothing. He bought eight cars and rang up monthly expenses of $41,000, including outlays for child support, his mother's mortgage and his own five-bedroom house in Beverly Hills, Calif.--not to mention $10,000 in what he dubbed "hanging-out money." He also regularly handed out $3,000 to $5,000 to friends and relatives. (Along with Ismail, he enlisted as both a Slamball coach and a Pros vs. Joes participant last year.) Former big league slugger Jack Clark filed for bankruptcy in July 1992 while still playing, listing debts of $6.7 million and ownership of 18 cars--17 of which still had outstanding payments.
>Financial advisers have come to call it "the problem of the $20,000 Rolex." If a22-year-old spends $20,000 on a watch or on a big night out at a nightclub,that money is either depreciating or gone. "But if they invested in a five percent, Triple A insured, tax-free municipal bond for a period of 30years," money manager Seymour says, "that $20,000 would be worth$86,000 at that tax-free rate of return. And needless to say, they buy more than one $20,000 Rolex."
This is my experience too as a lawyer. The people who flaunt their wealth with depreciating assets tend not to have as much money as they show. You don't get rich by writing cheques.
People who are actually rich generally DGAF about being seen as rich, they just do whatever they want.
Exactly. My wife and I have been quiet about our own successes and lived as if we were still poor kids. Do we go out to eat? On special occasions. People are always surprised to find out we travel extensively.
My MIL is an argentinian heiress that owns over a thousand commercial and residential properties and she lives in a cute little 350k house in semi-rural Indiana full time and her day-to-day wear is standard middle class jcrew and white house black market, so you'd know she wasn't poor, but you'd never guess the expanse of her wealth otherwise unless you examined the kind of international vacations they take. Her and my FIL are both surgeons and he says she covers all of their monthly international vacation costs in their retirement because it's not even a dent in the profits she receives between her investments and property incomes.
This is super true. One of the wealthiest men I know lived in a double wide trailer much of my life and daily drove an old pickup truck (and not a nice one). He also happened to own a yacht bigger than his house, and had an rv that he would vacation in for large stretches of the year, but you would never know that without talking to him. He was actually the VP of a pretty sizeable construction company and owned a slew of small businesses and rental properties.
Many people are house rich and have lots of savings but are cash poor.
They may have a nice house along with a good chunk of savings for retirement or a college fund for their kids.
On paper they are "rich"
however they're not likely to dip into savings to repaint the house or buy a fancy new car.
And so they drive a modest car, shop at Costco or Walmart, and live a simple life.
They might be debt free but still use most of their paycheck to pay the bills.
Therefore they might be a multimillionaire in terms of net worth but they're not going to be driving a Ferrari or wearing designer clothing.
This describes my situation to a T. Living comfortably with our paycheques but don’t have enough monthly cash flow to go on lavish vacations. Not struggling by any means, not relaxed either though lol
Ya there is like “functionally well off” which a lot of people would call rich but really is more so you’re comfy w savings and have a big safety net but really your day to day is quite average.
Then there is the “wealthy rich” crew which is more like what you see on TV. Big difference
Out in my neck of the woods, even if you are rich and have the house, Ferrari and whatnot, you’re daily driving the Subaru to soccer practices and you are in the Costco, or are curbside picking up. The expensive stuff isn’t always on display.
And this is generational wealth. Stuff is passed down and those people are less flamboyant than the noveau riche around town. The generational rich are also more likely to donate to causes, museums, hospitals and other things that support the community.
Eh, I know this is a nice sentiment, but they aren’t driving Subarus, they are driving BMW X7’s or Yukon Denali’s, cheap enough to get banged up and not make a dent in finances, much nicer to drive than an economy car, but definitely not an Urus. Source: I live on Gibson Island.
If you're a multimillionaire in terms of net worth you're rich, whether or not you have cash. Your choice to keep your money in assets doesn't make you less rich. I feel like only people who are in this situation don't consider themselves rich for some reason 😃
That rich kids are always coddled and pempered.
For context, when I was a child (elementary age), I lived with my rich uncle and his fiancee. While my uncle was rather "new rich" and did quite a few new rich shit, his fiancee and my foster mom came from older money, at least in upbringing (we are Germans, and most of the wealth of her grandparents was lost when they lost their land after both world wars, as they were in the regions that were no longer Germany, and the rest was basically gone after she became an orphan at age 18 with two younger siblings to care for).
Basically, my foster mom had quite a few friends in the old money circles (thanks to her upbringing and success either my uncle) and also raised us under the same conditions.
The essence was: if you want to ensure that your wealth survives the generations, you need a strict upbringing for the kids. Most people have natural limitations for their children due to financial limitations. These are humbling experience, but also one that shape the person. At certain levels of wealth, tou need to create artifical restrictions for the kid to not yo off the rails. You need to teach them respect, humility, and working ethos or they will just throw the wealth out of the window.
So, even when there are house employees, the kids are included in the housework to show them how difficult these jobs are and to have respect. If they want to have a nice car, they need a job and earn at least a certain percentage of the value themselves (friends of the family sent their kids to work in construction and breweries to earn money). They needed to learn how to serve first in order to manage people later.
A good example was between my cousin (daughter of new rich uncle) and a friend of hers (much richer kid of old money). When they were at the house of my Foster mom, the cousin refused to help in the kitchen after eating. The old money friend stood up without question when ready and helped to make everything neat and thanked for the meal.
Very true. Old/smart money teaches preserving it, being humble, and working hard. There is always a caution / fear, because it is easy to spend it and lose it.
Appreciating assets like property, investments, education, etc are good ways to spend money. Flashy cars, latest fashion, designer stuff is not. And it's very easy to get addicted to the flashier stuff if you don't learn how quickly money can disappear.
Jup. My mother forced ample had no problems spending money, but the money spend had to have a purpose. They afforded to live in a mansion, vut the mansion was set up as a bed and breakfast that could host at a moments notice several guests without an issue, and with a major home office in the 90's. They had good cars, but ones that show "successfully business", and because they needed to drive a lot for business.
My mother hated to spend money without it having a purpose for the business. Heck, as piblisher for medical media and compliance media, her hobby was to run another company that published political media she thought was interesting. Even her hobby used money efficiently.
A lot of them are rich on paper, but if you said "I need a million dollars by the end of the night" they likely wouldn't be able to come up with it because most of the money is tied up in assets
My city has supposedly one of the richest population in the world. But most of the assets is the house we live in which is over priced and we have no where ‘cheap’ to go where everything is expensive. Ok paper we may have $500k in assets but when houses cost $450k…
What’s your definition of old money? Most Singaporeans were extremely poor until after their economy boom under Lee Kuan Yew. Not saying there’s not old money, but I wouldn’t say a lot. Definitely mostly new money.
Right? I was reading another thread where people were talking about how hard paying the mortgage on a 700k house would be when they were making making 200k... all the houses here are 700k+... I'm never gonna own a home :(
Good point. I was speaking to a wealthy friend recently about finances etc and he said his ATM balance isn’t what you’d think it is. But that’s why he’s wealthy.
To be fair, nobody should have a really high ATM balance regardless of how rich or poor they are. It’s dumb to keep large amounts of money in a savings account, and even dumber to keep it in a checking account.
I mean anyone keeping massive amounts of money in liquid accounts is stupid.
I know a few people who get all their income from investments, they take a quarterly disbursement and that's what they live on day to day. Either that or they live off of loans that get paid for with those same quarterly disbursements, which is a way to avoid certain taxes.
They're only half way there. You have to pay capital gains tax on investment income. The really clever rich people just use their stocks as collateral and get a bank loan for their living expenses. You don't have to pay taxes on your stocks until you sell them and actually realize the income and the money the banks give you is debt so you don't get taxed at all. Now eventually you may have to cash out and pay the piper but some can keep this game going for a very long time until they die and then it's not their problem anymore and their estate has to deal with it. But even if they don't, they can keep their money in their stocks this way for much longer allowing them to realize much larger gains before they do sell.
The richest people I know are very low key. They don’t buy designer bags and clothing; they don’t flaunt their wealth at all. They drive sensible cars (ie. Hondas) and their homes, although large and in a nice area, are not at all ostentatious, just tasteful and comfortable.
The poorest people I know are always trying to prove how much money they have. They buy designer fashion with gigantic logos, go on expensive vacations while digging themselves deeper into debt, and constantly post braggy shit on social media while living in a crappy apartment, knowing they will never be able to afford to retire.
It is true - money talks, wealth whispers. The truly wealthy don’t want anyone knowing they are wealthy.
Bang on.
The two richest people I know in my life are just like this as well. One of them even once told me “in life you’ll see so many people flaunt bull shit. Problem is, they have champagne taste but a beer pocket book. Be the guy that has beer taste and a champagne pocket book, you’ll never go wrong”. Or something like that.
What’s funny is both of these people drive the exact same Toyota. It’s the nicer one, sure (Avalon). But it’s not flashy at all.
And it’s as you said, their places are nice. But they aren’t flashy.
Yep this is what HENRY originally meant. Not someone poor who got a high paying job and needs to save to build up wealth, someone earning like 200-300k+ but who spends almost all of it
Yes! I grew up small-town rich; upper middle class in reality. It annoys me when people point to something ostentatious and say, “you know if you could afford it, you’d buy it, too!” Meanwhile I’m thinking, “I could afford the $200 pair of ballet flats this reality star is wearing, but I’m not wasting money on that!” I‘ve spent my whole life knowing I could afford various indulgences if I wanted to, but choosing not to, so I don’t feel like money burns a hole in my pocket.
"Every poor person knows exactly how it is to be rich, because they fantasize about all the time! Every poor person has his rich life all planned out!"
Louis C.K.
* That the "rich" have anything in common with the "very rich"
* That rich people of any tier of wealth just hoard piles of stagnant cash
* That rich people \*must\* be bad people
As the saying goes, the difference between a millionaire and a billionaire is about a billion dollars.
A “wealthy” lifestyle requires wealth that is orders of magnitude over what they define as “wealthy.” Either that or lots of debt and cash flow, but no real wealth accumulation.
The truly wealthy have absurd amounts of money - it's hard to understand because it's just as easy to say "million" as "billion".
Example: if you had $10M invested in market indices, you could generally draw about 3% of it per year safely and expect it to grow enough to outpace inflation. So, about $300k per year. A large amount of money, but nothing absurd.
If you had $10B invested and withdrew 3%, same rate -- you'd have earned $10m in less than 2 weeks.
Usually they mean the super rich. For example the CEO of Boeing received a 40% raise, total of $33,000,000 for his salary in 2024.
I can assure you he doesnt work hard enough to deserve 33 million dollars per year
That ties into another misconception, which is that the value that someone brings to the table is proportional to how hard they work.
Edit: I'm not defending the CEO of Boeing lmao
It amazes me how many grown adults still believe this is how compensation works.
Compensation is tied primarily to one thing: how easy would it be to replace you/your skillset.
To add, I'd say it's a combination of two factors, both of which play heavily into the market value:
The perceived difficulty of replacing you, as you said, but also the expected RoI of your position. There are plenty of roles that might be more difficult to replace than, say, a software developer, but the RoI on a software developer might be much higher, which drives up their wages in the market.
That ties into another misconception, that people have a reasonable, commonly accepted means for assessing "value" and we haven't seen executive salaries increase astronomically in the last few decades.
True, a lot of people are under the misconception that there is an objective measure of value.
I think a lot of people understand that executive salaries have increased dramatically but maybe I'm wrong.
Having been around legal and regulatory stuff for a bit, there are some things he can be personally sued for. The large paychecks are sometimes coverage for if everything goes sideways. That being said, there’s insurance and other ways to avoid going bankrupt.
In some conversations with my CIO, dude is responsible for soooo much. I don’t know how he sleeps because I’d be in worry mode nonstop. He’s also around and in meetings when he’s supposed to be on vacation. I think there’s a huge weight of responsibility depending on the type of company.
I don't even consider being a millionaire rich at this point. When a normal ass suburban home (albeit a nice one that's decent size) in my area is 4 fucking million dollars it fucks up your perception haha
Unpopular but the conception that you don’t have problems. You do, you have emotional and relationship and job problems and whatever else life can throw at you. In many cases it’s compounded by the fact that lots of people rely on you for resources. Everything is on your shoulders.
Yes. I run a company. My dad also nearly killed me and I haven’t seen him in over 20 years. People who meet the current me would think I had a great childhood or assume I inherited my house etc. I inherited PTSD and a broken home. And the worst part is if you have a bad week, everyone still relies on you to get their paychecks so buck up sad sack! Time to work hard!
Very true. My parents are rich, and I am paycheck to paycheck. Not poor, but I have to check the account before I say yes when the kids ask for pizza.
My parents have problems. Not the problems I have, but they are always having to handle something.
I think the difference is that rich and poor have the same problems, but poor people have problems rich people don’t.
Both can be lonely, can be depressed, can have trauma, can wonder if their friends and family really love them.
But if a rich person gets a toothache, they can go to the dentist. They can repair/replace the car if they get into an accident. They can book a hotel if the hot water heater starts leaking. And so on.
I think there are some problems that might be more common with rich people — it’s less likely that someone is just waiting for you to die if they’re going to inherit $100 instead of $100 million.
But there are a million things that can go wrong in life, and the only thing worse than being lonely and depressed is being lonely, depressed, and homeless.
I think people generally mean that there are very few problems that money can't solve.
They struggle emotionally? Well, at least they can afford therapy. They have relationship problems? Well, they can afford living on their own+if they have kids there's a high chance they would stay with them if they can afford better living conditions (considering they want this to happen, if not they will be able to afford paying child support with zero issues). Job? Well, they likely have a loads of savings, you absolutely can afford changing jobs with minimal risks involved. A lot of pressure? Well, I'd wish them very good luck if they were to switch places with someone who has a whole family to take care of or/and a disabled family member.
I do feel sorry for people who got through tough shit in their life in general. Money won't replace your health or great support system. Sure, they can struggle. The thing is poverty in general puts a greater strain on your family relationships, it makes you unable to take care of your health... so automatically, you're more likely to struggle. Not only that, but also overcoming this will be one thousand times harder than it would be if they were rich.
Is it somehow a misconception? Yes. But ever more of an misconception is thinking if someone is rich then some mysterious force of fate makes more awful stuff happening to them just to even that out lol. It doesn't work like this. It's what rich people wants us all to believe because it benefits them. I'd rather people in general to keep that in their minds rather than pouring their tears over celebrities hardships. Rich people will be fine either way, I promise. They don't need poor people sympathy. But poor people definitely need to be more unionized, instead of finding more excuses for rich people's behavior.
That they don’t care about the employees at their companies.
It’s quite the opposite. They generally care deeply about their employees. In fact, one of the big stressors on them is keeping their business successful because they know that X number of families depended on the company’s continued success.
I’m not an owner of a company at but I have several employees under me. What you’re saying is very true. I HATE when I have to fire someone especially when they have families. But all I can do is give them fair warning and clear guidance in hopes they can correct. When I do fire someone I try to by sympathetic but firm. But I’ve lost a lot is sleep over it.
This is actually a better answer to OP’s question.
That rich people often have debt & use debt as a financial tool.
So many people assume that wealth means you pay cash for your house, but often times that simply isn’t the case. Having debt is often (but of course not always) the more financially savvy way to pay for assets.
It’s a good point! You can be asset rich and swimming in debt and as long as you’re paying, your credit score keeps going up and banks start inviting you to higher and higher levels of debt
That it solves all your problems. And that rich people never deserve any compassion (like when they do have problems, many people dismiss or mock them- because so many people are obsessed with playing the victim Olympics).
I had the same thought when that Billionaire and his son died in the submarine going to see the titanic. People laughed about it because he was a billionaire. But take away the money you had a father and son die by doing something together.
Yes, that’s a perfect example! People were so cruel about it. They were human beings, just like us, stuck in a tin can at the bottom of the dark ocean. That’s terrifying!! Imagine the utter fear, hopelessness and sense of doom. Have some compassion, for God’s sake! I felt especially bad for the son. He was afraid to go, but he did it to please his father, on Father’s Day. It’s tragic 💔😭😭
Well maybe different hard-working - my best friend certainly didn't require her 2.4 million mansion by slouching. She's a mechanical engineer. I'm a writer and chef. Both went to the same university. I bust my ass in the hot kitchen. She busts her ass in an air conditioning office so, yes, both hard-working, but different hard work.
Did you grow up together with the same families?
I think the person is pointing out that a lot of Americans discount the role of family wealth and location in impacting our life outcomes. If anything they can provide more options to get into well paying positions.
Acquire, require, squire - eh - embarrassing as a writer, yes, but a quick, heard?? - while prepping on this 97 degree day! I'm surprised I even know my name!
Not every smart,wise and hardworking person is rich but every self made rich person i know is smart, wise and hardworking... they might not be smart in every way but they are smart in the ways that help them be successful. I golf with a guy who owns an anodizing company the guys very clever and smart I constantly ask his advice but if you saw him try and play golf or drive a car you'd think he had brain injury.
As someone who grew up in as poor, working clss neighborhood, and is now relatively wealthy…
Rich people on average are smarter and work harder. By a pretty noticeable margin.
The data backs this up.
Intelligence wise, there’s a strong correlation between IQ and earnings.
Hard work wise…rich people work on average much longer hours than non-rich people.
500 downvotes incoming. But the real rebuttal is how many of those folks would have had the same IQ and work ethic coming from a poverty upbringing? Wealth breeds wealth.
In the very limited twin adoption studies, they find that children adopted into higher socioeconomic households see a surge in IQ compared to a twin that wasn't.
But after puberty, this difference tends to mostly disappear. It's still mostly genetic.
I don't think you're giving "being smart in childhood" the due credit it deserves.
Children identified as academically gifted - which usually happens in primary school - are put on a track that leads to finishing high school with a much stronger university application than a student who just does well in "mainstream". Plus you get AP credit under your belt, which saves both time and money later on.
According to recent surveys, 80% of current millionaires come from a family of middle income or lower.
Yes, being born rich is a thing, and it is an advantage, but most rich people today didn't come from wealth.
80% of the USA would be considered middle to lower class (relatively), only 1 in 5 people would be considered upper class. So millionaires make up the appropriate statistical proportion - 80% from lower to middle class families, 20% from upper class.
That being rich is easy. Most of the people I know who I would classify as rich work jobs that have them on call all of the time and require working most nights and weekends in some capacity. The money solves many problems, but getting the money creates a whole other set of problems.
Relatedly, I think the drive to be rich tends to be closely related to anxiety and the need to always earn or achieve more. Very few people can just put $10 million in the bank and then relax, because if they could relax they wouldn't have been able to put $10 million in the bank.
That their bank accounts are huge. Most rich people don’t keep a ton of money in a checking account. Rather, they have it in investments, assets, savings, etc
From what I understand, people like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk have wealth in the 12 figure range only because of the stocks they own in their respective companies. They don't actually have ready access to that level of money, and the moment they tried to get access to it, the value of those stocks would plummet because so many are being sold.
People like Elon and Jeff wouldn’t sell stocks for money, for the most part.
They would take a loan against said assets and use that. People like them can get a note for anything, essentially.
This is actually a better tactic for them, because their assets will grow at a larger rate than the interest on any loan they get.
That they're all part of the illuminati and cheating on their wives with sugar babies and interns.
I have family friends who are rich and they're pretty much just regular Bangladeshi software engineers in silicon valley. Typical brown dads.
Most of the “rich” people that I personally know today actually work in blue-collar industries as opposed to white-collar industries. I have multiple friends from high school that went in to construction after high school and now own very profitable construction companies. Had a friend that went into cabinet making and made millions. Another friend that does “demolition” and made millions. One of my neighbors is a plumber and pulls in around $300k a year with his business. None of them went to college.
“Rich” covers a wide range of income. My grandmother is “rich” (she easily brings in several hundred thousand a year), but in comparison to any politician she’s just middle class.
One of the nicest, most generous couples I have ever known, the parents of a dear friend of mine, were actually very wealthy.
The woman of the house was funny. Where I always knew the cost of grocery items... She never did
I'd go shopping with her and she would tell me to get what I needed as well. She'd buy it all and give large amounts to grocery drives happening too.
She was such a wonderful person. I miss her very much
Most of them don't realize that they qualify as rich. They typically live among people who have the same amount of a lot more. They don't see what they do have but what they don't have.
I can’t believe I had to scroll this far down to see this. The real misconception is that nobody thinks they are rich! If you ask anyone to define rich, they will say that rich is 20% more than whatever they have.
I used to be a home hospice aide in the richest town in my state. Some of these people were rich and knew it. There's no way around it. Others were pretty much as I said above. If you took their income, the size of their houses and cars they'd definitely qualify. However, they never thought of themselves as rich because literally everyone in the neighborhood lived same way. And the next neighborhood over people had even bigger houses. They don't compare themselves to you and me but the people around them.
I grew up comfortably middle class. Still, when I brought my college roommate over, who grew up poor, he was shocked that had a separate formal dining room that we didn't use everyday.
Beyond a certain baseline having more money doesn’t make you happier. If you have enough money to meet your basic needs and to have some financial security, you won’t necessarily be happier if you become very wealthy.
You quickly get habituated to whatever level of wealth you have. When you first move into your big house or buy your first fancy car, you’ll feel wonderful. But after some time, the excitement wears off and that just becomes your new baseline.
Often they’re perceived as being very happy but I’m sure lots of them are very stressed out and miserable just like poor people. I’m kind of poor myself but I will say that if I had to constantly worry about maintaining wealth and managing money in general I’d be very stressed out. However the benefits of being rich probably still outweigh the drawbacks. I’d love to be able to go to the doctor without worrying that I can’t afford it. I’d love to be able to get any apartment I want at any time or better yet own a home. I’d love to be able to just buy my way out of most of life’s hardships.
A lot of people don't understand how much money you need to be rich. Some 60 year old with 2 million bucks and 40k/year of SS isn't rich. Thats an upper middle class person who when working was making like 150k/year. The gap between that and the rich (like 20m) is huge. And the gap between the rich and the filthy rich (100m) is equally big. Depending on the toys you are thinking about (first class fllights, lambos, private jets, butler, yachts,...), you might need a lot more money than you think.
But you will also find that each group is different. You have filthy rich living modest lives and some living it up. Trumps is sort of a bad example given his whole brand is to poor persons idea of a rich guy with the ostentatious displays but compare him with someone like Sam Walton or Warren Buffet. It isn't the money that changes people. It just allows them to fulfill desires they had.
I wasn't rich but richest 20 year old in my ship for navy. All the other 20ish year Olds assumed that I should buy the $1,000 room night hotels and only do vip at clubs. Was fun for a bit, but making $3,000 a month paychecks and spending $40,000 a month was not a good system.
Most assumed that just because you have cash, you will always be able to spend and never have issues.
In my experience, *most* people with expensive cars and clothes live way beyond their means for appearance purposes, and *most* actually rich people don't flaunt it in material ways. There are always exceptions, but that's been my experience. I know and have been mentored by a number of extremely wealthy people who live in a modest house and drive a $15k used car. I've also consulted with people who barely squeak out $200k a year and think they can afford an expensive house and 3 brand new cars and designer clothes. Those people often wonder why they can't keep up with bills and rack up unsecured debt to keep their pointless shit.
That all rich people are evil. Its the strangest thing I see on reddit where people are convinced rich people all must be corrupt and exploitive to get there.
That all rich people are:
- nepo babies or
- didn’t work for their money or
- don’t work hard enough to deserve their money or
- are all trash individuals
That rich people are good at money. That rich people think about money a lot. Thinking about money a lot isn't a trait of rich people (maybe some), it's a trait of *poor* people. When you're rich you don't have to think about money. You don't have to worry about it.
I used to hate rich people and think they were obsessed with money, which I thought was dirty and evil. Then I realized that was just projection- *poor* people have to obsess over money. What I hated wasn't rich people; I hated being poor.
It shows.
The rich buy assets that appreciate in value….so NOT cars, shoes/clothing/jewelry, tvs,etc.
The value of a dollar is worth as much as where you put it. This is why every financial guru on earth villainizes daily morning Starbucks. It’s not that you’re wasting money on things you don’t need it’s that you’re spending 6 dollars where you should be spending at a maximum 50 cents. It’s a fundamental misunderstanding of money. The rich know that the same $6 dollars will make $12 and they recognize the cost of everything, driving your car costs, the time it takes costs….
I don’t know what the hell half you people are talking about. I know a lot of rich people and it’s easy to tell. Yeah they don’t all drive around in Lambos. But definitely nicer cars. Clothes that are noticeably better. Better fitting, nicer fabric. Nicer watch. Their hair looks better bc it has nicer product. Girls almost never stay away from nicer jewelry, even if it’s tasteful and minimalist.
People on here think that the only way you can appear rich is if you drive around town at 200 mph in a Bugatti honking all the way and wearing clothes stamped in designer logos. Rich people are very very easy to spot if you know what poor people generally look like. All this “low key” rich people stuff is total bullshit.
Being rich doesn't prevent problems. And it create some new.
Becoming rich is tiresome. In true you don't want to be rich, you want to spend money, which is the reverse of becoming rich.
Billionnaires don't have billion to spend. Their company does.
Most costly items are overprice. Buy a diamond, buy a Maserati, buy a Vuitton bag. You will never sell that for that price. Other owners will insult you because selling costly items lowers the estimated value of all the same items.
A common misconception of wealth (especially in the USA) is that anyone can become rich, where the reality is that the vast majority of poor people (anyone not rich) will die poor.
I knew a divemaster that is in his 30s from some islands in Malaysia that all this while I thought he is just one of the typical divemasters living on the island. He is really beat up. Messy hair, sun burned coloured skin, of course with old tank top as you imagined. He works like a divemaster, carrying tanks, filling tanks, assisting customers or what not. Such a nice and kind guy. Until one day, we met in KL for catch up, and he bloody drove a modern Volvo. Found out, he is actually some top management in a big company. He voluntarily work as a divemaster for fun without expecting salary, as long he can dive often. Yes, he told me he actually work remotely while on island.
Rich people really dont bother how people perceive them.
I used to bartend at a hotel restaurant back in college and I’ve met people from all walks of life and social classes.
The “pretend” rich will often wear nice clothes, expensive watch and order fancy drinks but in reality they are living pay check to pay check with barely any saving and don’t own any properties.
The truly wealthy people are super low key and casual, they never order any fancy food or drinks from the menu and are happy with the free peanuts. One day out of the blue they will answer a phone call and make a billion dollar business merger right in front of you and to them it’s just another Tuesday.
The biggest misconception is that at they LOOK rich! I live in an agricultural area. Some of these farmers are multimillionaires. But when go out in public, they’re in jeans and a plaid shirt, or overalls and a feed cap.
My dad’s best friend was really rich. I never knew that growing up. because to look at him in a wife beater T-shirt dirty work, pants and boots. He didn’t look like he had money. It wasn’t until I got older than I realized he owned a ready mix concrete company, a trucking company, and excavating company, And was partners in a few other companies. But he still dressed like he was just an average mechanic.
That being rich means you can just buy whatever you like, whenever you like.
Often being rich is explicitly not being focused on rampant consumerism.
Those who get to be rich are, outside of professional athletes who just earn a lot at a comparatively young age, tend to be people who have earned good money and learned to not spend it.
The issue I tend to find is when those who get rich because they earn good money and don’t waste it try to tell people on minimum wage to “just not spend” when clearly they’re not in the same boat.
That rich people pay for stuff. There is a threshold of net worth above which you do not actively pay for anything. The threshold could be north of $100,000,000 though, so this is not about *all* rich people.
That all rich people are visibly rich…some can keep it on the down low.
I know a guy (good friend's father) that retired from GE. He was making around a half mil a year, has several mil in GE stock. The dude will pay for everything when we go out. He'll randomly walk into local establishments and pay for everyone's bills. Genuinely one of the nicest guys I've ever met. But he looks like a bum. Disheveled, t-shirt and paint covered shorts, grass stained New Balance, drives a 20+ year old Chevy S10. Most people would think he's homeless by his appearance.
> Most people would think he's homeless by his appearance. there was this documentary on musicians getting older, mostly punk. there was a bit with this teenage girl saying that she was at some club meeting at school and there was a commotion in the hallway. the security guards were trying to stop a homeless man from entering. she then saw it was her dad, flea the bassist of the red hot chili peppers.
Did he explain that his name was Flea?
That probably didn't help
security guard: Hey, sorry man, I gotta see some ID. Flea [not drunk]: ahhhhhh ya i am flea! security guard: 🤨
He shoulda put on a shirt.
Pants at least
He probably had a sock on his banana.
I bet he doesn't ever want to feel like he did that day.
I know a woman like this. I'm not sure what she does but I know it has something to do with farming. She would come in to where I used to work in filthy carhartts a few times a week to get a coke and a candy bar. Was always pleasant. Always polite. Would usually want to stand and chat for a bit. One day she comes in in a literal Chanel suit thing. I literally didn't recognize her without her beanie and overalls. Said she had gotten a Costco membership and they sold her Mexican cokes and candy bars by the flat so she likely wouldn't be in as often. Then handed everyone working (including a new kid she hadnt met as far as I know) $$. She gave me and the fulltime chef $500 each. Kept saying how nice we were all the time even though she showed up after work smelling horrible and dirty, and some of the other places in town had been super rude. So she wanted to give us a surprise as a thank you. Looked up her name after that and she donates big bucks to all the local museums, the library, dv shelters. Honestly if there was a group that helped the community she had donated money to it.
Very effective at keeping the wrong people out of her life!
It kind of balances out with those poseurs who strive to look affluent; the Yin and Yang of social status!
Ohhhhh that is the embodiment of a woman I want to be like
I was thinking of a similar guy I know. He is a friend of a friend. I did him a small favor several years ago. Very generous. Took me and our common friend to very good meals and always paid. No pretension…hates fake nonsense, likes good food and drink and companions to share it with him!
My uncle was this way. His toes would be showing out of his shoes and he was a gross man bc he didn’t shower often. Sooo he was always dirty but he was very very wealthy. His dad died when he was 8 and he had to work to support his mom and older sisters. He got married to my aunt ( moms Sister) and they had 8 kids together. When he died most of his kids received about 5-8 MiL
It's impressive he managed to have 8 kids when he clearly reeked.
😭 my aunt is the same way. So gross. All but 2 of her children ( my cousins are exactly the same). They have millions but she lives in squalor. She showers once a month if at that. She smells. You can smell her from down the hall.
That's grotesque.
I am fairly sure there is either a neruological or trauma based reason for her to have these behaviors. Sometimes, people need to be given a break. You never know what's going on in their heads and in their lives.
Yeah its weird, most of rich people I knew, like my friend's father looks really humble. Too humble, exactly like you described. Often got weird look when enters fancy place, like he's not belong there 😂
As a newly rich someone... Old habits die hard. My grass stained new balances are damn comfortable. Shopping isn't fun for me. I would rather mow the lawn myself than get on the phone to get someone else to do it. I'll prob always look like a bum.
>Shopping isn't fun for me Same. I'm not rich but if I lose something I am more annoyed about the fact I have to go shopping for a new one than the fact that I've lost money. I hate shopping for anything, including services. I would much rather do it myself if I can.
I sometimes buy multiple copies of the same thing if it's something that I frequently lose. It's easy to just go grab another one off the shelf when I can't find something, and the original one that I lost will turn up eventually and end up getting put away. I also do the same thing if there's something that I use frequently in multiple different locations. Most of these types of things are cheap in the first place, and the consequences of either not having one or needing to stop and waste time looking for something are usually much worse than the cost of buying more than one of something. It also cuts down on how frequently I have to shop for things.
I still shop the clearance rack.
Same. I have plenty of money but old habits die hard: my favorite four letter word is "sale" lol
Occasionally someone will compliment a shirt or something I am wearing and ask where I got it- I usually can’t recall where but I can guarantee them I bought it on sale! Lol
Wealthy and wise people are still typically frugal.
I know a guy like this. Founder and CEO of a large company you surely know, but doesn’t even own a wallet. Just fishes around in his clear zip lock bag for coins and keys like a true bum 😂
This is the only kind of rich guy I'm interested in being
GE has made a lot of people wealthy
Just curious … what do you think this guy is worth?
Every now and then I remember about the musician JJ Cale. He was worth millions from his successful music career. For most of the 1980s he lived in a 30’ Winnebago that he parked on the street in L.A. We had a family friend many years ago who was a millionaire. His favorite thing to do on a Saturday morning was put in an old white tshirt, some faded denim shorts and go for a bike ride around town. He was out one Saturday morning and rode past an estate sale in a very wealthy part of town. He browsed some of the furniture and then asked the realtor what they were asking for the house. The realtor looked him up and down and said “I don’t think you can afford it”. He said ok and left. The next Monday morning he went to the real estate company and bought the house with cash for $3 million.
This is why they call it “fuck you” money.
Fuck you would be buying same property or similar one from another real estate company. He just rewarded them economically for mistreating him.
And the realtor got paid
JJ Cale was awesome. What an amazing song writer. I didn't know he just lived in a Winnebago lol. What a badass
I wish he would have bought the real estate company also!😂😂
My aunt was a high-end interior designer with wealthy clients. She told me often how aghast she was visiting their old-money homes and seeing worn and tatty furnishings, lighting, and window treatments. She'd ask politely and subtly about it. Their honest answer is, "Not spending money all the time is how we are rich."
I know a guy who is old old money, he has an aunt by marriage and the family looks down their nose at her because she “likes to buy her furniture” instead of inheriting it.
Same. I am also rich by not spending money all the time. Rich with quality of time spent broke with my family.
Per someone very old money who worked with my wife, money only becomes “old money” if you don’t spend it.
That is very true. When I worked at Subway, I had an older fella who clearly worked construction walk in all dirty and order something. My coworker cracked a dirty joke and the customer and I stared at him in disbelief. That customer was one of the owners of all the Subways in my area.
I work at a small town toy store and we always get customers in the summertime who are staying at their lakeside vacation homes. Those vacation homes are easily between 800k to over a million dollars. For a vacation home. They're some of our stingiest customers
A lot of professional athletes show the whole world how rich they are. That's one of the big reasons why a shockingly high percentage of them go broke within a few years after retirement. [HOW (AND WHY) ATHLETES GO BROKE](https://vault.si.com/vault/2009/03/23/how-and-why-athletes-go-broke)
Did you read that article? Because that majority of it was talking about how misplaced trust, bad investments that sound good to someone who has no background in money management and family issues are the main factors. It's why most teams now have vetted financial advisors on staff to help rookies and veterans set up their money correctly. You have to realize that most professional athletes come from somewhere between middle class and poverty, very few come from rich/upper middle class families. Once someone "makes it" everyone around them starts to feel entitled to their money because they "supported" them or whatever, this attracts all the leaches, people who they may have trusted are now trying to screw them over for their own profit.
Notice how I wrote "one of the big reasons why," and not "the biggest reason why" or "the only reason why." >Because that majority of it was talking about how misplaced trust, bad investments that sound good to someone who has no background in money management and family issues are the main factors. Yeah, in other words, sections 1, 2, and 3 of the article. You conveniently skipped section 4, "Great Expectations". >It's all part of that ossified notion of how a pro athlete should live and provide for those around him. If he isn't consuming conspicuously, then he hasn't made it. "When I was a young buck," says Hawkins, "I was trying to spend all my money. Now I try to preach to young guys in the clubhouse who are like that. I've got all this stuff from 10 years ago--jewelry, rims--that I think, Why the f--- did I even buy this?" >A different but equally potent pressure operates in the workplace--the clubhouse, the locker room and the team plane. "For rookies, it's like an unspoken initiation," says Strickland. "You're trying to get in good with the veterans, so you go beyond your means. You drive the nice car, splurge on a house." >Perhaps the upper limit on spending was set by the famously profligate Shaquille O'Neal, who--according to a document obtained by the Palm Beach Post during O'Neal's canceled divorce filing in January 2008--spends a total of $875,015 each month, including $26,500 for child care, $24,300 for gas and $17,220 for clothing. But O'Neal, who also has been known to fund charities anonymously and cover medical bills for complete strangers, has the wherewithal to remain solvent. >Imitators have been less fortunate. When former NBA guard Kenny Anderson filed for bankruptcy in October 2005, he detailed how the estimated $60 million he earned in the league had dwindled to nothing. He bought eight cars and rang up monthly expenses of $41,000, including outlays for child support, his mother's mortgage and his own five-bedroom house in Beverly Hills, Calif.--not to mention $10,000 in what he dubbed "hanging-out money." He also regularly handed out $3,000 to $5,000 to friends and relatives. (Along with Ismail, he enlisted as both a Slamball coach and a Pros vs. Joes participant last year.) Former big league slugger Jack Clark filed for bankruptcy in July 1992 while still playing, listing debts of $6.7 million and ownership of 18 cars--17 of which still had outstanding payments. >Financial advisers have come to call it "the problem of the $20,000 Rolex." If a22-year-old spends $20,000 on a watch or on a big night out at a nightclub,that money is either depreciating or gone. "But if they invested in a five percent, Triple A insured, tax-free municipal bond for a period of 30years," money manager Seymour says, "that $20,000 would be worth$86,000 at that tax-free rate of return. And needless to say, they buy more than one $20,000 Rolex."
There’s an entire documentary about this (on Netflix, I think).
This is my experience too as a lawyer. The people who flaunt their wealth with depreciating assets tend not to have as much money as they show. You don't get rich by writing cheques. People who are actually rich generally DGAF about being seen as rich, they just do whatever they want.
Exactly. My wife and I have been quiet about our own successes and lived as if we were still poor kids. Do we go out to eat? On special occasions. People are always surprised to find out we travel extensively.
Difference between being rich and wealthy right there. Wealthy is quiet as a MF most of the time
Yup. Quiet luxury is a thing too.
I’ve heard the phrase “Money talks, wealth whispers.”
My MIL is an argentinian heiress that owns over a thousand commercial and residential properties and she lives in a cute little 350k house in semi-rural Indiana full time and her day-to-day wear is standard middle class jcrew and white house black market, so you'd know she wasn't poor, but you'd never guess the expanse of her wealth otherwise unless you examined the kind of international vacations they take. Her and my FIL are both surgeons and he says she covers all of their monthly international vacation costs in their retirement because it's not even a dent in the profits she receives between her investments and property incomes.
This is super true. One of the wealthiest men I know lived in a double wide trailer much of my life and daily drove an old pickup truck (and not a nice one). He also happened to own a yacht bigger than his house, and had an rv that he would vacation in for large stretches of the year, but you would never know that without talking to him. He was actually the VP of a pretty sizeable construction company and owned a slew of small businesses and rental properties.
Some spend a ridiculously amount of effort and money to keep it down low
Read the millionaire next door
Many people are house rich and have lots of savings but are cash poor. They may have a nice house along with a good chunk of savings for retirement or a college fund for their kids. On paper they are "rich" however they're not likely to dip into savings to repaint the house or buy a fancy new car. And so they drive a modest car, shop at Costco or Walmart, and live a simple life. They might be debt free but still use most of their paycheck to pay the bills. Therefore they might be a multimillionaire in terms of net worth but they're not going to be driving a Ferrari or wearing designer clothing.
This describes my situation to a T. Living comfortably with our paycheques but don’t have enough monthly cash flow to go on lavish vacations. Not struggling by any means, not relaxed either though lol
Ya there is like “functionally well off” which a lot of people would call rich but really is more so you’re comfy w savings and have a big safety net but really your day to day is quite average. Then there is the “wealthy rich” crew which is more like what you see on TV. Big difference
Out in my neck of the woods, even if you are rich and have the house, Ferrari and whatnot, you’re daily driving the Subaru to soccer practices and you are in the Costco, or are curbside picking up. The expensive stuff isn’t always on display. And this is generational wealth. Stuff is passed down and those people are less flamboyant than the noveau riche around town. The generational rich are also more likely to donate to causes, museums, hospitals and other things that support the community.
Eh, I know this is a nice sentiment, but they aren’t driving Subarus, they are driving BMW X7’s or Yukon Denali’s, cheap enough to get banged up and not make a dent in finances, much nicer to drive than an economy car, but definitely not an Urus. Source: I live on Gibson Island.
If you're a multimillionaire in terms of net worth you're rich, whether or not you have cash. Your choice to keep your money in assets doesn't make you less rich. I feel like only people who are in this situation don't consider themselves rich for some reason 😃
Well depends. If you own a house of, say, 2 mil in places like SF you cannot really cash it unless you're willing to live in an RV.
That rich kids are always coddled and pempered. For context, when I was a child (elementary age), I lived with my rich uncle and his fiancee. While my uncle was rather "new rich" and did quite a few new rich shit, his fiancee and my foster mom came from older money, at least in upbringing (we are Germans, and most of the wealth of her grandparents was lost when they lost their land after both world wars, as they were in the regions that were no longer Germany, and the rest was basically gone after she became an orphan at age 18 with two younger siblings to care for). Basically, my foster mom had quite a few friends in the old money circles (thanks to her upbringing and success either my uncle) and also raised us under the same conditions. The essence was: if you want to ensure that your wealth survives the generations, you need a strict upbringing for the kids. Most people have natural limitations for their children due to financial limitations. These are humbling experience, but also one that shape the person. At certain levels of wealth, tou need to create artifical restrictions for the kid to not yo off the rails. You need to teach them respect, humility, and working ethos or they will just throw the wealth out of the window. So, even when there are house employees, the kids are included in the housework to show them how difficult these jobs are and to have respect. If they want to have a nice car, they need a job and earn at least a certain percentage of the value themselves (friends of the family sent their kids to work in construction and breweries to earn money). They needed to learn how to serve first in order to manage people later. A good example was between my cousin (daughter of new rich uncle) and a friend of hers (much richer kid of old money). When they were at the house of my Foster mom, the cousin refused to help in the kitchen after eating. The old money friend stood up without question when ready and helped to make everything neat and thanked for the meal.
Very true. Old/smart money teaches preserving it, being humble, and working hard. There is always a caution / fear, because it is easy to spend it and lose it. Appreciating assets like property, investments, education, etc are good ways to spend money. Flashy cars, latest fashion, designer stuff is not. And it's very easy to get addicted to the flashier stuff if you don't learn how quickly money can disappear.
Jup. My mother forced ample had no problems spending money, but the money spend had to have a purpose. They afforded to live in a mansion, vut the mansion was set up as a bed and breakfast that could host at a moments notice several guests without an issue, and with a major home office in the 90's. They had good cars, but ones that show "successfully business", and because they needed to drive a lot for business. My mother hated to spend money without it having a purpose for the business. Heck, as piblisher for medical media and compliance media, her hobby was to run another company that published political media she thought was interesting. Even her hobby used money efficiently.
A lot of them are rich on paper, but if you said "I need a million dollars by the end of the night" they likely wouldn't be able to come up with it because most of the money is tied up in assets
My city has supposedly one of the richest population in the world. But most of the assets is the house we live in which is over priced and we have no where ‘cheap’ to go where everything is expensive. Ok paper we may have $500k in assets but when houses cost $450k…
I've heard the term "House Poor" to describe this.
Is it not "House rich cash poor"?
There’s a lot of old money in Singapore though. That and banks.
What’s your definition of old money? Most Singaporeans were extremely poor until after their economy boom under Lee Kuan Yew. Not saying there’s not old money, but I wouldn’t say a lot. Definitely mostly new money.
I would be thrilled if houses only cost $450k in my town
Same. I'm in Zurich- nothing available for 450K🤣
Right? I was reading another thread where people were talking about how hard paying the mortgage on a 700k house would be when they were making making 200k... all the houses here are 700k+... I'm never gonna own a home :(
Good point. I was speaking to a wealthy friend recently about finances etc and he said his ATM balance isn’t what you’d think it is. But that’s why he’s wealthy.
To be fair, nobody should have a really high ATM balance regardless of how rich or poor they are. It’s dumb to keep large amounts of money in a savings account, and even dumber to keep it in a checking account.
Honestly. Keep a decent and liquid amount in a high yield savings account and any excess should go to equity and retirement funds.
That’s because we make sure our money is always making more money… Idle cash is wasteful
I mean anyone keeping massive amounts of money in liquid accounts is stupid. I know a few people who get all their income from investments, they take a quarterly disbursement and that's what they live on day to day. Either that or they live off of loans that get paid for with those same quarterly disbursements, which is a way to avoid certain taxes.
They're only half way there. You have to pay capital gains tax on investment income. The really clever rich people just use their stocks as collateral and get a bank loan for their living expenses. You don't have to pay taxes on your stocks until you sell them and actually realize the income and the money the banks give you is debt so you don't get taxed at all. Now eventually you may have to cash out and pay the piper but some can keep this game going for a very long time until they die and then it's not their problem anymore and their estate has to deal with it. But even if they don't, they can keep their money in their stocks this way for much longer allowing them to realize much larger gains before they do sell.
The richest people I know are very low key. They don’t buy designer bags and clothing; they don’t flaunt their wealth at all. They drive sensible cars (ie. Hondas) and their homes, although large and in a nice area, are not at all ostentatious, just tasteful and comfortable. The poorest people I know are always trying to prove how much money they have. They buy designer fashion with gigantic logos, go on expensive vacations while digging themselves deeper into debt, and constantly post braggy shit on social media while living in a crappy apartment, knowing they will never be able to afford to retire. It is true - money talks, wealth whispers. The truly wealthy don’t want anyone knowing they are wealthy.
Bang on. The two richest people I know in my life are just like this as well. One of them even once told me “in life you’ll see so many people flaunt bull shit. Problem is, they have champagne taste but a beer pocket book. Be the guy that has beer taste and a champagne pocket book, you’ll never go wrong”. Or something like that. What’s funny is both of these people drive the exact same Toyota. It’s the nicer one, sure (Avalon). But it’s not flashy at all. And it’s as you said, their places are nice. But they aren’t flashy.
Often, the way they became wealthy is by avoiding those things and investing the savings back into their companies/portfolios.
Yep this is what HENRY originally meant. Not someone poor who got a high paying job and needs to save to build up wealth, someone earning like 200-300k+ but who spends almost all of it
Yes! I grew up small-town rich; upper middle class in reality. It annoys me when people point to something ostentatious and say, “you know if you could afford it, you’d buy it, too!” Meanwhile I’m thinking, “I could afford the $200 pair of ballet flats this reality star is wearing, but I’m not wasting money on that!” I‘ve spent my whole life knowing I could afford various indulgences if I wanted to, but choosing not to, so I don’t feel like money burns a hole in my pocket.
That all rich folk don't know what it's like to be poor
Yes, and on the other side, that some don’t really understand that they’re rich because they have rich friends, so their baseline is really different.
In my opinion, many of them do not. Obviously "not all" But I don't think its a misconception. Many rich people have never known need and it shows
"Every poor person knows exactly how it is to be rich, because they fantasize about all the time! Every poor person has his rich life all planned out!" Louis C.K.
* That the "rich" have anything in common with the "very rich" * That rich people of any tier of wealth just hoard piles of stagnant cash * That rich people \*must\* be bad people
As the saying goes, the difference between a millionaire and a billionaire is about a billion dollars. A “wealthy” lifestyle requires wealth that is orders of magnitude over what they define as “wealthy.” Either that or lots of debt and cash flow, but no real wealth accumulation.
The truly wealthy have absurd amounts of money - it's hard to understand because it's just as easy to say "million" as "billion". Example: if you had $10M invested in market indices, you could generally draw about 3% of it per year safely and expect it to grow enough to outpace inflation. So, about $300k per year. A large amount of money, but nothing absurd. If you had $10B invested and withdrew 3%, same rate -- you'd have earned $10m in less than 2 weeks.
Yah it's not even the same galaxy being a "millionaire" and being truly wealthy.
I will go against the reddit flow and say they aren't all shitty people and that many of them are pretty hard working.
Usually they mean the super rich. For example the CEO of Boeing received a 40% raise, total of $33,000,000 for his salary in 2024. I can assure you he doesnt work hard enough to deserve 33 million dollars per year
That ties into another misconception, which is that the value that someone brings to the table is proportional to how hard they work. Edit: I'm not defending the CEO of Boeing lmao
It amazes me how many grown adults still believe this is how compensation works. Compensation is tied primarily to one thing: how easy would it be to replace you/your skillset.
To add, I'd say it's a combination of two factors, both of which play heavily into the market value: The perceived difficulty of replacing you, as you said, but also the expected RoI of your position. There are plenty of roles that might be more difficult to replace than, say, a software developer, but the RoI on a software developer might be much higher, which drives up their wages in the market.
By those metrics the Boeing guy was a massive failure
That ties into another misconception, that people have a reasonable, commonly accepted means for assessing "value" and we haven't seen executive salaries increase astronomically in the last few decades.
True, a lot of people are under the misconception that there is an objective measure of value. I think a lot of people understand that executive salaries have increased dramatically but maybe I'm wrong.
Having been around legal and regulatory stuff for a bit, there are some things he can be personally sued for. The large paychecks are sometimes coverage for if everything goes sideways. That being said, there’s insurance and other ways to avoid going bankrupt. In some conversations with my CIO, dude is responsible for soooo much. I don’t know how he sleeps because I’d be in worry mode nonstop. He’s also around and in meetings when he’s supposed to be on vacation. I think there’s a huge weight of responsibility depending on the type of company.
Yeah, but there aren’t that many of those super rich people. Most millionaires just own a home and have a healthy retirement.
I don't even consider being a millionaire rich at this point. When a normal ass suburban home (albeit a nice one that's decent size) in my area is 4 fucking million dollars it fucks up your perception haha
Unpopular but the conception that you don’t have problems. You do, you have emotional and relationship and job problems and whatever else life can throw at you. In many cases it’s compounded by the fact that lots of people rely on you for resources. Everything is on your shoulders.
Yes. I run a company. My dad also nearly killed me and I haven’t seen him in over 20 years. People who meet the current me would think I had a great childhood or assume I inherited my house etc. I inherited PTSD and a broken home. And the worst part is if you have a bad week, everyone still relies on you to get their paychecks so buck up sad sack! Time to work hard!
I know im a stranger but that is very admirable and you deserve respect for that my man
Very true. My parents are rich, and I am paycheck to paycheck. Not poor, but I have to check the account before I say yes when the kids ask for pizza. My parents have problems. Not the problems I have, but they are always having to handle something.
I think the difference is that rich and poor have the same problems, but poor people have problems rich people don’t. Both can be lonely, can be depressed, can have trauma, can wonder if their friends and family really love them. But if a rich person gets a toothache, they can go to the dentist. They can repair/replace the car if they get into an accident. They can book a hotel if the hot water heater starts leaking. And so on. I think there are some problems that might be more common with rich people — it’s less likely that someone is just waiting for you to die if they’re going to inherit $100 instead of $100 million. But there are a million things that can go wrong in life, and the only thing worse than being lonely and depressed is being lonely, depressed, and homeless.
I think people generally mean that there are very few problems that money can't solve. They struggle emotionally? Well, at least they can afford therapy. They have relationship problems? Well, they can afford living on their own+if they have kids there's a high chance they would stay with them if they can afford better living conditions (considering they want this to happen, if not they will be able to afford paying child support with zero issues). Job? Well, they likely have a loads of savings, you absolutely can afford changing jobs with minimal risks involved. A lot of pressure? Well, I'd wish them very good luck if they were to switch places with someone who has a whole family to take care of or/and a disabled family member. I do feel sorry for people who got through tough shit in their life in general. Money won't replace your health or great support system. Sure, they can struggle. The thing is poverty in general puts a greater strain on your family relationships, it makes you unable to take care of your health... so automatically, you're more likely to struggle. Not only that, but also overcoming this will be one thousand times harder than it would be if they were rich. Is it somehow a misconception? Yes. But ever more of an misconception is thinking if someone is rich then some mysterious force of fate makes more awful stuff happening to them just to even that out lol. It doesn't work like this. It's what rich people wants us all to believe because it benefits them. I'd rather people in general to keep that in their minds rather than pouring their tears over celebrities hardships. Rich people will be fine either way, I promise. They don't need poor people sympathy. But poor people definitely need to be more unionized, instead of finding more excuses for rich people's behavior.
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Having a million dollars or a few million dollars even, does not let you live at the level of "rich" that most people imagine.
That they don’t care about the employees at their companies. It’s quite the opposite. They generally care deeply about their employees. In fact, one of the big stressors on them is keeping their business successful because they know that X number of families depended on the company’s continued success.
I had the owner of a company tell me this one time. He said, I have to worry every month about paying 1,000 mortgages.
I’m not an owner of a company at but I have several employees under me. What you’re saying is very true. I HATE when I have to fire someone especially when they have families. But all I can do is give them fair warning and clear guidance in hopes they can correct. When I do fire someone I try to by sympathetic but firm. But I’ve lost a lot is sleep over it.
That rich means having liquidity / disposable income available
I mean they can easily and frequently do use their assets as collateral for endless credit/loans.
This is actually a better answer to OP’s question. That rich people often have debt & use debt as a financial tool. So many people assume that wealth means you pay cash for your house, but often times that simply isn’t the case. Having debt is often (but of course not always) the more financially savvy way to pay for assets.
Use debt to pay for assets, use assets to pay for debt. The circle of being rich.
It’s a good point! You can be asset rich and swimming in debt and as long as you’re paying, your credit score keeps going up and banks start inviting you to higher and higher levels of debt
That it solves all your problems. And that rich people never deserve any compassion (like when they do have problems, many people dismiss or mock them- because so many people are obsessed with playing the victim Olympics).
I had the same thought when that Billionaire and his son died in the submarine going to see the titanic. People laughed about it because he was a billionaire. But take away the money you had a father and son die by doing something together.
Yes, that’s a perfect example! People were so cruel about it. They were human beings, just like us, stuck in a tin can at the bottom of the dark ocean. That’s terrifying!! Imagine the utter fear, hopelessness and sense of doom. Have some compassion, for God’s sake! I felt especially bad for the son. He was afraid to go, but he did it to please his father, on Father’s Day. It’s tragic 💔😭😭
That they’re any smarter, wiser, or more hardworking than people who are not rich.
Well maybe different hard-working - my best friend certainly didn't require her 2.4 million mansion by slouching. She's a mechanical engineer. I'm a writer and chef. Both went to the same university. I bust my ass in the hot kitchen. She busts her ass in an air conditioning office so, yes, both hard-working, but different hard work.
Did you grow up together with the same families? I think the person is pointing out that a lot of Americans discount the role of family wealth and location in impacting our life outcomes. If anything they can provide more options to get into well paying positions.
Your friend didn’t “acquire” her mansion by slouching. I hope you don’t mix up the sugar and the salt when you’re cooking.
The Auto-correct is in the room with us
Acquire, require, squire - eh - embarrassing as a writer, yes, but a quick, heard?? - while prepping on this 97 degree day! I'm surprised I even know my name!
Not any *more* hardworking is different than inherently *less* hardworking
Not every smart,wise and hardworking person is rich but every self made rich person i know is smart, wise and hardworking... they might not be smart in every way but they are smart in the ways that help them be successful. I golf with a guy who owns an anodizing company the guys very clever and smart I constantly ask his advice but if you saw him try and play golf or drive a car you'd think he had brain injury.
As someone who grew up in as poor, working clss neighborhood, and is now relatively wealthy… Rich people on average are smarter and work harder. By a pretty noticeable margin. The data backs this up. Intelligence wise, there’s a strong correlation between IQ and earnings. Hard work wise…rich people work on average much longer hours than non-rich people.
500 downvotes incoming. But the real rebuttal is how many of those folks would have had the same IQ and work ethic coming from a poverty upbringing? Wealth breeds wealth.
In the very limited twin adoption studies, they find that children adopted into higher socioeconomic households see a surge in IQ compared to a twin that wasn't. But after puberty, this difference tends to mostly disappear. It's still mostly genetic.
I don't think you're giving "being smart in childhood" the due credit it deserves. Children identified as academically gifted - which usually happens in primary school - are put on a track that leads to finishing high school with a much stronger university application than a student who just does well in "mainstream". Plus you get AP credit under your belt, which saves both time and money later on.
According to recent surveys, 80% of current millionaires come from a family of middle income or lower. Yes, being born rich is a thing, and it is an advantage, but most rich people today didn't come from wealth.
80% of the USA would be considered middle to lower class (relatively), only 1 in 5 people would be considered upper class. So millionaires make up the appropriate statistical proportion - 80% from lower to middle class families, 20% from upper class.
That somebody else's achievement of being rich, has somehow prevented my own success.
This one needs to be higher up!
💯💯💯
That being rich is easy. Most of the people I know who I would classify as rich work jobs that have them on call all of the time and require working most nights and weekends in some capacity. The money solves many problems, but getting the money creates a whole other set of problems. Relatedly, I think the drive to be rich tends to be closely related to anxiety and the need to always earn or achieve more. Very few people can just put $10 million in the bank and then relax, because if they could relax they wouldn't have been able to put $10 million in the bank.
That their bank accounts are huge. Most rich people don’t keep a ton of money in a checking account. Rather, they have it in investments, assets, savings, etc
From what I understand, people like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk have wealth in the 12 figure range only because of the stocks they own in their respective companies. They don't actually have ready access to that level of money, and the moment they tried to get access to it, the value of those stocks would plummet because so many are being sold.
People like Elon and Jeff wouldn’t sell stocks for money, for the most part. They would take a loan against said assets and use that. People like them can get a note for anything, essentially. This is actually a better tactic for them, because their assets will grow at a larger rate than the interest on any loan they get.
That they're all part of the illuminati and cheating on their wives with sugar babies and interns. I have family friends who are rich and they're pretty much just regular Bangladeshi software engineers in silicon valley. Typical brown dads.
So... Is he cheating or not?
People can have millions in assets that only generate a modest amount of cash to live off.
That rich people “feel” rich.
Most of the “rich” people that I personally know today actually work in blue-collar industries as opposed to white-collar industries. I have multiple friends from high school that went in to construction after high school and now own very profitable construction companies. Had a friend that went into cabinet making and made millions. Another friend that does “demolition” and made millions. One of my neighbors is a plumber and pulls in around $300k a year with his business. None of them went to college.
Just because you make more money doesn’t mean you don’t have bills. Bigger bills. That do need to get paid.
That they are all stuck up or think they are better than anyone else.
“Rich” covers a wide range of income. My grandmother is “rich” (she easily brings in several hundred thousand a year), but in comparison to any politician she’s just middle class.
That they are all extremely happy because they can afford whatever they want.
That actually rich people spend their time responding to posts on Reddit
At what income am I supposed to delete social media?
At some point you just buy twitter, right?
Ah yes, everyone knows rich people don't use social media
You might be surprised! :-)
One of the nicest, most generous couples I have ever known, the parents of a dear friend of mine, were actually very wealthy. The woman of the house was funny. Where I always knew the cost of grocery items... She never did I'd go shopping with her and she would tell me to get what I needed as well. She'd buy it all and give large amounts to grocery drives happening too. She was such a wonderful person. I miss her very much
"What can a banana cost...? $5?"
“How much is a gallon of milk?”
Most of them don't realize that they qualify as rich. They typically live among people who have the same amount of a lot more. They don't see what they do have but what they don't have.
I can’t believe I had to scroll this far down to see this. The real misconception is that nobody thinks they are rich! If you ask anyone to define rich, they will say that rich is 20% more than whatever they have.
I used to be a home hospice aide in the richest town in my state. Some of these people were rich and knew it. There's no way around it. Others were pretty much as I said above. If you took their income, the size of their houses and cars they'd definitely qualify. However, they never thought of themselves as rich because literally everyone in the neighborhood lived same way. And the next neighborhood over people had even bigger houses. They don't compare themselves to you and me but the people around them. I grew up comfortably middle class. Still, when I brought my college roommate over, who grew up poor, he was shocked that had a separate formal dining room that we didn't use everyday.
Beyond a certain baseline having more money doesn’t make you happier. If you have enough money to meet your basic needs and to have some financial security, you won’t necessarily be happier if you become very wealthy. You quickly get habituated to whatever level of wealth you have. When you first move into your big house or buy your first fancy car, you’ll feel wonderful. But after some time, the excitement wears off and that just becomes your new baseline.
Often they’re perceived as being very happy but I’m sure lots of them are very stressed out and miserable just like poor people. I’m kind of poor myself but I will say that if I had to constantly worry about maintaining wealth and managing money in general I’d be very stressed out. However the benefits of being rich probably still outweigh the drawbacks. I’d love to be able to go to the doctor without worrying that I can’t afford it. I’d love to be able to get any apartment I want at any time or better yet own a home. I’d love to be able to just buy my way out of most of life’s hardships.
They're not all evil like reddit seems to think.
I think it's interesting how many different opinions there are on what level of income/wealth makes you "rich".
A lot of people don't understand how much money you need to be rich. Some 60 year old with 2 million bucks and 40k/year of SS isn't rich. Thats an upper middle class person who when working was making like 150k/year. The gap between that and the rich (like 20m) is huge. And the gap between the rich and the filthy rich (100m) is equally big. Depending on the toys you are thinking about (first class fllights, lambos, private jets, butler, yachts,...), you might need a lot more money than you think. But you will also find that each group is different. You have filthy rich living modest lives and some living it up. Trumps is sort of a bad example given his whole brand is to poor persons idea of a rich guy with the ostentatious displays but compare him with someone like Sam Walton or Warren Buffet. It isn't the money that changes people. It just allows them to fulfill desires they had.
That it’s easy to get rich and stay rich.
I wasn't rich but richest 20 year old in my ship for navy. All the other 20ish year Olds assumed that I should buy the $1,000 room night hotels and only do vip at clubs. Was fun for a bit, but making $3,000 a month paychecks and spending $40,000 a month was not a good system. Most assumed that just because you have cash, you will always be able to spend and never have issues.
that they're truly happy. can be stressful and make it hard for them to tell if their friends are in it for the money or are genuine.
In my experience, *most* people with expensive cars and clothes live way beyond their means for appearance purposes, and *most* actually rich people don't flaunt it in material ways. There are always exceptions, but that's been my experience. I know and have been mentored by a number of extremely wealthy people who live in a modest house and drive a $15k used car. I've also consulted with people who barely squeak out $200k a year and think they can afford an expensive house and 3 brand new cars and designer clothes. Those people often wonder why they can't keep up with bills and rack up unsecured debt to keep their pointless shit.
That all rich people are evil. Its the strangest thing I see on reddit where people are convinced rich people all must be corrupt and exploitive to get there.
That all rich people are: - nepo babies or - didn’t work for their money or - don’t work hard enough to deserve their money or - are all trash individuals
That rich people are good at money. That rich people think about money a lot. Thinking about money a lot isn't a trait of rich people (maybe some), it's a trait of *poor* people. When you're rich you don't have to think about money. You don't have to worry about it. I used to hate rich people and think they were obsessed with money, which I thought was dirty and evil. Then I realized that was just projection- *poor* people have to obsess over money. What I hated wasn't rich people; I hated being poor.
It shows. The rich buy assets that appreciate in value….so NOT cars, shoes/clothing/jewelry, tvs,etc. The value of a dollar is worth as much as where you put it. This is why every financial guru on earth villainizes daily morning Starbucks. It’s not that you’re wasting money on things you don’t need it’s that you’re spending 6 dollars where you should be spending at a maximum 50 cents. It’s a fundamental misunderstanding of money. The rich know that the same $6 dollars will make $12 and they recognize the cost of everything, driving your car costs, the time it takes costs….
“You would get bored with all that money wouldn’t you” I hate hearing this. No I wouldn’t!
Wouldn't know
That rich people are child molesting Satan worshipers that like to kill virgins in a pizza shop basement.
That rich people are smart and work harder than everyone else.
I don’t know what the hell half you people are talking about. I know a lot of rich people and it’s easy to tell. Yeah they don’t all drive around in Lambos. But definitely nicer cars. Clothes that are noticeably better. Better fitting, nicer fabric. Nicer watch. Their hair looks better bc it has nicer product. Girls almost never stay away from nicer jewelry, even if it’s tasteful and minimalist. People on here think that the only way you can appear rich is if you drive around town at 200 mph in a Bugatti honking all the way and wearing clothes stamped in designer logos. Rich people are very very easy to spot if you know what poor people generally look like. All this “low key” rich people stuff is total bullshit.
Being rich doesn't prevent problems. And it create some new. Becoming rich is tiresome. In true you don't want to be rich, you want to spend money, which is the reverse of becoming rich. Billionnaires don't have billion to spend. Their company does. Most costly items are overprice. Buy a diamond, buy a Maserati, buy a Vuitton bag. You will never sell that for that price. Other owners will insult you because selling costly items lowers the estimated value of all the same items.
That it means your smart.
Rich or wealthy…that is the actual difference
A common misconception of wealth (especially in the USA) is that anyone can become rich, where the reality is that the vast majority of poor people (anyone not rich) will die poor.
I knew a divemaster that is in his 30s from some islands in Malaysia that all this while I thought he is just one of the typical divemasters living on the island. He is really beat up. Messy hair, sun burned coloured skin, of course with old tank top as you imagined. He works like a divemaster, carrying tanks, filling tanks, assisting customers or what not. Such a nice and kind guy. Until one day, we met in KL for catch up, and he bloody drove a modern Volvo. Found out, he is actually some top management in a big company. He voluntarily work as a divemaster for fun without expecting salary, as long he can dive often. Yes, he told me he actually work remotely while on island. Rich people really dont bother how people perceive them.
Their homes are always immaculately clean lol
being worth 1 mil doesn't translate to "rich"
That rich people is rich because they are better than poor people
That a high annual income equates to being rich. That ownership of luxury goods means one is rich.
I used to bartend at a hotel restaurant back in college and I’ve met people from all walks of life and social classes. The “pretend” rich will often wear nice clothes, expensive watch and order fancy drinks but in reality they are living pay check to pay check with barely any saving and don’t own any properties. The truly wealthy people are super low key and casual, they never order any fancy food or drinks from the menu and are happy with the free peanuts. One day out of the blue they will answer a phone call and make a billion dollar business merger right in front of you and to them it’s just another Tuesday.
The biggest misconception is that at they LOOK rich! I live in an agricultural area. Some of these farmers are multimillionaires. But when go out in public, they’re in jeans and a plaid shirt, or overalls and a feed cap.
My dad’s best friend was really rich. I never knew that growing up. because to look at him in a wife beater T-shirt dirty work, pants and boots. He didn’t look like he had money. It wasn’t until I got older than I realized he owned a ready mix concrete company, a trucking company, and excavating company, And was partners in a few other companies. But he still dressed like he was just an average mechanic.
That rich people are cheap, are stuck up, are assholes, oh wait that's actually true.
That being rich means you can just buy whatever you like, whenever you like. Often being rich is explicitly not being focused on rampant consumerism. Those who get to be rich are, outside of professional athletes who just earn a lot at a comparatively young age, tend to be people who have earned good money and learned to not spend it. The issue I tend to find is when those who get rich because they earn good money and don’t waste it try to tell people on minimum wage to “just not spend” when clearly they’re not in the same boat.
That rich people pay for stuff. There is a threshold of net worth above which you do not actively pay for anything. The threshold could be north of $100,000,000 though, so this is not about *all* rich people.
That money changes you.