The lives of affluent people are undoubtedly different from those of others. A lot of the things that are daily concerns for other mere mortals, like utilities and a 9-5 job, are probably foreign concepts to the rich. Naturally, their social status and financial position can also affect their behavior. Even here on Bored Panda, we have lots of ‘rich people’ stories that people have shared.
Yet this Redditor wanted to hear some more. So he asked fellow netizens, “What is the most rich thing you’ve seen wealthy people say/do casually?” From invitations to spontaneous trips to Dubai to living in French chateaus, the people of r/AskReddit delivered.
Bored Panda got in touch with the Redditor who posted this thread. u/CoolCoast7853 was kind enough to answer some questions for us. Read our conversation with the Redditor below!
Well, this may not be a “rich thing”, I don’t know, maybe an unexpected rich thing, but it was memorable. One year about 15 years ago, I was taking some vacation days right before Christmas. I took my AR-15 down to the Scottsdale Gun Club shooting range, which is a pretty public range that also rents guns. So I’m in my lane with my AR and a few handguns, shooting away. Next lane to me I notice two elderly guys, one in a suit, one dressed more casually. They’re shooting a pistol, like a .38 or 9mm. I can’t help noticing the guy in the suit looks familiar. 10 minutes later, I realize who it is, it’s the self-made billionaire founder and owner of Discount Tire company. I know him because my wife worked there and I’d seen him at their annual company Christmas parties. Super nice guy, first name is Bruce. Basically the richest person in Arizona. So when I next have a chance, I get his attention, and he’s all smiles because he’s a nice guy, super friendly, shakes my hand, etc. Like an idiot I’m trying to talk to him and tell him my wife works there, etc, which is silly because we’re in an active shooting range with hearing protection on and he’s like 80. Anyways, I notice as he’s addressing me, he keeps kind of peeking around me, into my lane. I notice he’s eyeing my AR, which is picatinny’d out, has a bipod, and looks bada*s. Noticing this, I step aside and gesture to him if he’d like to hold it. I give him a quick runthrough of the magazine operation, trigger, charging handle, and safety. He’s watching and grinning. Then I hand it to him, and hand him a mag and show him how to load it. By now the other guy he was with has stopped shooting and is now watching us. Mr. Billionaire steps into my lane, squeezes off about 10 rounds at the paper target, his smile increasing with each one. Then he turns, puts down the rifle and turns to me with a huge smile, clasps my shoulder and gives me a vigorous handshake. I give him a quick salute and he goes back to his friend, they zip up their gun and head out of the range area back into the main showroom. So I finish my session, I’m there for maybe 20 more minutes, then I pack up and get ready to leave. As I leave the range area and exit back into the main showroom, I find that the other guy is now there waiting for me. He shakes my hand and starts thanking me profusely, saying “Mr. Halle really enjoyed that.” (Mr. Halle is what everyone called him.). He pulls out a small notebook and asks me for my name, my wife’s name. So I say, “sure” and give him that info. I then stop to ask him what happened, what was he doing there? What was that all about? He tells me that this is an annual tradition for Mr. Halle. His wife hates guns, and won’t let him own one, but once a year, he’s allowed to go down to the range and rent a pistol, and fire it, and this was that time. (meanwhile this dude could afford to buy the building we’re in 100 times over.) He thanks me and tells me again how much it meant to him, I say, OK, cool, and then we part company. I go home and that evening tell my wife the story, she’s like, “That’s cool.” but doesn’t think too much of it. A few weeks go by, and one day she’s at work, and her phone rings, it’s Billionaire’s assistant. “Are you at your desk? Mr. Halle is on his way down.” She’s frozen with panic and like “WTF?” There’s like 2,000 people at that office and why is he coming to see her? So 2 minutes later, he shows up, and he’s got a big box of stuff with him. He starts by greeting her and begins telling her the story about me and the shooting range. After she stops panicking, and relaxes, he comes into her cubicle and, pulls up a chair and starts chatting her up about the photos of our kids, starts asking about me, photos from vacations, cruises, etc. and various other stuff. He tells her again how glad he was he ran into me. The box he brought is full of gifts for our kids, toy cars, books, stuffed animals, and other tire-related stuff. Nothing real fancy, just some thoughtful gifts. He clearly had done research because he knew we had 2 boys and he knew where to find her cubicle, so he’d checked it out before he approached her. And that’s my story. I guess it goes to show money can’t buy everything and sometimes even billionaires could use a little kindness, and appreciate it.
The inquisitive Redditor who posted this question on r/AskReddit says that the inspiration for this thread came from wanting to be aware of their own privilege. “I come from a well-off family, and I realized there are several parts of my life I find normal that others don’t,” the Redditor tells Bored Panda.
“I wanted to break out of the bubble of my rich crowd of people and at least be a little self-aware of the struggles people go through, especially since I’m going abroad for college soon and will be interacting with people from contrasting backgrounds.”
“Of course, there are instances where some of my friends’ experiences are surprising to me too; my parents are not billionaires, but there are people in my system [whose] parents are,” u/CoolCoast7853 admits.
So I work part time at a strip club and we have some very rich clientele. Some of them come in all the time and we get to know a lot about them, they get to know a lot about us. Well, one of our security guys died of a sudden massive heart attack. One of the rich clientele just called the funeral home and paid for everything.
Like there was no second thought. We were all taking up a collection to help a bit and he just dropped the whole bill just like that! I mean I see a lot of really rich behavior… But that one was just so mind-blowing. .
Was at a bar with the multi-billionaire ceo of the company I worked for. He made fun of Oprah for only having one jet, then went on to tell me to never buy helicopters because they are built by the lowest bidder – planes are the better choice.
Bob, my car didn’t even have air conditioning…
When we call someone “rich,” do we usually mean it in monetary terms? Because a person’s social standing can also manifest itself in displays of privilege or entitlement. We were curious to know how u/CoolCoast7853 contextualizes the term “rich.” The Redditor says that not all rich people flaunt their wealth.
“There are plenty of rich people [who] don’t have outwardly displays of wealth. That does not change their net worth, but it does display an extent of self-awareness towards the rest of society. I wanted to know about privileges that the wealthy believed [were] expected and standard but aren’t for the better half of the population,” the Redditor clarifies.
It was from an 8-year old! My very wealthy friend got remarried and her son said he wouldn’t mind staying with me while they went on their honeymoon. As we took our seats on the plane, he looked so confused. He sheepishly asked, “Who are *all these people* on your plane?”. Oh, my little dude…
As a person from a “well-off family,” u/CoolCoast7853 has a bit of a different perception of what “being rich” means. “I suppose I’ve spent more time than not around ‘rich people,’ but not adults as much as teenagers. At our age, you don’t invest in monetary assets or plan out huge expenditures, so I hadn’t experienced drastic displays of wealth, but from wealthy adults my parents know of, most seemed quite humble.”
“It is possible that this was just because of the crowd my parents chose to hang out with, however. My parents and their friends spend money, but they don’t waste it. I suppose a lot of the responses involved unnecessary expenditures that could have been put to better use,” the Redditor observes.
I worked in a sporting goods store in my early 20’s and got absolutely screamed at by an old man for not knowing who he was when I asked him for ID.
Apparently he owned like half the town and others at the store would kiss his a*s. At $9 an hour I wasn’t paid enough to kiss his a*s even if I cared who he was.
I wasn’t from there and had only seen him come in a few times to buy random s**t. But either way, the federal f*****g government requires you produce ID to purchase a firearm and I was doing my job.
It’s been over 20 years and my husband, who has heard the story, will randomly look at me and bust out “you seriously don’t know who I am?!”.
Friendships can be harder when one friend makes less than the other. Remember that scene from Friends during Ross’ birthday dinner? Telling your friend that you don’t feel comfortable or simply can’t afford a fancy restaurant can be awkward and, in some cases, even humiliating. Friendship coach Danielle Bayard Jackson told HuffPost that this is a common problem she sees with her clients.
My soon-to-be mother in-law asked me and my fiance, her son, if we knew that some people don’t have reliable transportation to get to college, which causes them to miss class and/or show up late. Apparently, her most recent appointment as the chair of a teacher education program at a university has been very eye opening for her.
I know an almost billionaire who is very very sweet. He kept his oceanfront condo for his mother in law to stay at for like month a year, and went to it every day to feed the stray cats who lived around it. The place is paid off mind you but has high fees, a paid parking spot, utilities ect cost almost 20 grand a year.
Friend’s wealthy parents were going to give me a set of furniture for free—until I wound up moving cross country; couldn’t accept it.
Before I was to take it, I asked for the manufacturer so I could take measurements for my house, to make it all fit.
They responded, “oh, we’re not sure, it’s pretty old.” Here I thought it was maybe from the 70’s.
Yes, it was from the 70s. The f****n 1870s, from France, and it was all handmade Louis XV pieces.
When I showed my home decor-obsessed mother, she appraised it all. Some were north of $5000, just for a small hallway desk.
We’re both upset about it to this day. .
They usually don’t come to her with this particular problem, but it does come up quite often. “It’s really important to feel connected as friends, and one basic way we do that is to share experiences. But a lot of social activities we engage in are highly dependent on the funds that you have available,” she told HuffPost. “We might share common interests, but our access to those are different.”
I watched a guy walk into a car dealership and buy a suburban. He literally walks in, goes up to a sales guy, points to the one in the lobby, and goes “I’ll buy it, I don’t want to haggle or any high pressure b******t. I’ll pay sticker and I need to be done in 10 minutes.”
He was driving it out of there 10 minutes later. I asked the other sales guy “who the f**k is that?”
He goes “He owns a bunch of fast food places, pizza huts and KFCs and stuff I think. He comes in every few months.”
“What does he do with the cars?” I asked.
“Sometimes trades even in, sometimes signs them over to friends or family members. He gave our secretary his old corvette. Said it was about to die anyway. Only had like 50k miles on it. She still has it, been three years.”.
There is a large liquor store near me, they have VERY expensive bottles in the back room.
One Xmas I was standing in line. The man in front of me, had one case of wine, 12 bottles of various variety.
The checker said….. OK that will be $27,455.
WtF??! Guy hands over his Credit card.
Followed him out, Drove away in a Bentley.
Author of Change Your Habits, Change Your Life, Thomas C. Corley, found in his research that wealthy people tend to make friends differently. The self-made millionaires he interviewed said they consciously choose to make friends with those they aspire to be like: successful and rich people.
But, as evidenced by this thread, money doesn’t always matter in friendships. People can be friends regardless of their financial situation. Yet talking about it is almost always too awkward.
That’s because it isn’t just about the money itself, Professor Mark Fenton-O’Creevy, a professor of organizational behavior at the Open University, told The Guardian. According to him, people who have money also have security, freedom, power, and status.
I used to work at a jeweler and the stories are endless. Clients would talk about how they just got back from a months long trip on a yacht or some exotic island. I’m just like cool I put in 60+ hours this week and have worked every day of the week lol. The s**t that I wouldn’t get at all is the watch guys. I had a client come in one time and ask for the cheapest watch we had, so he didn’t have to worry about it on his trip. He ended up going with a $800 watch (not the cheapest) and while I was checking him out, he said he was going to throw it away after the trip. I tried talking him out of it and just said return it afterwards , but then he seemed insulted. Other watch guys would pay $1k every year just to get a little scratch on their Rolex that only they notice buffed out. Id explain to them that they’re shaving precious metal off every time and ruining the integrity of the watch, but they dgaf because their egos are so massive. We’d hold private events and encourage clients to bring their friends and itd always turn into a d**k swinging contest of who can spend more. Absolutely wild environment and I was absolutely burnt out after 2 years. Most money I ever made, but most miserable I’ve ever been.
When being surprised that airlines will allow a larger-looking backpack in the overhead, he said “Oh, it’s been so long since I’ve flown commercially, I had no idea.”
He said it in such a shy manner like he was embarrassed to say he flies privately. This is a 75 year old that looks like he’s a regular middle class Joe and gives off no hint that he’s extremely wealthy.
My dad knows a billionaire who had a french chateau disassembled and reassembled in the US. He acted like it was just a normal as building a house. My dads been there a few time and said it’s an insane property with a huge man made lake and huge sprawling lawns. .
Otegha Uwagba, the author of We Need To Talk About Money, told The Cut that it’s best that friends put their feelings out in the open. She advises to just suck it up and have that awkward conversation. Uwagba even suggests a possible script: “We are not in the same financial position and I don’t want our friendship to be based around what we can do with each other that involves spending money.”
Most of my clients are multi-millionaires, and most of them do *everything* casually.
Especially housing. They have zero concern of what stuff costs, and will approve nearly anything. I once set the alarm off at a clients ski house, and I called them to tell them its just me, i’d never talked to this particular client before andI told them to ignore it. They didn’t even ask me to verify who I was and at the time I had no reason to think it wasn’t *just* their second home. They were very appreciative of the phone call but said “which house was it?” which caught me off guard and I said “oh at the ski resort” they said “yeah, but which one?” i died inside. It was a 8-ish million dollar home and in the whole 2 years i’d worked for them at that point, they’d never even been here. I later learn their family has expensive homes at nearly every popular ski resort in north america.
Another example is im currently doing a remodel. It is the THIRD full remodel in 10 years at this multi million dollar house/condo. They remodel the house everytime a new kid is born in the family. This is a half million dollar remodel to undue exactly what we did 4 years a go, which was 300k ish remodel. Other clients i’ve seen replace their full kitchen appliances every 3-5 years. They have to have the absolutely brand new stuff. They’re also super crazy and don’t want the stuff sold, they’re worried about the “PR” so i have to provide proof 30k in appliances were in fact scraped at the landfill.
Our world is broken.
**tbf** about 20% of them are really nice people, introduce themselves, even cook for me. They give great bonuses and are generally good humans, they’re happy to have someone they can trust, and they do trust, they let my friends stay at their million dollar Nth homes for free, but these people are almost exclusively the rare rich that are rich through labor. People who spent 40-50 years in law or medicine. Contractors who got lucky. The occasional crypt “bro” who was blue collar, gambled life savings and won. The ones that are cliche rich, the born intos, the fortune 500s. They’re a******s, and have called me “the help” more than once.
I had a friend of mine casually ask if I wanted to go to Dubai for a week to do some skydiving training in a couple of weeks. My response was “no, I have to work for a living”. Blew my mind when they asked me like it was no biggie to duck out for a week and blow $15k.
My millionaire aunt scoffing at the idea that my single mother taking care of me and my younger brother couldn’t find a place to live because $3,000/month is “easily affordable.”
Edit: $3,000/month being the average rent in the area.
I photograph luxury homes and architecture for a living. There’s a neighborhood I do a lot of work in called Silverleaf and it’s probably the most exclusive neighborhood in the valley. The bottom part of the neighborhood is your typical wealthy people’s homes. Doctors, lawyers, business owners, etc.. extremely nice houses but still attainable for anyone who wants to put in the effort to work those types of careers.
As you drive towards the back of the neighborhood you start heading up a mountain that’s divided into two parts. Upper Canyon and The Summit. There are probably 100 houses up there. The houses start close to 15 million, but several are over 20-30. One of the builders I work with is developing a house he’s asking about 60 million for.
I work Upper Canyon every month or two and even though all of the houses are owned, half or less are lived in. For some, it’s a vacation home they might visit for a few weeks or months of the year, and for others, it’s an investment and a place to park their money.
I photographed a 15-million-dollar house there a few years ago. The owner was selling it because he bought a 29 million dollar house literally 2 or 3 lots up because he liked the views more. He’s a Canadian business owner and spends maybe a few months of the year in the valley if that.
I’m used to it now but for a long time I couldn’t wrap my head around how much money some people have…..
Contactor here. lady did not like the shape of the pool at the new house.Gets the job to change the shape. Does the job. So I tell her we can guarantee the workmanship for 5 years, but not any longer. She says cool, we are only here for 3.
Had one of the outside salesmen drop in and we were talking about clothes for some reason. He said he donates his clothes to charity every year so he doesn’t buy the “very expensive shirts”… his shirts are $300 each. Then he tells me he does buy “decent” shoes though. He showed me a company online where most of the shoes cost more than my car. How do we work for the same company and live that differently?
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