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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)

#761

Post by DoingIsLearning »

jfil wrote: post #745
DoingIsLearning wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is arguably not very scientific but if we didn't have the media fascination around the power and influence that billionaires carry, we would like come to accept that rationally it is a mental disease no different from Plyushkin's syndrome. You won, you can provide for you and for your whole bloodline if you so choose. You can choose your adventure, go fully epicurean or fund Humanity impacting projects. Yet they…

Survivorship bias... Maybe we never hear about the people who made their fortune and quietly exited the scene?

Fair my issue is not that there are no Joseph Heller's in the world, my issue is that due to the inherent power and influence, we as a society, have a huge reluctance in considering people like Bezos, Musk, Buffet, Slim, Arnault, as just suffering from some variant of a mental health hoarding disorder.

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

#762

Post by Suppafly »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #540

Five or ten years ago I listened to a podcast that featured an ex-butler of a billionaire family and he talked about ‘his family’ and their friends who were also very rich. The ex-butler said that the quality of the food they ate was perfect, extremely flavorful 100% nutritious meals. I can kind-of get this: the town my wife and I used to live in had two very expensive restaurants that served simple, totally deliciou…

There are middle class versions of that where you pool with a handful of friends and family and have the chefs meal prep for you. Or you can provide room and board to a culinary student and have them cook meals for you.

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

#763

Post by adamcharnock »

florbnit wrote: post #135

It’s funny how emotional responses questions like this become on part of the people answering everything but the question. If some one asks in a sports forum what the best exercises are that pro tennis players do that novices don’t know about you wouldn’t expect the majority of answers being in the line of “Tennis players never experience true love! If all you have is tennis you’ll be depressed!”

I think this could be super unpopular around here, but here goes:

This is a symptom of societal unfairness. In this case there are different ways to react, but this is one of them. Tennis isn’t oppressing anyone, so no one is getting emotional about the pro tennis players knowing all the tips.

But the story since the 70s has been that you can have anything you want if you just work hard enough and are skilled enough (particularly in North America and the UK). Which means that if you don’t have something you want, then it is no one’s fault but your own.

Except in realty there are a whole host of external factors that influence once’s ability are accrue nice things.

It’s hard to reconcile these two things in our minds. We don’t have any narrative except the current one. So either we accept that we’re simply not good enough, or we accept things are broken with no solution. The former is often the most emotionally tolerable.

So when people see people with more than them, they don’t think, “good for them, we all choose how much we want to work for and I’m happy at my level”. Instead there is a collision of irreconcilable thoughts, and what comes out is, “they’ll never know what true love is”.

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

#764

Post by 4gotunameagain »

IshKebab wrote: post #719
4gotunameagain wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on the fact that you just wrote "streamlining process of how to become desirable" , we will probably never see eye to eye on what is cringe :)

Yeah honestly I think this attitude is shit. Maybe you were born with beauty and charisma but not everyone was. You're really going to say "you're not allowed to learn what I got for free"? Pretty low dude.

Oh don't you worry, I also had to learn how to fit in the world, and I'm not particularly beautiful.

But getting coaching, or thinking of attractiveness as a problem to solve, optimise and streamline ? This is where I object.

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

#765

Post by ben_w »

song wrote: post #593
pjc50 wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More generally, it can be hard to distinguish between "luxury" products that are primarily more exclusive with very little functional benefit (or in some cases more fragile!), versus products that are Actually Good. The display luxury category: anything by LVMH, Birkin bags, limited edition sneakers, Ferrari, etc The "better product for more money" category: Miele, wood furniture, Lexus etc

> The display luxury category: anything by LVMH, Birkin bags Birkin bags are also actually better products for more money, they can last quite a while with minimum care. They are display goods for sure but there is a qualitative difference between a good quality handbag from certain brands and a much cheaper one. Just as an example, my wife's only handbag is a balenciaga bag that she's had for 12+ years, she's been u…

> Just as an example, my wife's only handbag is a balenciaga bag that she's had for 12+ years, she's been using it to carry back food from restaurants, put anything she needs in it, etc... and it's still in good shape. In the end, her bag has cost her so far 60 usd/year.

Some time in 2017/2018, I was in Decathlon and needed a bag for the other stuff I bought. Picked up a cheap rucksack for a single digit number of Euros, possibly €2 but it was ages ago now and I can't remember exactly.

It's still going fine, around 1/200th the price per year of your example.

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

#766

Post by wltr »

throwanem wrote: post #401
TacticalCoder wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was invited for coffee at a friend's friend. He seemed a pretty regular guy, very friendly: kids playing in the pool. Nothing out of the ordinary except as many house employees as adult guests (and house employees where calling guests by their name). I happened to know the artist Jeff Koons: not a big fan of the "inflated balloon dogs" but I do like his ballerinas. Well... Turns out the dude had one house destroyed…

> But yup: buying x times the exact same car when times comes to change cars is kinda just weird. Is it? I'm on my second iPhone 13 mini, this one being the replacement after the first died of a drop. There are two more stored in the attic, each preconfigured with the accessories I like and with a SIM from my provider in the box. So if anything happens to this phone, as soon as I get home I just break out #3, restore…

I used to do exactly the same before. However, at this time I’m just having a backup (old SE) phone till I’ll get the replacement. Because, economically it’s much cheaper, plus I don’t need to bother with the new phone. If I’m being too worried over the time and energy investment of having to buy a new phone, I’d have one preconfigured. But why would you have two? Just to super-sure at least one would work? Or are you afraid they won’t be as easily accessible some years into the future?

I’m still having the 12 mini, so that’s why I’m not investing into having exactly the same. More likely I’d go with 13 mini, if this one would die suddenly. Or whatever else be on the market by that point. Theoretically, that can happen in 5 years. I’m holding the phone till it’s physically killed, or is unbearably slow.

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

#767

Post by bluGill »

thomassmith65 wrote: post #735
bluGill wrote: post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People tend to stick together. Once you know one odds become higher that you get introduced to a few more. Billionaires like parties as much as anyone else, so if you are not an insane stalker and get to know one well they will invite you to parties just to have a group of friends and now you are vetted so the others will not stay away as much. Different people have different sizes of friend circles so breaking in is…

There are fewer than 200,000 Americans, rich or poor, who are chummy with billionaires, but many millions of Americans who are liars. The post's author is a random person on social media... making claims an attention-seeker would make... for an audience that wants to believe them. The sensible position, without corroborating evidence, is that the author is a liar.

Odds are he is lieing. However on the off chance ne is not he lihely knows several

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

#768

Post by throwanem »

wltr wrote: post #766
throwanem wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But yup: buying x times the exact same car when times comes to change cars is kinda just weird. Is it? I'm on my second iPhone 13 mini, this one being the replacement after the first died of a drop. There are two more stored in the attic, each preconfigured with the accessories I like and with a SIM from my provider in the box. So if anything happens to this phone, as soon as I get home I just break out #3, restore…

I used to do exactly the same before. However, at this time I’m just having a backup (old SE) phone till I’ll get the replacement. Because, economically it’s much cheaper, plus I don’t need to bother with the new phone. If I’m being too worried over the time and energy investment of having to buy a new phone, I’d have one preconfigured. But why would you have two? Just to super-sure at least one would work? Or are yo…

Yeah, supply chain concerns.

I maintained five iPhones SE 1st gen from 2016 through most of 2021. Toward the end of that time it grew noticeably more difficult and slow to source model-specific parts and tooling. This time around, I know how to plan ahead more effectively. I had a 12 mini, but knowing Apple only drops a good small phone every half decade to keep us weird nerds interested, when the successor model came out I immediately upgraded.

I don't expect a real problem even in the worst case. The US is a huge internal market and has enough local internet to function. But for $300 flat I would otherwise just save anyway, why not hedge twice while I know I can?

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

#769

Post by Eavolution »

faster wrote: post #584
ackbar03 wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious about this though, does a rich man actually wear the same pair of boots for 10 years? That being said, I've noticed that a lot of clothes that I bought 10 years ago or so are of pretty high quality compared to today, (and no, they are not rich man's clothes). Some of them I actually have been wearing for more than 10 years now.

I bought Levi's 501s at a farm supply store in the 80s, $12 on sale. About 10 years ago I gave away my two remaining pairs. They were a little thinner but still intact, no holes anywhere. Modern 501s are made of much thinner fabric; I'd be surprised if they would last 5 years. Looks like the sale price is $45 now, which seems comparable.

I bought a pair of 501s recently and they barely lasted 6 months. I do a fair bit of cycling which seemed to very quickly wear through them. I'm really not sure what to buy if I want things that last a long time now.

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

#770

Post by arkey »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #343
safety1st wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a personal level I know several guys who are worth $10-30M, one who's worth probably $40M, and one who's worth around $700M, this is LNW. Not much in the Reddit reply checks out for me. It's true that the $700M guy socializes with "Senators/Congressmen/community leaders." He travels a lot, and comfortably, but has no ownership in a jet. He retired young-ish and no longer works so maybe that's why. He doesn't flash…

I was invited for coffee at a friend's friend. He seemed a pretty regular guy, very friendly: kids playing in the pool. Nothing out of the ordinary except as many house employees as adult guests (and house employees where calling guests by their name). I happened to know the artist Jeff Koons: not a big fan of the "inflated balloon dogs" but I do like his ballerinas. Well... Turns out the dude had one house destroyed…

> buying x times the exact same car when times comes to change cars is kinda just weird.

I would totally do that if I could. I have done it with shoes when I've had the good insight of thinking about it. I do it often with clothes when I find a good product that suits my needs. And I wish I could do it with my very-average-but-reliable car.

I'm dreading the moment I have to buy the next one and take the risky decision.

I am very fortunate to have an above average salary for where I am from, but what surprised me from going to pretty much broke to quite well off, is that my life didn't become flashy, it just became VERY comfortable with normal, everyday things.

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