A while ago, I was reading this BuzzFeed post about activities that the ultra-rich do that regular people “don’t even know exist,” and I was fascinated. The stories were so juicy, I had to read more. So, I decided to ask our very own BuzzFeed Community about “rich people activities” that the peasantry seldom even think about. Here are some of the most interesting answers:
1.“Whenever I go to Disney World, there [are] always, like, one or two families who take advantage of the ‘VIP’ service there. They get escorted to the front of the lines [and get] special backstage access; it’s like they are royalty. I always wonder what is it those families do for a living.”
—amandatotaldiva
“[Yes,] not just buying tickets to things, but buying the VIP skip-the-line tickets. At Disney World, this is $450–$900 per hour with a minimum of seven hours, on top of the regular tickets. At Universal LA, it’s $379 per person per day. You get to do so many more things in one day when you have a tour guide and can skip the lines.”
—popculturemama
Kristy Sparow / Getty Images
2.“Giving expensive gifts without a thought. I had a scholarship to an expensive school, and these kids all had the best name brand clothes, bought and sold horses, and already owned land.”
“On Valentine’s Day one of the girls bought the whole friend group the most beautiful flowers and $50+ professionally wrapped gifts. At any birthdays (and other random celebrations) all the presents were amazing and worth hundreds.
I starved that year and could never give any of my friends any of the nice gifts they gave each other. It was embarrassing, but I know now I shouldn’t be ashamed by it.”
—fizbee
3.“I once had a rich classmate that jetted off to Hong Kong during a school day just because she wanted to eat dim sum.”
4.“In-home services. My mom is wealthy, and she has her manicurist come to her house once a week to do her nails and pedicures. Her personal trainer comes three times a week and trains her in her in-home gym.”
“She has a cleaning person [who] cleans her house, and yard people to take care of her yard. She loves to cook, so she doesn’t have a chef come prepare her meals, but I know other rich people [who] do.
Basically anything other people have to do themselves or leave their house for, rich people can have done for them in their own homes.”
—carolines4f3e1a91c
5.“Collectibles. I’m not talking Funko Pops and Breyer horses, either. Think antiques, rare books, and art. Fossils, too. Not as investments, just collecting for fun because it’s something they like… Particularly stuff that takes special care and handling to ship.”
“I knew a guy who had someone on staff to escort [any] documents and/or books he had purchased from the seller to his house. The guy who did it apparently liked the job, though. All he had to do really was cart around a padded briefcase and make sure whatever he was transporting was cushioned properly for the trip.”
—torbielillies
u/ElusiveDuckling / Via reddit.com
6.“Air taxis. [Being rich is] not only owning private jets and having memberships to jet clubs; you can also organize a ‘taxi’ — for example, a six seater plane between two small airports.”
“[It] sounds absurd but frankly came in very handy when I dated a wealthy guy and we ‘needed’ to get between [two] holiday functions a day apart in a sparsely populated part of the country. And since it’s private, there’s no TSA: just get to the plane and go. I get that private air travel is terrible for the environment and don’t generally endorse it but, man.”
—Anonymous
Marin Tomas / Getty Images
7.“Well, I had this one friend in high school. Her parents made them dress up as ‘pets’ at their ‘pets night.’ It was so weird. I was a lion, by the way, this one time. Even their relatives showed up and fed them. Weirdest thing I ever did.”
8.“Annual ski trips to resort areas like Vail or Aspen. One day of lift tickets is easily $500/person, to say nothing of flights, lodging, restaurants, gear. Or even knowing how to ski at all!”
—Anonymous
9.“Sending your dog to regular, private sheep herding lessons.”
10.“Having dog psychics, dog chefs [to] do meal prep, etc., and not blinking an eye. This is in SoCal.”
—Anonymous
11.“[Owning] second (or third!) homes, and the ‘work’ that goes into maintaining them. A whole other home furnished to high standards, that still needs the gutters cleaned and the deck stained, windows washed and landscaping.”
12.“I used to be a teacher at a private school abroad in Istanbul. I had all types of different parents: influencers, real estate moguls, investors, actresses, and even mafia families.”
“I was speaking to one of the parents [once], and she [said], ‘I won’t be here for pickup; the driver will pick her up, take her home, and I have hired a team to entertain her and her friends.’ [The] child was 4.
[The mom] said [she] and her friends were going to go to Milan for lunch, then another city for dinner.”
—Anonymous
NBC / Via media.giphy.com
13.“In the south, ‘Cotillion’ is a common upper class activity for young teens. [It’s] essentially an extracurricular in etiquette and ballroom dance class.”
“Gentlemen, unbutton your coat when you sit, button it again immediately upon standing. Ladies, cross your legs at the ankle, not the knee. Supposedly the box step, foxtrot, and waltz are all essential to your social success as a future high roller.”
—Anonymous
Jason Edwards / Getty Images
14.“I attended an Ivy League school and was blown away when I first saw my peers cash in on parental names. I knew that it was a ‘thing’ but not the extent. Free penthouse hotel stays, ‘Daddy’s friend will give us a ride in his plane,’ and ‘my mom called ahead, we each can get a couple outfits.'”
—Anonymous
15.“Maybe not so much a hobby — I wouldn’t even know what to call it — but whenever I’m around my sister’s husband’s family (for a birthday or family event) during racing season, they will find a TV to view the races and will stand there on their betting apps, placing bets all day.”
“They are wonderful people, [they’re] non-judgmental and a lot of fun, but it blows my mind how they have the disposable income to do this. I’m not talking $10 bets here and there; they will spend tens of thousands of dollars at a time. The real kicker is they pretty much always make a profit from their winnings; whereas, I know if I placed any kind of bet or gambled with my money (the little I have) in any way, I’d probably lose it all.”
—Anonymous
Rob Carr / Getty Images
16.“Not owning shampoo because someone washes your hair. There are NYC buildings like this.”
—Anonymous
17.“Freshman year of college (like 2005), I lived with six other randomly selected girls in a dorm-like setting. One of the girls ended up being the daughter of the founder of a super famous restaurant chain. She was actually incredibly kind and thoughtful, but there were moments when I remembered she came from money.”
“For example, one night she got invited to go to a concert, but she’d spent all her cash for that week. So, she ran into her room and started throwing armfuls of clothes from her closet into a bag. They all had tags on them. Brand new, expensive labels. When we asked what she was doing, she said, ‘Returning this shit to free up concert cash!’ It was so bizarre and funny, and I’d never in my life just had a closet full of expensive clothes I’d never worn before.”
—Anonymous
E!, Fox
18.“My dad’s friend is a rich guy. He has a neighbor who is also a rich dude. This neighbor has an obsession with one type of car. Only four were made in the world. He’s already bought three of them, and is now on a mission to buy the fourth and final one.”
“He has already spent millions on these cars and is planning to spend however much it takes to get the last one as well. He knows a Swiss dude owns the car, and he won’t stop contacting this guy until he gets [it].”
—Anonymous
Long Visual Press / Long Visual Press/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
19.“Flying to different countries to watch a concert or to eat the local food there because it’s more ‘authentic.'”
“I went to an international high school in Asia that I was only able to go to because my mother’s company paid for it, but my mother wasn’t some high-level executive, she was a specialist in her field.
Most the students [who] went to that school were the kids of CEOs of multi-national companies, or even the children or grandchildren of sheiks. Their parents wouldn’t let them use a private jet or anything, but they all still flew first-class, and so did their bodyguards.”
—Anonymous
FanPro / Getty Images
20.“My first college roommate cried when Obama was elected because her ‘family would get taxed and she would become poor like me.'”
21.“This was 12 years ago. I am a professional psychic — back then, it wasn’t so fashionable — and I told a movie star client to take a role she didn’t want to, in a script she didn’t like. Well, it became a huge hit… So, she flew me and a few of her friends to a gorgeous beach house in the Mayan Riviera.”
“There was a full time, 24-hour staff, including two bartenders and two cooks, so all I had to do was raise a hand and a margarita would magically appear…[there was] swimming and snorkeling in the private beach…and every meal better than the last. A couple of nights, mariachi bands would serenade us as we dined and danced.
Later, [the actress and I] fell out when an indiscreet magazine writer mentioned her being my client in a profile of me, even though I denied it. Discretion is essential to my livelihood.
Even though we don’t speak anymore, I will always be grateful for a magical week of living like a one-percenter! Man, do I miss having staff. I’ve tried to get my pet parakeets to bring me a margarita, but it’s just not the same.”
—Anonymous
Sony Pictures Releasing / Via media.giphy.com
22.“Real rich people have paintings of themselves in the house in addition to photographs. And not the modern types of paintings where a computer sorts out a photo and applies an acrylic filter to it. No, they have portraits that they sat for [where] a real artist applied paint to canvas.”
“I’ll never forget the first time I saw the painted portrait of a classmate when I was at his giant house. It threw me for a loop because I couldn’t believe I was looking at painting of someone I knew who was still alive.”
—Anonymous
Pop TV
23.“Airplanes. Rich people fly their own airplanes [and] can afford to spend time and money getting a pilot’s license.”
“There’s a thing amongst private pilots called the ‘$200 Burger’ whereby a pilot will fly his plane somewhere just to get lunch. So the cost of the fuel and other expenses just to fly somewhere to go to a restaurant equals [a] $200 burger.”
—Anonymous
Aaronp / GC Images
24.“After my beautiful mother passed recently, I did some [research into my] family history and found out she had come from a MUCH posher background than I’d ever dreamed. My grandfather, her dad, blew through the equivalent of $20 million in his lifetime in wine, women, and song. But mostly wine and women.”
“Looking back, there were some hints I should have paid more attention to: like the fact that the living room in my grandparents’ house was [paneled with] gold leaf, or that dinner there was cooked and served by three live-in maids while a butler handed round drinks.
I realize 1710245370 that my mother’s insistence that, by the age of 5, a young lady should be taking horseback riding lessons, start to be fluent in French, and take ballet might have been a clue as well. But the thing that I remember best is my grandmother’s ‘lessons in deportment’ starting when I was 13. I had to learn to walk gracefully with books on my head as a learning aid, how to do the ‘debutante walk,’ how to wear couture gowns, and how to drink a martini gracefully and smoke a cigarette in a holder. (This was in the early ’80s…and yep, I was 13!) I never did become a debutante — I ran off and became a rock singer — but it’s a way of life that’s vanished.
I wish I’d asked more questions. I wish I’d taken notes. And I wish I knew what the hell my grandfather did with all that money.”
—Anonymous
Walt Disney Pictures / Via giphy.com
Well, these were wild, and made me very grateful I had a normal childhood. If you’ve ever witnessed some unbelievable things the rich people you know have done (or if you are a wild rich person yourself), tell me about it down in the comments. Or, if you want, you can share via this anonymous Google form. Your story may be featured in an upcoming BuzzFeed Community post!
Note: Some submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
