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30 Hobbies Clearly Showing People Doing Them Are Insanely Rich, As Shared In This Online Community
There is a famous proverb "Tell me who your friends are, and I will tell you who you are," as well as its derivatives - for example: "Tell me who your quarterback is, and I will tell you what team you have" or "Tell me about your hobbies and I'll tell you how much money you have." Yes, people very often tend to believe that a person's wealth largely determines the activities they're into.
Of course, this is not always true - for example, history knows millionaires who loved, for example, embroidering or crocheting. But very often there are hobbies that really require a lot of money just to start doing them. And this recent viral thread is dedicated to just such activities.
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My neighbor is a yachtsman who makes a middle class living racing rich people's yachts. So, I would say hiring people to indulge your hobbies is about as 1 percent as one can get.
"My hobby is collecting Rolex watches."
Oh, sweet. What do those go for nowadays? 20k?
"My last Rolex watch was worth 400 thousand."
Oh, sweet. Your useless timepiece that you never wear could buy me a house and I'd be set for life.
"I have 51 of them, I think. Maybe more."
... and you wouldn't even miss one.
I need these people to leave addresses, size of dogs, and security system specs.
Buying social media companies and burning them to the ground.
does being in your 50's and trying to be "down with the kids" count? and naming your child a maths equation?
If we make a brief overview of the hobbies of people from the Forbes top, then it will mainly be one of the activities listed in this selection. For example, Donald Trump is fond of golf, Elon Musk collects things and props from the filming of James Bond movies (did 007 really tweet something in one of the recent films?), and Larry Ellison is seriously interested in yachting - for example, the yachts he owned twice won the most prestigious trophy in the world - the America's Cup.
However, there are no rules without exceptions. For example, Warren Buffett, who has repeatedly headed the list of the richest people on this planet, simply loves playing the ukulele. Moreover, the great investor has repeatedly played in front of an audience, live and even during various interviews. Not a very expensive hobby for a man whose net worth was recently estimated at $106B, according to Bloomberg data, isn't it?
A friend of ours got a wildly expensive cappuccino machine from his wife for Christmas. She didn’t think there was room for it in their huge gourmet kitchen, so they had a whole coffee station with cabinets and drawers and a built in mini fridge and marble countertops installed in the adjoining breakfast area.
This was all because they “got tired of driving to Starbucks twice a day”.
Oh, and they sent us home with an XBox One the other night because they just bought whatever the new one is (X?) and “had no use” for it.
Lol, nicest people, just wildly wealthy.
Top 5 that scream "rich person"
1. all things equestrian
2. collecting rare, first edition, and out of print literary works
3. collecting "fine art" (from galleries, not flea markets)
4. being a connoisseur of liquor such as elite vodka brands
5. glamping in your Airstream
Top 5 that scream "I want to pretend I'm rich, but definitely am not"
1. collecting Disney memorabilia
2. Going on "luxury cruises"
3. having a collection of designer clothes, bags, and accessories purchased entirely at outlet stores
4. belonging to a wine of the month club
5. collecting Airstream branded shirts and hats, although you do not actually own an Airstream
Top 5 "not rich and don't care what anybody else thinks of my hobby"
1. playing bingo
2. collecting hubcaps
3. maintaining a collection of squirrel feeders
4. turning old beer bottles into vases and planters that you give as holiday gifts
5. tent camping in your own backyard
"Poor and don't care". 1. Sitting in your plastic lawn chair, drinking a beer while an episode of Cops is filmed across the street from your Mobile Home.
We had a meet and greet with a new executive at my company and she told us one of her hobbies is "investing in real estate."
Of course, there are types of hobbies so expensive that just one opportunity to touch them costs more than you and I will earn in our entire lives, even combined. For example, space tourism. Dennis Tito, who is considered the founder of this very activity, paid $20 million for a seven-day flight in 2001. Thus, each orbit around the Earth cost the first space tourist $150K.
But, for example, Japanese billionaire and philanthropist Yusaku Maezawa reportedly paid $73 million for his flight in 2021. However, this hobby is very contagious - both Tito (who is now at an advanced age) and Miyazawa are planning with might and main to pay for the upcoming commercial flight to the Moon!
Tax evasion
Apparently, you can be too poor or too rich to pay taxes, so su*k it middle class.
Dressage. You won’t know what this is. Because you aren’t even rich enough to know that it exists. Let alone have it as a hobby.
Summering. Only rich people will ask another person where they “summer”.
So my partners family have a "summer" house in the Adirondacks. While historically their family was wealthy (great great grandfather ran for governor of NY), they themselves were just teachers and farmers. Having a summer place doesn't inherently mean you have money, just means somewhere down the line one of your relatives was rich enough to buy the property when it was cheap and kept passing it down. Both my partners parents are super frugal and now retired, but spend a lot of time and effort keeping up the place so they can eventually pass it down to my partner and his sister.
On the other hand, can a hobby be considered expensive if it takes up most of your income to engage in it, although the absolute figures for its cost do not look astronomical? For example, among the hobbies listed in our selection, there is aquarism. "I absolutely agree that aquarism, although it does not look like a hobby for the rich, still takes a lot of money from a person with an average income," says Konstantin Ilyin, an aquarist from Ukraine, with whom Bored Panda got in touch for an interview. "I have several dozen aquariums at home, from small to very large, and keeping all these fish, caring for them, and buying food sometimes take up to three-quarters of my income."
"And this is not counting the purchase of various books about fish, and other expenses that may arise quite by accident, but be significant for the family budget. However, I have not regretted for a minute that I am fond of aquarism, because any hobby is about being a tad bit insane," Konstantin admits.
I went to my aunties 70th birthday. She's a hobbyist pilot and longtime member of an aviation club.
My partner and I were talking to one of the guys there and he asked "Did you guys ever get in to flying?" To which we obviously replied with "... No." He seemed genuinely surprised and then asked "Oh... did your parents just not let you?"
The obscene cost of flying/owning/renting planes never even entered his mind. The *only* reason he could see for not flying planes as a child was a lack of interest.
Pretty f*****g mind blowing tbh.
I got into flying when I was a kid! I jumped off various heights with a plastic bag or an umbrella to see if I could lol
Fighting the crime with high tech equipment developed by your R&D team as a way to avenge the murder of your parents.
In Germany we have a saying: if you play golf, you’re too poor for horses. you buy horses if you are to poor for sailing. If you are sailing youre propably too poor for jets and motoryachts.
Historic Motorsports is also a good indicator for wealth (especially F1)
Sailing as a participation activity is actually very affordable. My local sailing lake has a membership of £80 a year, and you can sail the club boats almost every weekend , and week evenings through summer. Some members have proper boats, but here’s the thing - they’re always after crew, and most skippers will have you aboard for free, some even provide meals. Owning a boat is a different matter. They say that yacht owners have 2 good days - they day they buy it and the day they sell it. Ownership can be likened to tearing up £20 notes whilst standing in a cold shower.
And, of course, collecting is often mentioned among the hobbies for rich people - after all, the rarer an item of any collection is, the more it costs. However, very often, people have really weird things at home that even the owners themselves prefer to remain silent about because they are so controversial - as, for example, in this recent selection of ours. And of course, we're already looking forward to your own comments on the activities only the richest people can actually afford.
Sailing
Collecting art, watches, cars
Traveling. I know you can travel on the cheap but even doing it cheaply multiple times a year is a luxury of the rich for the most part. Not only the cost of the trip but having the financial freedom to not work so you CAN travel.
I recently went to Loon Mtn. in New Hampshire (which is pretty average skiing), and for a family of 4, our tickets cost $475 a day. That's almost $1,000 just in ticket cost for the weekend. On top of that, we spent a couple hundred on food. Luckily we were staying with someone, otherwise we would have to pay another almost $1,000 for lodging. We're upper middle class, and we could barely afford it. I don't understand how the mountain (and lift lines) were so crowded. Who can afford this more than once a year, if that?!
a lot of places have really cheap season pass sales where if you go like twice it's paid for. it's the tourists who are the money-makers for a lot of ski resorts
Polo
“The fastest way to become a millionaire is to become a billionaire and go racing”
Bartender here. Two very cute girls from outta town sat at my bar. Equally cute guy walks in. Immediately buys them drinks. His opener was "so how often do you gals boat" . They were from f*****g Philly lol. When he said that I couldn't not smirk at it. He also tipped me like 130 dollars for 3 Jameson cokes.
Going to space.
I don't mind rich t*atwaffles going into space. It's the fact they keep coming back that annoys me
Something that probably isn't the first to people's minds, but: aquariums.
Good God are aquariums all about up-front investments in time, money and space, and that *still* doesn't 100% safeguard things from going catastrophic, to which then the typical solution is an even more absurd dedication of time, money and space to remedy said problem.
They're gorgeous and can absolutely be a source of serenity for a room, but honestly that serenity is only going to be felt by those who didn't have to put the work, planning and money into it.
I'd honestly say keeping a "standard" 20 gallon fishtank would be comparable to keeping a small parrot, at least in terms of effort and knowledge required, and the needs go up exponentially from there.
I keep a 125g with Oscar and Jack Dempsey combos with a 24-inch sucker fish, a 55g with a tank full of glo fish. Also, I breed a pair of red devil. I'm by no means rich, but good god, he isn't lying. They all run me 200 a week, with water, power, filters, feeder fish, chemicals, and foods. I love my fish like a regular pet, but in hindsight, I'd probably do it again.
I work for Porsche. Many clients have racetrack memberships where they garage their cars and have track days. $80-90k initiation fee, $10k annual fee for some memberships.
I have a Toyota that's parked inside, and I also have a Garage door opener so I'm good.
Going on vacations to different countries and then just lounging around the hotel and pool aka doing the stuff you could at home.
It's cheaper for us to go out of country. We live in Ireland and it is expensive!! We can stay in a luxury hotel/apartment somewhere in the EU for a week for the same that it would cost us to stay somewhere fairly mediocre here. Going to the south of France in May. Staying in a 5* house with indoor pool, right on the sea. 4 bedrooms. It's costing us €1,200 for the house for a week and €500 for the flights for 5 of us! We booked early and got a great deal on the flights. Same week and the cheapest nice hotel I can find in Ireland is €250 a night... for 1 room.
with any outdoors sports like skiing, rockclimbing, etc... people either seem to be rich AF, or broke AF
Rock climbing doesn’t cost much money when you do it outdoors. I used to rock climb a lot when I was in my late teens.
Himalayan mountaineering
50K for a permit, then you pay an expedition company and Sherpas to drag your a** to the top, just to say “Look I climbed Everest!”
Depending on where they live and how often they do it, skiing/snowboarding
Lots of folks saying golf, but I haven’t seen anybody mention cycling. Sport cycling, not utility cycling to the corner store for a gallon of milk. Mid-level road bikes are now $5000 usd. And it’s pretty common to spend low five-figures on a complete setup.
At least in the Unites States, the average household income of cyclists is quite a bit higher than golfers.
Fun thing about that is if you're clever you can get that stuff cheap if you purchase it from those rich people who tried it and decided it's not for them.
Going to Africa to hunt big game.
F**k those people. If you're hunting for your supply of meat for the next several months then your source if meat is more humane than most of us. If you hunt just so you can say you bagged a lion, elephant, etc and hang a head on your wall, then you're a piece of s**t!
In Sweden it's:
Tennis.
Even tho tennis isn't super expensive, that's where all the millionaires/their kids are.
I haven’t seen it on the top comments but lacrosse seems like a rich people hobby-
Fencing, and by that I mean dueling with foils, not putting up a barrier between your yard and the neighbor's.
Creating a secret cave filled with high tech equipment.
Note: this post originally had 43 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
