22 Things Rich People Buy That The Rest Of Us Don’t Even Know Exist
Article created by: Ieva Pečiulytė
According to the 2022 World Inequality Report, which analyzes data and the work of more than 100 researchers and experts in the field, the richest 10% of people possess nearly 76% of the global wealth. Meanwhile, the bottom 50% own just 2%.
Interested in how this figure manifests in everyday life, Redditor KingBumii made a post on r/AskReddit, asking platform users to share all the things rich folks buy that the poor don’t even know are available for purchase. Here are the answers that received the most buzz in the thread.
Obscure brands of regular items.
I have a few well off friends and trust fund babies and all of them **NEED** obscure brands of regular items. They want potato chips it can’t be Lays it has to be a imported thin cut potato from France that was harvested by the bay on a cool afternoon by a happy french man.
Rich Russian business men rent taxis that are luxurious on the inside, but look like ambulances on the outside to avoid traffic.
[source](http://www.autoblog.com/2013/03/31/wealthy-russians-hiring-ambulances-to-cut-through-moscow-traffic/)
From my [highest rated comment:](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1gsocw/wealthy_redditors_what_are_some_services_or/canisns)
> There’s insurance on fine art. And I don’t mean, “Sorry you lost it in the hurricane, here’s your paycheck” insurance. I mean, “The area is flooded and riots are breaking out. We’re going to send a SWAT-like team to helicopter in and fly your assets out of the area and into a safer place” kind of insurance.
was at a friends house (very rich friend) and his daughter came back from school all sad. So i asked why and apparently one her classmates spread rumors about her how she’s rich and snotty and always flies everywhere in private jets.
She started to cry and said “I don’t always fly in private jets! sometimes i have to ride first class…”
at the time she was 7 yrs old.
so poor people know nothing of all the struggles that the riches go through.
I live in Sydney, Australia and recently there was a big controversy about how students of two of our most expensive private schools were being secretly guaranteed spots at University of Sydney (one of the major 3 universities in Sydney) before they had even done their year 12 finals. Everyone else in the state stresses out over year 12 to get good grades and get a good ATAR (equivalent of GPA) and these kids didn’t have to lift a finger just because their parents were rich. So there’s that.
Health.
Think about it:
* Good produce that enables maintenance of a balanced diet.
* Health insurance, doctor’s bills, etc. to quickly cure any illness.
* Gym memberships, Personal Trainers and dietists to promote a healthy lifestyle
* Time to relax and wind down from stress
Also, look at what chips away most at poor people’s health:
* Bad quality half-baked or ready-to-eat meals and fast food
* Monotonous, sitting-down jobs with little to no chance of moving around
* Car-bound activities and work tasks that compound the point above
* Working two or three jobs to pay the bills
* No time for vacations, taking a day off, or even call in sick in some cases
More than anything, rich people afford to be healthy.
From what I’ve seen in Switzerland, most very rich people don’t actually appear to be rich.
They live in big houses, but it’s all very private and they don’t show off their wealth like other less rich people that try to show off everything they own and don’t own. The houses are usually in remote places and with walls or bushes to stop you from seeing what’s inside, the typical nouveau rich will just show off their “mansion” at every opportunity.
A very rich guy is not the one that is driving a Ferrari and slowing down to revving his engine near women. A very rich guy, is the one that you don’t actually see, you merely “feel” the wealth when the occasional Bentley or Rolls Royce passes by without making heads turn.
Some anecdotal story that happened with me:
I was at an ATM machine in Switzerland, behind an old lady that looked to be quite poor. When it was my turn to use the machine, I noticed that she didn’t remove her card and I could still check how much money she had in her bank account and even withdraw money.
She had around 8 million Swiss Francs! And yes, I called her and told her that she forgot to remove her card.
I live in NYC and work as a courier. I regularly deliver things like $50 cookies (4 of them) across town for a $15 dollar delivery charge. $65 for 4 cookies. Then I must go through the service entrance under the building as I am not allowed in the “regular” halls. Upon arriving I hand the cookies to the servant who answers the door that is in an elevator that opens onto the kitchen usually. I have delivered a $35 bagel. The new thing is cold pressed juices. Daily I will drop an $80 order for 4 juices plus delivery cost. So pushing a $100 for some juice. The apartments over looking central park… it’s crazy. I saw a 12 year old kid in a private school uniform wearing a brand new apple watch and eating with friends at a cafe that had to be $30 a head for a coffee and a snack. Then left and walked into a brownstone ($5-10 Million) in Manhattan? That kid will go to a schools that I will never see, make friends and connections that are impossible otherwise. The 1% live a different life. Different rules, different opportunities. I think it’s great for them my only concern is the resources that are required to maintain that life are staggering. The carbon foot print, the man hours of people serving them… mind boggling.
The Strand, a bookstore in New York, sells books by the foot.
Mostly they’re encyclopedias, 14th editions: things that aren’t of much value. But they have really pretty spines. For making your library look pretty.
Just bought a new house with a big, empty library? Just measure the width of the shelves, choose Cloth of Leather, and a few days later you’ll put Jay Gatsby to shame.
I never understood why Forest Gump always said, *”Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.”* Every box of chocolates I’ve ever seen comes with a handy little diagram that tells you exactly what you’re gonna get. I joked about this with a friend once and they informed me that this was just a poor people thing. High end chocolates don’t generally come with a diagram.
I’m not rich but Etiquette school. I don’t remember how the conversation started, but a friend of mine from college starting talking to me about etiquette school. I must have given her a questionable look because she immediately paused, look embarrassed and said something along the lines of “not everyone goes to etiquette school, do they?”
My sister used to work at a very expensive hotel in London. She told me that new clients would check in and then once they left the room the staff would go in and inventory everything they brought with them and where they put it and how with the help of staff they set the room up. They do this so the next time the client schedules a room, the staff can run out and buy everything on the list so the client doesn’t have to have any luggage and everything is set up how they like it. They have thousands of clients and she showed me pictures of room layouts and lists of clothing, watches, and other things that are ALWAYS set up the same for the same client. Crazy stuff.
This is embarrassing, but until last year (I am now 24) it did not occur to me that people could file their own taxes and not use an accountant. Or rather, John, the ‘family accountant.’
Edit: forgot to tell you about John.
Chocolate. I just saw a video where the people who harvest cacao have no idea what is made from them. Poor them. But some cool dude brought them chocolate, which is nice.
Maybe not “rich” people, but a surprising amount of my friends who are very poor (as in have been homeless before) had not heard of nor tasted raspberries before.
I’m not rich, but I live in a very very rich town. My neighbor has a helicopter sitting in his back yard, that kind of rich. People here buy some truly ridiculous things.
* Don’t you hate, for example, when you get on your private jet to go across the country, but as soon as you get there you need to go rent a car? Well, people around here don’t have that problem. They pay a service to ship their Ferraris and Lamborghinis to their destinations ahead of time so they can drive them when they get there. Yeah.
* I’ve been to family parties and events where famous people are simply summoned and show up. I count this as something they buy, because I think they are very often paid. Literally two weeks ago Laura Bush made an appearance at my friends family barbecue. A month or so before that, Tom Selleck came by for a dinner party.
* Sometimes they buy theme parks or things like that for a day. They just rent it out a while in advance and then throw a huge party. It’s just as awesome as it sounds, all of the workers are there, but there’s no lines. There is alcohol being served by waiters too, because it’s a private event.
* They can by lessons from professional athletes or dinners from famous chefs. Sure you’re not going to get Tom Brady to teach you how to play football, but Teddy Bridgewater? Sure, anytime. My neighbors kid, who absolutely hates golf, got personal lessons from Vijay Singh. For those of you that don’t know, hes a pretty big deal. Rich people do this just to say they did though. They’ll get a professional dedicated instructor who coaches the likes of Tiger Woods if they want to actually get good, but they just want to say they got a lesson and a picture with Vijay Singh.
* A lot of my friends have two or three exact copies of their phones in case one breaks. That in itself ins’t all that expensive, but it just goes to show their mentality towards money. Who needs a silly thing like insurance when you could just buy three more? Crack a phone? No problem, got a fresh one in my pocket. Crash your McLaren? No problem, got a fresh on in the garage.
* Some times you have to buy ‘people’. Not exactly what it sounds like, but say you’re having trouble with your homes computer system (most people here have huge house wide computer terminals, I have no idea how they work), well then you need to go out an buy a personal IT guy for your house. From now on, you are his only client and his job is to reset your router once a week. Rich people don’t have time for such things.*
* If you need literally anything as a rich person, you can basically buy it even if it doesn’t exist. A parking lot for example. My neighbor once had a big party, but didn’t have enough room for everyone to leave their exotic cars so my dad let him use our front yard to park some of them. Literally a day later he had our entire lawn resodded with grass imported from North Dakota. There are no problems if you have enough money, only creative solutions.
* A lot of rich people live surprisingly modest too. They’re in the minority, but they exist. As a kid I used to work for a guy who owned an exotic car dealership. Even though he had about a dozen Ferraris and Lamborghinis, he perfected to drive an Acura sedan as his everyday car. Not even a particularly nice one. Even though there are better options within their budget, a lot of rich people sill prefer the ‘average’ things we use.
EDIT: I’d prefer not to say where I live, but I will say that one person guessed it. A lot got bordering towns.
My dad’s rich but he doesn’t spend much and we’ve lived a middle class life even though we could be living a much lavish life. No complaints at all though.
But because of my dad’s wealth I am friends with wealthy people and I have friends who live pretty wild. If I go to a club with one of my friends the bouncer will know my friend and just let us in, even when half of us are underage and we have no girls with us.
I also dated a girl whose dad was the CEO of a very large federal funded nonprofit. I’m not allowed to mention names of politicians but I’ll tell you that House of Cards has a lot of truth to it.
There’s also the friends I had who were f*****g idiots but still got into top notch universities. and then there were the other not so friendly kids at my private high school whose fathers would give so much money to our high school that these kids could get away with pretty much anything. Racism, cheating and skipping class.
And me witnessing all this was weird because the way my dad raised my family with a “save first” mentality, I never really asked for things that much. But yeah. Rich white people crazy!
A lot of people have multiple cars but rich people have cars specifically for the weekend. During the week you drive your average S-Class/Lexus/7-Series that you don’t mind subjecting to cruel traffic, but from Thursday to Sunday you drive your weekend car. These fall on three spectrums- antiques, sports cars, or luxury cars. I don’t know much about the antiques, but I love going for drives in the area on Fridays just to LOOK at the Rolls Royce Phantoms and Lambos. Lambos/Ferraris are usually driven by younger rich people (Arabs and athletes) and are seen at night usually racing. The luxury cars are the old people. Maseratis are not weekend cars, they’re work cars. And every Saturday morning there’s a car show in our town.
Also banks. If you’re rich, you usually are a preferred customer at multiple big name banks. They know you by name and know your family and you can give upper level management personal calls for help.
