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What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)

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Re: What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)

#751

Post by c22 »

song wrote: post #599
rsynnott wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> IoT Has no place in a dishwasher. > and in the near future, arms for self loading and unloading Pure fantasy for now; if it's ever not pure fantasy, go ahead and replace the dishwasher, I suppose? > Older microwaves have a cumbersome enter time, hit start procedure. Newer microwaves also have a "quick start" button for 30 seconds which you can just press four times to get it to go for two minutes, or enter the time…

Sidenote, I wish my washing machine had wifi, it'd allow us to see what settings our housekeeper is using and why our clothes age so much quicker than when we were doing the laundry ourselves.

They're probably using fabric "softener".

Re: What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)

#752

Post by prawn »

snowwrestler wrote: post #384
master_crab wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Miele looks and acts high end. And that includes the repair costs because they frequently break. No thanks. I’ll take something that is less so but will work for years without complaint.

So what would you buy instead?

When we built a house 15 years ago, we declined all the "premium brand" kitchen items in the builder's spec, went to Choice (consumer advocacy and testing in Australia) and picked from the best-rated dishwasher, oven, stove top, rangehood, etc. All worked well and we were happy with all of them. On another occasion, the recommendation was Miele (vacuum) but not for any of those kitchen items in our case.

Re: What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)

#753

Post by Suppafly »

matsemann wrote: post #413
EvanAnderson wrote: post #224

Through some odd circumstances I found myself receiving a lot of catalogs and sales solicitations for a reasonably wealthy person. Most of the stuff was what you'd exoect-- expensive furnishings, clothing, home goods. The two that were most interesting were the travel-related (guided trips in exotic locales w/ profiles and resumes of the local guides), and oddly specific and highly-focused catalogs (gardening, specif…

Huh, for me the nice part of being rich would be to not have to choose between so much goods. Like, when buying a new bicycle I have to spent lots of time figuring out the tradeoffs between what I want, what I can get a different price points etc, as buying something wrong will set me back and be a while until I can try again. But for a reach person, they can just buy the top spec of everything, and if they don't lik…

>Huh, for me the nice part of being rich would be to not have to choose between so much goods.

A friend of mine has a friend that's a fancy lawyer and I went camping with them once and the lawyer had the best of the best of camping stuff. Like he just went to REI and was like "give me the best of whatever I need to camp this weekend." It's possible that he weighed the pros and cons of some of it, but I sorta doubt it. The tent fabric felt like silk and was the lightest weight of anything I've ever seen and I camp a lot of with a wide range of people that can afford nicer stuff. The tent didn't even have any branding on it. My friend was telling me about this bike the guy had, and it's basically carbon fiber everything probably $10k at least. He had wrecked his old bike and gave it to my buddy that would have just needed to get a few parts and have it assembled at a bike shop and it was basically too expensive for my buddy to justify it.

Re: What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)

#754

Post by imp0cat »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #639
DSingularity wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about gaggenau?

I compared Miele, Thermador, gaggenau, and regular Bosch 800 fridge side-by-side in a appliance store. There is nothing on those higher end versions which make them worth anything close to the markup on the Bosch 800 fridge. If I'm going to spend almost 2X, you better give me at a minimum fully metal and glass construction (almost no plastic). I get slightly more metal and slightly (very slightly) stronger plastics.…

I really feel that Bosch/Siemens are the best deals right now and there are only minor differences between them (a Simenes freezer might have an extra light fixture whereas the Bosch one does not).

Re: What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)

#755

Post by imp0cat »

noboostforyou wrote: post #537
alexey-salmin wrote: post #176

The referenced reply is dull. It's very pretentious but just reiterates common knowledge, it doesn't convey any useful information. For example I wish someone told me about the existence of Miele kitchen equipment before I accidentally rented an apartment of a well-to-do woman. She renovated it for herself but then rented out when circumstances changed. Similarly it took me a long time to realize just how much better…

> Price is 3-4 times higher but it lasts 5-10 times longer and is much more pleasant to use. "The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. ... A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about…

Loved the book! :)

But on the other hand, consider running shoes - most modern ones, even the expensive ones, will wear out in a few hundred kms and are usually non-repairable.

Re: What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)

#756

Post by Suppafly »

mattlondon wrote: post #542

For me, it is paying extra for the wall-time and experiences, and less about the material things. Not saying I am "super wealthy" but we've paid a lot (but no obscene amounts) for a few things that felt kinda like "rock-star" treatment. Anyone can pay for these. One example is my wife and I flew to Venice for a long weekend and hired a speed-boat to transfer us from the airport to our hotel. We literally walked up to…

>One example is my wife and I flew to Venice for a long weekend and hired a speed-boat to transfer us from the airport to our hotel. We literally walked up to the pier, threw our carry-on bags in the back, jumped in and roared off.

Not as fancy, but my wife and kid met some friends in chicago, and the friends sprung for a water taxi to get them all from one side of town to the other. It's not even that expensive, but not something we'd just spend money on vs walking a bit and taking a train or bus.

Re: What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)

#757

Post by Suppafly »

anon-3988 wrote: post #564

I would love to say that I would not do any of these superficial things but I have clearly raised my standards of living after earning good wages. Thankfully its not "linear", I think. But I think I am self conscious enough that I am always asking if I should really be doing or buying stuff that I can perfectly afford. Do I really need that new phone? I have a perfectly serviceable phone, what do I really get from th…

>Do I really need that new phone? I have a perfectly serviceable phone, what do I really get from these stuff that is totally within my mean.

I always wonder how rich I'd need to be to just buy a new phone. I always get the step down models and use them for years, only upgrading when they stop working well or I get forced to upgrade when they change network technologies. I could afford to buy any phone I wanted right now, but it seems like such a financially dumb decision.

Re: What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)

#758

Post by imp0cat »

whatevaa wrote: post #364
nickd2001 wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happened to that then? ;) We bought a Miele dishwasher to replace a Neff which broke down after 10 yrs (probably 16 yrs worth of "official" usage) due to a silly design fault that caused it to leak. Thought a fairly basic model Miele worth a shot, as because it a stupid built-in, there's extra costs getting it installed, so longer it lasts the better. So far, it seems to clean to fairly similar standard to the N…

Microwave tech hasn't advanced anywhere beyond timer and power level. Everything else is just a gimmick.

I'd say that is not completely true. Variable power levels (on-off-on-off which certain cheaper microwave ovens do) are definitely not a gimmick, unless you like some parts of your meals cold and other piping hot.

Same for induction cooktops, but I digress.

Re: What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)

#759

Post by Loic »

m463 wrote: post #725
Loic wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are all Miele at home and for the next renewal, I will go to Bosch/Siemens. Too many small failures here and there (less than 8 year old). I was sincerely surprised because 20 years ago, Miele was the gold standard (at least in Germany). So, I agree with you.

wasn't there an article posted recently where the bosch dishwasher needed the phone app for common funcitons?

Yes, but they keep a series without these "cloud" (dis)functions.

Re: What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)

#760

Post by Suppafly »

snowwrestler wrote: post #660
mathverse wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am thinking liquid not net worth.

Yes, exactly, a person with $5 million liquid can afford to buy maybe 1 luxury home. Sure they probably already own a home, but 2nd homes are not uncommon luxuries. As a reminder you said “almost anything highend / luxury becomes a commodity.” Or look at this way: $5 million throws off $200k/year (pre-tax) with a “safe” pull rate of 4%. Ok so now you want to buy a luxury car, that’s over $100k. You’ve spent most of y…

>Ok so now you want to buy a luxury car, that’s over $100k.

There is a reason rich people lease a lot of times and buy things with borrowed money that they'll never have to pay back.

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