We can't tell folks how to spend their money. But we can definitely have an opinion on it. Especially when they're flaunting their extravagant purchases for all to see.
So after our team at Bored Panda came across a couple of Reddit threads (one and two) where platform users have been describing the worst "rich people problems" they've witnessed, we decided that you, dear pandas, would be interested to read about them as well.
At a time when 78% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, these stories serve as a stark reminder of the vast disparities in our society.
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During college I worked at a place selling very high end patio furniture in the richest DC suburb. One day a Washington Redskin comes in and buys a custom patio furniture set for his deck and pool area, total cost for 10 pieces was over $24,000. He paid cash and I set up delivery for 6 weeks later because the furniture had to be made at the manufacturer. Three weeks later he was cut by the team. I called when the order came in and he said "oh, I'm in the Caribbean now, think I'm selling that hous3, think I'm going to retire...you like the furniture?" Me: "yeah". Him, "you can have it, thanks for being a fan". 14 years later and I still have that furniture and the fanciest patio setup in my middle class neighborhood!
That is a lovely story though, nothing like the entitled cr*p in some of the other stories featured here!
I went to a birthday party in 3rd grade. Every girl in the 3rd grade was invited. So 80 girls were picked up in limos, taken to build a bear where we could choose any bear, then we all got manicures and pedicures, we went to Red Robin for dinner, and limoed back to her mansion for a sleepover.
I will never attend a party that fancy ever again.
Quirky one:
I have a regular day job, but I also teach English as a Second Language to Gulf nationals, in particular Saudi families. I receive a lot of gifts, but one boy I tutored came from a family who owns some of the most expensive racing camels in the Gulf. The father buys and sells these animals that are over six figures. When the son graduated, the father allowed me to choose a camel that would be mine, and designated as not for sale. I have a racing camel in Saudi Arabia that lives probably in better conditions than I do.
My boss once had me drive him to an exotic car dealership to pick up his new Bentley... 3 days after my paycheck had bounced.
I work for a wealthy man and he once had me fly on a private jet to the other side of the country to pick up 6 perfect heirloom strawberries that cost 100$ per six pack. They were placed in Chinese silk hand molded box so each strawberry wouldn't be jostled during the trip.
He ate 3 gave me the rest for my trouble... Not gunna lie. It was the most amazing strawberry experience I have ever had. They probably cost him 25k all said and done between flights and my wage.
Edit: here are some of the answers to all of your questions.
How did i get the job? It just sort of happened. Was teaching the kids ski lessons, started working as a nanny, transitioned into personal assistant role. Given title Director of Fun by family.
Do I make enough money? I only work 4 months a year and travel 8 months.... so yes.
Was the family nice? super awesome family, really nice, slightly out of touch with reality.
What did the strawberry taste like? My lips parted as I slowly brought the impossibly red berry to my mouth. It's scent was too powerful for something that small and the aroma filled my head until nothing else remained. Gingerly placing my teeth on the seed covered tip I took the smallest of bites. The explosion of flavor was overpowering and each time my teeth broke the flesh of that perfect berry an impossible amount of juice gushed out. As I sat there slack jawed with juice crippling down my chin my employer looked at me in disgust and said "you can go home now" (hahah the last sentence is a complete lie but honestly the strawberry was incredible)
Edit2: obligatory thanks for the gold!! However if you could fly it to me on a private jet with some strawberries that is my preferred way of getting karma.
I watched a video on YouTube where a guy went to Japan to a strawberry farmer and he had the most costly strawberries in the world. Iirc it was approx 12000 usd (twelve thousand) for 4 or 6. The visitor bought one and you could tell it was a strawberry from another reality, how amazingly delicious it was. The farmer had strawberries of all costs, btw, so any person could afford them. Strawberries don't natively grow in Japan so it takes special soil, greenhouse and tons of attention.
In high school, my friends parents paid me $50 to hang out with their dogs in the basement for two hours while they had a party on the main floor. I got to hang out with dogs, play video games and they brought me down some of the catered food. I would have done it for free.
Where was the friend? At the party? Because then it seems bit odd somehow.
I used to be an Optician in a very high end Optical shop. I had a customer spend $15k on glasses in 1 hour. He was wearing overalls covered in paint and dirt, no one else wanted to help him. I approached and began to help him when he decided he wanted to look at Cartier glasses. The Cartier case is ALWAYS locked and the key is in the owners office. So I politely excused myself and on my way to retrieve the key, my co-workers where warning me to be careful, he just wants to steel the eyewear. My co workers where all dumbfounded when I walked to the back to ring up his order on the credit card machine, as I asked "how do I ring up $14,995"?!?Managers mouth dropped to the floor. Turns out customer is Andre Rieu. Best commission check ever. And I still hold the company record for highest sale, so I'm told.
Waiting tables in the mid 90's and a guy came in just before shift change wearing dirty overalls, ratty farm hat, torn up t-shirt. The guy taking over for me wasn't on the clock yet and refused to clock in 2 minutes early so I could head out. I took the guy's order (steak & a beer), got him 1 refill, and he left me a $100 to cover his $20 tab. Not in the same paygrade, but the same lesson nonetheless.
I had an obscenely wealthy kid in my graduating class. His parents bought him a brand new Range Rover on his 16th birthday and he crashed it into a school bus. They got him a new one and he crashed it road racing. They got him a new one and he got a DUI and finally the police took away his license (thank the lord).
‘Rich parents’ doesn’t always mean ‘totally out of touch, horribly irresponsible parents’, but in this case…
Family I know bought the $3 million house next door so they could knock it down for a tennis court
One of my students gets dropped off to school in a helicopter.
One of my dad's friends from high school is unbelievably rich and a collector. He owns a legitimate Stradivarius. Eventually, he decided he wanted to learn how to actually play it, so he signed up for lessons and brought a f*****g Stradivarius with him down to the local music shop to meet his instructor and have his first lesson.
I can only imagine the look on his instructor's face...
A woman on a Delta flight in first class, loudly complaining to her seat mate that she had to 'fly commercial' because her family's private jet was being repaired
I went to Chipotle with a friend and they willingly paid for us both to get guacamole.
My rich friend has had to respray his car multiple times because a peacock on his land keeps seeing his reflection in it and attacking it like crazy
I met the CEO of the company I work for and I complimented his watch. The first thing he did is take it off a day let me wear it. Come to find out after doing a little research, the watch he was wearing is a Patek Phillipe that cost 1.75 million. That watch alone cost more than every asset in my family for the past 4 generations.
Back when the recession hit, one of my very best friend's family was very distraught, because they had to sell one of their three private jets.
Guy from my town bought a helicopter. He had fallen out with his neighbour so decided to call his pilot at 4am and hover over his neighbours house all night to annoy him.
I think you need permission to fly, every single time you want to fly, in my country.
They bought a new yacht because the wife didn't like the beds.
Ah, the quintessеntial extravagancе of the elite! It seems even the most luxurious yacht is subject to the discriminating tastе of a discontented spouse. One can't help but chuckle at the thought of sailing away from discomfort in such style. Truly, a tеstament to the boundless whimsy of the wеalthy.
We owned a karaoke service in Las Vegas. Got a call one day at 730pm from a party planner we often worked with.
They wanted us to be at the Venetian in 1.5 hours for a 4 hour event. "Price is not an issue"
We gave them a decent last minute deal ($2000).
Turns out this was for a private gambling club. They had a special room with the big table games set up.
Minimum buy in just to attend was $500,000 actual cash on hand and another $500,000 line of credit.
Minimum bet was $5000 with no max. Most bets were $20k or more (a stack of 20 $1000 chips.
I forgot to mention, there was also a $1,000,000 membership fee (one time, lifetime) to get invited to these kinds of events.
The smallest chip in the room was $100, and that's what they used for tipping.
I made over $3000 in tips that night, plus my pay of $2000. In 4 hours.
Rumor was that one guy lost $3.5 million. In 4 hours.
And this is the absurd: to you that $5000 will be a big help and a tragedy to lose, for him that $3.500.000 are just the cost of a bad evening
My last job before college was dealing with what they call the 1% now. We had a call from a customer who had spent a five-figure sum for items for her house, and realized the house she had it sent to was not the house she wanted to decorate with them. After being informed the order was already in transit she just reordered everything and had it rush delivered to the house she wanted it for. She was totally cool with it.
I always picture the basement of her one house having the duplicates sitting there, worth far more than what I made at that job in a year.
I was helping an owner rent his apartment, which is an investment property. It's a 2,500 sq ft condo with 4 balconies and 360 degree views of midtown east in Manhattan asking for $15,000/month.
Rented it for 6 months upfront with option to renew to someone who has ties to oil families in the Middle East. The person never moved in.
Lived in the international dorms in college. First week of school move in happens and you get to meet a bunch of people. One of the people I met was this girl from Singapore. She's pretty cool and whatnot, but after a few weeks she realizes that to get around she needs a car, as public transport BLOWS. So, naturally, she calls her parents to tell them that she needs a car. No biggie.
She tells them that she needs a Mercedes S class. hmm, okay. Nice. But remember, she's from Singapore. If you know anything about Singapore it's that cars cost anywhere from 6-9x what they do in the US. Casually, her parents wire her enough money to get an S class..... in Singapore.
Girl gets $650,000 wired to her account, not knowing that it cost 6x less here. She goes to the dealership then comes back in a hour with no car. I asked her what happened, and she says "oh, it's getting delivered". Sure enough, 2 days later a brand new car shows up, except it's no S class. It's a Lamborghini Murcielago. Touche, well played.
I later find out she doesn't know how to drive, so she hired a chauffeur to drive her around. She would sit in the passenger side of her own lambo and be driven places. What made it more hilarious was that the chauffeur would actually wear a black jacket and hat.
EDIT: Eventually she got a drivers license and was able to drive the car herself. I think the chauffeur was around for 2-3 months though. After moving out of that dorm, I didn't really keep contact with her, but I assume she went back home just like every other ballin' international student.
I install elevators in Australia. We call them lifts and all of our customers are domestic (not commercial). I was on service for a month while they found a new leading hand for me to work with, last one quit no notice. While servicing a lift the owner offered us a coffee. I let the guy in charge make the decision and followed his agreeing that a coffee would be appreciated, yes please. We follow him upstairs for the coffee and he's got two bowls filled with lindt chocolate and Ferrero Roche to go with the coffee, not biscuits like we're used to sometimes being offered. Not particularly obscene but it did nothing to prepare me for the next. He points at two bottles of wine on the bench and says "Now, those are for you two, one each. I like to look after the tradies who do work for me". We were there for all of 2 hours. He does this for every tradey who comes to his house. I looked it up. The wine was worth at least $110. Absolutely insane from my perspective. None of the areas near me are particularly rich but this guy owns an estate agent and it's working for him. edit: I know it's not obscene relative to the other stories here. The question was the most obscene I had witnessed personally. I don't rub shoulders with rich bastards like the lot of you so this happens to be the top of my list. Sorry. Biscuits in australia are sweet: http://www.arnotts.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Assorted_Creams_275x210.jpg I get it. He didn't own an estate agent, he owned a Real Estate Agency. There's a type of metaphor called a synecdoche, where you refer to part of something by the whole or the whole of something by the part, like calling a dish washing employee a kitchen hand or calling your sword your steel. He owned the business, the employee is a wage slave, he owns the employee. The grammar N'a'z'i's can f**k off now. Cheers
My hometown of Hobart is a working class city right at the end of the world in Tasmania, where nothing much ever happens. In the past not many people came here except a few hikers / outdoors people to admire the natural beauty of the place but nothing else was really going for the town. A guy who made hundreds of millions of dollars gambling opened his own private $150 million art museum, and has turned the city into a major tourist drawcard. Best of all, locals are allowed in for free whenever they like, and free parties/festivals are thrown year-round. In under 5 years he's single handedly transformed the entire city.
EDIT: thanks for the replies and interest everyone! Here's a piece about David Walsh and MONA: http://www.afr.com/opinion/columns/david-walshs-wisdom-beats-the-odds-20131213-ij8gn
Also, You can find out more about my beautiful hometown here http://www.discovertasmania.com.au/about/regions-of-tasmania/hobart-and-south/hobart.
Mona is the gallery. Read up on how he made his money...gambling. Tax office sued him for a fortune in undeclared income. He said it wasnt income but winnings so tax free. High court agreed.
I saw this guy at a bar who got a call and just got up and left: He hardly even touched his beer and most of it was still there in the mug.
this ranks up with the friend who bought the guac at Chipotle. Stunning wealth to be able to do things like that...
So, this is obscene, but not really in a hugely bad way. Many moons ago I worked at a cable company. This guy calls in because his internet sucks. Sadly, there was about f**k-all we could do about it as his home was out in the boonies. We could only get him internet through a wireless tower, and those things will have connection hiccups if a butterfly passes by. He asks us how much it'd cost to run a wired line to his house. At first, we assumed he was either: a) stupid or b) crazy Turns out he was serious. We got a contract put together in a few days and he paid for a new line to his place, which let us run connections to a few other houses in the area. I can't remember if it was a 7 figure or 6 figure deal, but that s**t wasn't cheap. So, hats off to crazy old rich guy in bumf*cknowhere. I hope your porn streams are still flowing like a river. EDIT: Since this keeps coming up; No, this wasn't for Joe Rogan. This was in Kansas, so the bumf*cknowhere was truly bumf*cknowhere and threats of wind were a serious issue on those wifi towers. Edit2: for the other thing that keeps coming up. It was a really small company. They weren't intentionally giving anyone the screw job on a line, they couldn't afford to run lines everywhere. If I remember right, at the time it served 2 towns plus the surrounding farmlamds, and that's counting the Wi-Fi towers. I can't remember the details on the contract the guy got for running the lines and future costs, but I'm pretty sure he was on the short list of folks with a VIP flag on his account.
Most likely he offset the cost against taxes within a company that he owns because being out of touch at crucial times could financially impact on him, OR he’s got money, serious money and he’ll recoup the cost in a couple of weeks through interest alone.
I worked for a gal who had a speaker go out in her Ferrari and she refused to drive any further under those circumstances so she pulled over to wait for one of her house staff to bring her the Porsche. True story.
A party at the CEO's house for Halloween. Insanity. I thought I was going to get kicked out of the neighborhood because I was only driving a 30k car, not a 300k car. Anything you can think of, he had at this party - staff with signature cocktails at the door, a fully staffed bar for liquor, a fully staffed bar for wine, an entire table made of ice with ice shot glasses and ten different vodkas. He was wearing a costume made of leather that his wife commissioned for him, handmade in France. The 400 yard bridge to his private lake was strung up with extra lights, and the dock had a separate bar for those who wanted to sit on the lake.
In summer of 1988 I was 16 and I went on a family trip to visit relatives in Cali, Colombia. One night, they took us on a drive around town to see the city at night. On the tour, we passed a six or seven story office tower under construction in a residential neighborhood that my cousin told me was to be the future home of one of the city's largest narcotraficantes, or d**g kingpins. While the house was under construction, he'd had **another** large mansion built directly across the street so he could keep an eye on the building's progress from his home.
Essentially, he built a mansion to live in while he watched his bgger mansion being built.
Once won a VIP ticket for a moscow night club. don't ask. saw three kids test their 100k watches for water proofness by emptying 4k bottles of champagne over them. one of the watches wasn't. they found that fact very funny.
Edit:
1. RIP inbox.
2. 100k & 4k dollars worth. not ruble, not yen not the amount of watches or screen resolution of the bottles you silly c***s.
3. I answered the question on how i came to be VIP already. Just search for it in the comments. but i promise you really don't wanna know becaus its boring af.
I know a student that prints documents with a black background and white text.
I mean printer ink is bloody expensive. This one could be the wealthiest of the lot!
I've had 2 roommates who were obscenely rich. The first one was from a rich Russian family. As in, went to an elite boarding school with ambassador and actor kids and some elite equestrian program. Parents hired people to help her move into our apartment. She spent money so lavishly, it was incredible. Buying whatever caught her eye and losing interest. She had this incredible brand name clothing and shoe collection that took up the entirety of our shared closet space. It was great. I got to eat her food, she would buy alcohol to try it and I would finish it off. She'd let me borrow her clothes. She was really a nice girl, just obscenely rich. She eventually dropped out halfway cause she couldn't handle the stress of school (not being catered to by professors) so I got to live in a single the rest of the year (she was still paying for it and never bothered to find another sub!). Next roommate was rich girl heir to some prestigious hospital or medical group in China. She had a spending budget of like $500 a week, which she would spend on sneakers/shoes. Our apartment had a bi-weekly maid service organized by her parents to clean up for us. All her clothes were taken weekly to be steam cleaned. She also spent a sh*tton of money on alcohol that I was more than happy to finish off for her. They had set up some weekly food delivery with a gourmet hipster food company, and I basically never had to shop for food that year. I got to eat fancy pasta, cheeses, pâté, pastries, avocados all the time, and heirloom versions of vegetables. Also a lot of quinoa and weird grains. She was also a great roommate. Didn't have much in common and we fell out of touch when we graduated. But I did have 2 years of mooching off rich elites when I was in college. ETA: Both girls actually came from comparatively strict families. That's why they had limited money, the Chinese girl had a lot of equally super rich friends who would make fun of her for being poor and how her family was so strict and stuff. Also their parents made them get roommates to learn to be in touch and have as normal an experience as possible. Russian chick was the best roommate ever since she'd been having roommates in boarding school so she knew all the roommate etiquette. Chinese girl not so much, but she did make an effort and all her messes were cleaned up by the maid service anyways. Chinese girl ended up going to med school as was expected of her since she did have to eventually inherit the family business, so she wasn't one of those useless trust fund babies. The Russian chick, not so much, she got married to some other rich dude recently according to my FB, was not invited to her wedding.
I used to be a nanny to celebrities and high profile New York financial families. Some highlights:
-The CEO and his model wife of a famous athleticwear company paid for an entire wardrobe for me to keep at their home because they didn't want "outside clothes" contaminating their house or infant. I was to take my street clothes into the bathroom near the entrance, take them off, change into my "house" clothing, and then only change back after I was finished with the baby for the day and was getting ready to leave. They also had a safe of cash that I was to use exclusively for my meals, drinks and take out food, and then leave the receipts in the safe.
-The famous fashion designer who paid for a wardrobe for me to wear in the house that was entirely black and white.......so I would match the home decor. Didn't matter what brands of clothing, but everything had to be pure black or white, no patterns or other colors. This included accessories, sneakers and socks.
-The family who flew me to Antigua from Manhattan for a long weekend to watch their three kids because the parents wanted to "relax." They had a private island compound near a famous male celebrity, and the island only was accessible by private plane or private yacht.
-The CEO of a international firm that was married with four children and each child had their own nanny (I was the nanny to the infant), and the couple paid for apartments in Paris and Manhattan for each of us nannies. The family spend 6 months in Paris and 6 months in New York every year.
-The 20-something year old gentleman from a millionaire family who owned a penthouse on Park Avenue, and I was hired to work as his housekeeper after he broke his leg in a skiing accident and needed help with daily upkeep and cleaning. When his clothes needed to be washed or the dishes cleaned, instead of me cleaning them, I was instructed to throw them away and take the credit cards and just buy new ones. I was yelled at because I didn't spend ENOUGH on the dishes.
-Working birthday parties for young children of the elite, I've seen entire hotels, stadiums, professional sports training facilities like equestrian and gymnastics places completely rented for an entire day just for a toddler party.
-A depressing one: Was interviewed for a nanny position for two sweet twin girls about eight years old. The previous nanny interviewed me, and I was puzzled and asked where the parents were. The parents lived in Europe, the twins lived in a mansion in New York. As the nanny I would have access to all bank accounts and credit cards, and basically raise them in the mansion and take them to school, appointments, sports, etc. I would have my own black AmEx (this was around 2004), and my own floor of the home. I would call the parents in Europe if there were any major issues. This is how the girls had been living for years. No idea if they ever saw their parents.
I have a lot more stories, but these are just what come to mind.
Edit: For anyone wondering, at the time I could make between $300-$500 cash under the table for a Fri night to Sun night shift, or anywhere from $500-$1000 under the table for a Mon-Fri shift. Holidays were extra and usually included trips or bonuses of some sort.
My ex's dad's semi-daily driver was an Aston Martin Vanquish. They lived in a multimillion dollar home, rented entire homes/condos all around the world for multiple family vacations each year, and my ex's private high school tuition cost DOUBLE what my college tuition cost.
His parents paid out of pocket for he and his 2 siblings to go to very expensive colleges, he had multiple trust funds and investments...
And they were perfectly wonderful people, all of them. Very family-oriented, very kind, as generous as they were wealthy. They endowed scholarships, worked hard, gave great advice, gave to charity, and were always attempting to learn and observe the world around them and changing their views accordingly. Great family. Saddest part of the breakup for me was breaking up with the rest of the family tbh.
My husband wrote a movie (long story) with a friend of his who is a full time writer in Hollywood. Friend went to the house of a famous producer to pitch their script. He called my husband and said, "they have a Picasso." Husband is like, "wow, very cool." Friend says, "The Picasso is in their parking garage." ETA: Yes, a movie IS a long story. And don't call me Shirley. ETA2: I am in the US. Had NO idea there is a small [bad] car called a Picasso. But TIL!
A guy at my high school used to get picked up every day in a vintage rolls royce. He lived 5 minutes down the road.
Edit: Answering some questions
The car was from the 20s and in impeccable condition, and apparently some rare model or something. It had gold detailing.
The guy lived 5 minutes down the road walking, so about 15 minutes away by car thanks to post-school traffic.
The family were known to be pricks. The guy who picked him up was his grandfather, who always carried one of those fancy gold-tipped canes.
The reason why I hated him was pure jealousy- I too would drive everywhere if I owned a car as beautiful as that.
My junior year of college, I was the unofficial tutor of an English major. Her dad owned a chain of banks. She didn't want Dad to know that she was basically illiterate, but she had already filled out the paperwork to let Dad view her grades online. He was constantly on her to improve, but he would also be able to see tutoring logs, so she came up with our 'unofficial' arrangement. I tutored her- extensively. I basically taught to to read. And in exchange she bought me clothes and liquor and things that her Dad wouldn't notice on his card as being usual, but I could p**n them for cash if I needed.
*That's not the crazy part*.
For Christmas, she told her parents that her car was 'old'. It was a top of the line Mercedes, with a custom interior and it was less than twelve months old.
Her parents told her no, that there was nothing wrong with her car and she could keep it, "at least until she graduated." She was distraught that she might have to keep the, "peice of junk" for at least another four years, so she hatched a plan.
She refused to drive. If she *had* to be driven somewhere, she made one of her 'peasant' friends drive her and took pictures to show her parents how much she was suffering. Although I refused to give her a ride, she apparently staged photos with my beat to hell Ford that was two decades old and held together by duct tape and good luck. In the photos, she was doing that fake Instagram-crying where the mascara and eyeliner run perfectly together and it's clearly an art shot that in no way indicates that someone is upset. Yeah.
Her parents caved, and on Christmas morning the students that remained on campus were treated to the sight of a sleek Lamborghini with a huge red velvet bow delivered to her dorm. Campus security surrounded the whole affair to keep us poor people from touching it.
She came to the door, yawning and stretching dramatically like she had just been woken up (with perfect curls and makeup ffs) and takes one step out the door towards her gift. Then shreiks like she's been shot straight through, whirls around, slams the door behind her, and screams into her phone loud enough for the crowd to hear, "It's the *wrong color!*"
On New Years, her new car arrived, in the *proper* color.
I was invited to a graduation party, hosted by a very wealthy couple whose daughter had just graduated from Yale. Her father came out, in front of the guests, displaying Rolex and Cartier watches and asking which one of the two expensive watches the group thought would be 'the more appropriate for the occasion.' Everyone just looked at each other, silently, not quite sure what to say
I had a friend whose sibling married someone in the british aristocracy. i was at their house and needed to pee, so my friend indicated towards the correct door. i went into the bathroom, and i swear to god, i got *lost* trying to find the toilet.
but it was okay, because there were a lot of old dutch masters oil still lifes to look at in there.
This girl in high school had to fill up her $100,000 Mercedes for the first time, so she decided to fill it up with diesel. Couple weeks later she had a replacement Mercedes
A guy who moved 300 miles away just so he could buy a plane to fly to work every day.
David Tepper, billionaire hedge fund manager that moved out of New Jersey. Doing this caused New Jersey to have redo their entire state budget.
They had a black swan and an albino peacock.
Black Swan is a common species in Australia where all native swans are black. Very common as a tame "pet" throughout the world.
My coworker comes from a lot of money. I have $200 to my name and I listen to the kid complain about how poor he is that he only has $37K in the bank.
This guy got stopped by a skin lotion vendor in the mall and in order to "make him go away", he bought $3,500 worth of skin product from this vendor and just put it on his "dads card".
Guy, you suck.
Apparently in Europe you can no longer get a credit card linked to someone else’s name - you need to have a certain income yourself to qualify, and it can’t be just given to you or from any other kind of (state) benefits. In other words, no more Daddy’s credit card. I’m sure the super rich will have super expensive lawyers or bankers to work this one out for them, though.
I had a roommate in the dorms who grabbed a roll of paper towels and used the whole thing still rolled up to sop up a spilled beer. That still pisses me off.
My dad's boss was the billionaire CEO of a Fortune 500 company. We were invited to his private July 4th party at his home in Corona del Mar, where Robin Williams was hired to entertain, and he had his own fireworks barge anchored in the water just beyond the house. The fireworks alone cost more than $300K - wouldn't be surprised if the whole party cost half a million dollars.
P.S. - Robin Williams' private comedy shows were NOT family-friendly.
Edit: just thought of another one, second-hand story: Several years ago I worked with some folks from a large business jet company that were raving about their last job. A Saudi prince had just purchased a new jet for a cool $80M, and **spent another $80M in upgrades and interior finishes** alone. We're talking about rare wood furnishing throughout, exotic stone, handcrafted upholstery, and everything else is gold or gold plated, including a gold-plated Xbox integrated into the custom entertainment system The plane was painted this obnoxiously bright yellow color from nose to tail. The reason? It was a birthday gift for his 16-year old son, so that the color of his plane would match his Lamborghini.
OP has obviously not seen Robin Williams' early stand up videos....
When I was in elementary school, there was this extremely wealthy family that would throw parties and events to raise money for the school and various charity organizations. However, no one got invited to their house until the end of the year party, where everyone in the school (the school was not small either...) was invited for an evening of swimming, arcades, dancing, and food. The first year I was there, I was excluded from the event because the older son refused to give a select few an invitation (he was kind of a jerk). The second year, I outright refused. My brother somehow always lost his invitation and never went, that is, until he was in sixth grade.
The night of the party, I opted to tag along for the drive out of curiosity in hopes of seeing the legendary house that these two boys resided in. The house was out in the foothills, near the wealthiest neighborhoods in my town. But it was not in these neighborhoods, and rather took up the space for a suburb all on its own. I first knew we had arrived when we drove under an entrance with the letters "(name) property) written out in large, iron letters. The next things we passed were a stable and some horses. After that, there were two BMX trails on either side the road, the names of the boys engraved on each one. Next was an olympic sized pool, a tennis court, a basketball court, and a baseball field off in the distance. The house itself was massive, as in it was a particularly large manor house. That was the end of what I saw.
My brother came home and told me the rest. Turns out, they had a gym, a platform for literally every popular sport in America, both indoors and out. There was a skateboarding rink, a small indoor roller rink, a movie theatre, a giant arcade room, two ballrooms (one sophisticated and the other one hip), a giant kitchen complete with a walk-in freezer, and a fair amount of help (including live-ins, they had their own houses on the property). And that was only the party center. Most of the house was off-limits.
I have no idea what the parents do for a living, but good god those things were like the kid version of Gatsby's parties.
I'm a flight attendant on private jets. In 2013, I once had a passenger charter a flight to Japan after one of the world's largest tunas was caught, so that he could have some of it. He had already been planning to go to Japan that month but decided to leave early for the tuna. On our return leg he ordered $30K worth of food (mostly sushi) for our flight to Europe, he was the only passenger and never had a bite
And most others are struggling to make ends meet... I'm not the only one who finds this unfair, am I?
I work for a luxury home builder. Very big, very expensive houses. We are building a home for this guy & he calls freaking out at me because AT&T would only provide him with 9 DVRs when he needs 11. They would provide him with more, but he would need to open a second account to do so. I don't know why, I guess they had some kind of weird limit at the time. I'm the CTO of the homebuilder, so he expected me to get AT&T to change this policy so he could have a TV with DVR in every bathroom as well as the normal TV-viewing rooms. I obviously couldn't do this, so he cancelled his contract with us thru his lawyer & never spoke to us again. His deposit was non-refundable, in fact we had already spent most of the money on the initial part of the build. So he walked away from over $100,000 we wouldn't give him back without ever saying a word to us. It was no biggie to him I guess. It also made NO SENSE.
EDIT: For all those commenting, we offered him plenty of fancy elegant solutions before he ever called AT&T. We would have even paid for the second account, tho he could easily afford it. He was tin foil hat crazy scared of tech & would only accept DSL or cable modem (this was a long time ago too). We could have worked it out tho, but he just left instead. Also we found out after the fact that he walked from two other local builder contracts previously for equally bizarre reasons. He left contract money on the table each time. Didn't bother him. When you combine crazy rich with crazy crazy I guess these things don't bother you. Sorry for the edit, but I can't keep up with the amount of comments. Thanks for the interest in our crazy client!
I work in the parts department at a luxury car dealership.
We basically have two kinds of customers:
- people who ask for a quote on touch-up paint (~$55.00 after tax) and then say "Why is it so expensive?"
- people who want to just straight-up order carbon fiber exhaust tips (~$6500.00 after tax, not that they even ask the price) and just ask if they should pay then or when they pick them up.
Met a girl who worked on a yacht and it was located in Monacco. I was able to board it for about an hour and get a tour. The owner was some Russian oligarch or something and the boat was worth $100 million. I wasn't allowed to walk around it freely but the thing was tricked out in a way I never thought possible. It wasn't even the biggest yacht in port either.
Young girl, about five years of age, was getting ready to go into New York City to visit her grandmother from the NJ suburbs. She was at her aunt's house and did not have a pair of shoes that she liked. She called their chauffeur, told him which pair of shoes she wanted. The dude got the shoes and drove some 20 miles to deliver them and she told him he got the wrong ones and he was an idiot. No one in the family thought this was inappropriate
I've been to Monaco. The harbor full of private yachts was awe inspiring.
yeah - me too in the 70's. ursela andress & ringo hanging out. nice people. very expensive boats there.
I work for a distribution power company, we have done multiple projects for a very wealthy customer who is more than happy to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to convert all the overhead power lines that surround his private house block to underground cables just for aesthetics.
I feel so rich reading this. The neighborhood I bought my lot in has all the power lines underground. Of course, the ones they're connected to along the road to town are NOT underground, so when the power goes out on them, the power goes out on us. Such is life.
The parents of this girl that went to my high school got her some average, probably $10K car for her 16th birthday as a joke. She gets all upset because it isn't what she wanted. Her parents then go, 'Just kidding! This is the actual car we got you!' and give her some $70K Range Rover. She got to keep them both
"Some average, probably $10K car for her 16th birthday as a joke". Haha, joke.
My boss was a military liaison in Dubai and told me a story about a guy he became friends with there.
One night they are driving back from a night of debauchery in this guy's brand new Ferrari and it breaks down. He pulls over to the side of the road gets out and starts walking while calling his people to come get him/bring him another car. He doesn't mention anything about the broken Ferrari so my boss asks him about it. His response was "what about it? It's broken. I'll just buy another."
People have stupid amounts of money in Dubai.
Edit: For all the people asking why my boss didn't keep/ask for the car, he couldn't because it would have been considered a gift and the military would have just confiscated it. People that have worked there also have all kinds of stories about the gifts locals would by for people that they simply had to let the military have or give them back.
Not very obscene compared to some of the examples, but it stuck with me. I dated a girl who went to a private school when I was a senior in high school. I remember driving through the student parking lot and you could see the economic hierarchy. All the way to left parked the BMW's and Mercedes and as you moved down you'd start seeing newer Subarus and Hondas. Then as you got down to the end you'd see the kid's cars whose parents were teachers or kids who were there on scholarships with cars like crappy civics and beat up hand-me-down minivans and SUVs.
I'll be the first to admit that I have it really good when it comes to being born into a reasonably wealthy family, but I just can't imagine getting handed the keys to a brand new beemer at 16.
"brand new beemer at 16" And that´s what BS. For at least the first year or two after getting a license kids should get some cheaper, and most importantly weaker, used car to get some experience in before driving around a overpowered super luxus car.
A friend of mine's step-dad hired smash mouth to play at his labor day party for around 200 people.
I had to look up who they are, so for the ones who also don't know: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smash_Mouth
Saw a news article that an extremely wealthy Chinese man's son bought **8 iPhone 7's for his dog**.
I mean, some comments here are obscene, but this is just pointless.
A friend of mine worked at Upper Deck. One year UDE laid off a few of our mutual friends. A couple months later was their holiday party, and the CEO/owner Richard McWilliam flew upper management (including my friend) to Las Vegas for a fancy catered dinner in a hangar (for some reason?). My friend sat on one side of Richard and Richard's small son sat on the other side. At one point a plane was taxiing by and Richard McWilliam turned to his son and said, "Do you see that plane? I just bought it for you for Christmas."
So Richard McWilliam laid of several of our mutual friends and then turned around and bought his 4YO son a f*****g plane.
Edit: Just wanted everyone to know that it is my understanding that Upper Deck is WAY less s****y now that Richard is dead. And for funsies, [read this article about Richard f*****g over Konami and Yu-Gi-Oh!](http://www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/upper-deck-settles-with-konami/).
Edit 2: Another thing UDE did is provide REALLY s****y severance packages. 1/2 week per year of employment. One of my friends who got laid off in a subsequent RIF didn't even bother taking it because they also required everyone sign an NDA regarding their severance. The 2.5 days of severance wasn't worth his silence.
Private banker for a Wealth Management firm checking in, so as you'd imagine I've seen quite a bit, and have a few tales I could tell.
Most memorable was a foreign national who was purchasing a private jet in America. He was insanely reckless with his spending, but I'm going to be honest this guy was so sickeningly wealthy he probably couldn't spend all his money if he tried, and boy did he try ( past tense as he's a former client ).
He saw that a Saudi prince had installed an all gold bathroom on his private A380 ( for those of you who don't know that's the largest commercial passenger airplane in operation ). This guy wanted to imitate that on his more modest ($34 million) jet. Only problem is he wanted the bathroom installed in a 2 week time frame as he was entertaining his father onboard the plane. The company doing it failed to source all the gold required in time and the sink would be left 'plain'. Rather than take his father in an 'unfinished' bathroom he sourced ANOTHER JET, that already had this feature ( God knows how he found it ) and spent ANOTHER $40 million to buy this new jet in time to impress his old man.
Two jets in the space of a month. Standard disclaimer, this wasn't my client directly but the firms biggest client at the time.
Depends how you wish to define obscene. Though, I have this associate who is 3rd generation wealthy. His grandfather made an insane amount of money with real estate and land in Southern California back at the first half of the 20th century. His parents never worked, and he never works. Now a perpetual student attempting to get masters and doctorates in obscure and utterly useless things like dead or obscure languages, art, music, etc... But, routinely, as in once or twice a week, he'll post a question to Facebook: "What one of these do you all recommend I get?" Offering choices between things like two different $10k musical instruments, $100K cars, $100K tvs, $5-10K computers, and other insanely expensive toys.
Edited $ location cause I'm now getting multiple disgruntled PMs about it. Calm down people, sheesh, be happy now.
I was driving for Uber in a college town and picked up a group from one of the richer frat houses to take them to a club. The girls were discussing how one of their friends was upset and went on a huge shoe shopping spree where each pair cost roughly $2,000 except for one. This one pair costed $7,000. One of the girls casually expresses that "$7,000 is really not a bad price to pay for shoes, they should've just been a little bit prettier. I would've paid $5,000 for them."
Why they called an Uber instead of a limo, I don't know.
Someone spending £15k on cavair in fortum and masons. Me behind them, standing there with my £2 chocolate bar.
Grew up in a major oil town, so there was never a shortage of ostentatious new money around once the last boom started.
Honestly, I've seen so much dumb s**t that it's hard to narrow it down - but I suppose a good enough example would be the time I witnessed a friend's dad bet $75,000 that the next card laid down would be a 6 or lower while playing poker with a group of his buddies. He lost, but fortunately he kept like $100,000 in the center console of his truck, so he was able to pay in cash on the spot. I've also seen more $10,000+ holes of golf than I could possibly count.
Side note, their family is broke as f**k now because the industry crashed, and he got caught up in some kind of scam real estate development deal. Not a rarity, most of his kind are significantly worse off now than they were before the boom.
Edit: I'm not telling you people where I grew up, I'm one of like 100 people to have ever lived there.
My wife used to nanny for a very wealthy family. They wanted a "fun off roading" vehicle so they bought a tricked out Jeep that was ~60K. The guy gets hit in an intersection and they would be without the Jeep for two weeks. So he buys an Escalade instead of renting a vehicle. Mind you, this Jeep was his third vehicle that he hardly ever drove.
Family I know bought the $3 million house next door so they could knock it down for a tennis court
Edit: wow so it seems this is a common occurrence. The house that this family owns is already huge and they had plenty of space for a tennis court but they didn't want to move a sculpture they had to the other side of the garden.
No one in their family plays tennis. They wanted the tennis court because their 18 year old daughter wanted a place to throw her parties.
Went to college on an athletic scholarship at an expensive private catholic university (I went to school on the GI Bill or I would have never been able to afford it). I was on the lacrosse team and during a party at the on-campus apts one of the captains starting stabbing his refrigerator with a K-Bar. I was outside smoking a cig and a I asked him why he did that knowing full well he would have to replace it. His exact words were, "I'm not paying for s**t. My dad is a baller at Bank of America." He and I did not get along.
Edit: Grammar.
For all you folks out there who also didn't really know: "baller" = a successful person, especially one who is rich, lives well and buys expensive things, source: https://dictionary.cambridge.org (or, alternatively: a wealthy and successful person who lives lavishly, source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/baller)
Hearst Castle
The parents of this girl that went to my HS got her some average, probably ~$10k car for her 16th birthday. She gets all upset because it isn't what she wanted. Her parents then go, "Just kidding! This is the actual car we got you!" and give her some ~$70k Range Rover. She got to keep them both.
Just wait until the stories about the new "Crypto- Billionaires" start coming in. You do realize - cryptocurrency is actually just counterfeit.. Purely printed, made up- worth nothing at all. They figured out now that it's electronic they didn't need to fake coins or bills, they could just fake the entire "currency system". Except at the moment people still believe it - and will give you real money for it. So - the crypto billionaires have fantasy money- and they spend it that way.
The business owner I worked for years ago had a company wide meeting to explain why we would not be getting a Christmas bonus. His words were, "profit has been down and there is no money in the budget." Guess who showed up to work in his new Lamborghini in February? Guess who divorced his wife of 20 years to get together with a 20 year old who worked the register? The same kind of person that would sell you a puppy mill puppy with a smile on his face because he is making a huge profit off animals suffering. Rich people can really be the lowest of the low and still look down their nose at you.
A connection between the rich and not giving a sod about the environment is strong. 🤔
I live in a rural area, about 30 min drive to the big city. A nearby horse farm recently went up for sale. $1.5m. A selling point for the house was that it was a short $15 min helicopter flight to the city. While folks a mile down struggle to keep the lights on in their run down farmhouse.
When I was young, a good friend knew a guys who's father was a world class brain surgeon. We stopped by his house on the way to a computer swap meet (tells you how long ago this was) this dude's house was like a museum, a huge wall of antique weapons and firearms. Persian rugs, carved ivory tusks that had the plaques nailed to them certifying they were allowed out of India legally and showing the export price of $45k each. A trophy room with every kind of exotic animal you can imagine (taxidermied) every piece of furniture was something specific, like antique Tiffany lamps or some royalties' used table/chair. Every item had full descriptions. Official plaques and seals, etc. Then you get to the entry way (we came in through the garage) and there is a umbrella attend with two Japanese swords in it. Apparently he had gained them legally some time after WW2, but the family was offended so sent some people to try and steal them. The house security caught them, so instead of being on..
These stories highlight that there is zero benefit to society to allow people to make more money than they can possibly spend. I know people like to say "but they earned it, they can do what they want...blah, blah, blah" but that argument is stupid in my opinion. Nobody earns earns more money than they could ever possibly need without it costing a whole bunch of people. I realise that there is no easy way to limit personal wealth, but the big problem we face is that most people (even poor people) don't even think we should try. Free healthcare for every person on the planet should be a goal. You can never convince me that people who work minimum wage jobs are not providing value in our societies. You provide value, you should as a minimum have somewhere to live, food to eat, and health looked after. My rant could go on, but I'll stop now.
I know a guy who was flown from Alicante to Switzerland on his bosses private jet with printed Excel docs and documents to sign because the boss didn't want to use a computer. The boss was staying at a hotel and he told my friend to come up to his suit. He was in bed with 2 hookers. Made my friend wait till he finished and got out of bed naked, signed the docs. The girls were walking around naked, He pointed to one girl and he said,do you like her? pulled the girl over and said, she all yours if you want. She's paid for till the end of the month.
Just wait until the stories about the new "Crypto- Billionaires" start coming in. You do realize - cryptocurrency is actually just counterfeit.. Purely printed, made up- worth nothing at all. They figured out now that it's electronic they didn't need to fake coins or bills, they could just fake the entire "currency system". Except at the moment people still believe it - and will give you real money for it. So - the crypto billionaires have fantasy money- and they spend it that way.
The business owner I worked for years ago had a company wide meeting to explain why we would not be getting a Christmas bonus. His words were, "profit has been down and there is no money in the budget." Guess who showed up to work in his new Lamborghini in February? Guess who divorced his wife of 20 years to get together with a 20 year old who worked the register? The same kind of person that would sell you a puppy mill puppy with a smile on his face because he is making a huge profit off animals suffering. Rich people can really be the lowest of the low and still look down their nose at you.
A connection between the rich and not giving a sod about the environment is strong. 🤔
I live in a rural area, about 30 min drive to the big city. A nearby horse farm recently went up for sale. $1.5m. A selling point for the house was that it was a short $15 min helicopter flight to the city. While folks a mile down struggle to keep the lights on in their run down farmhouse.
When I was young, a good friend knew a guys who's father was a world class brain surgeon. We stopped by his house on the way to a computer swap meet (tells you how long ago this was) this dude's house was like a museum, a huge wall of antique weapons and firearms. Persian rugs, carved ivory tusks that had the plaques nailed to them certifying they were allowed out of India legally and showing the export price of $45k each. A trophy room with every kind of exotic animal you can imagine (taxidermied) every piece of furniture was something specific, like antique Tiffany lamps or some royalties' used table/chair. Every item had full descriptions. Official plaques and seals, etc. Then you get to the entry way (we came in through the garage) and there is a umbrella attend with two Japanese swords in it. Apparently he had gained them legally some time after WW2, but the family was offended so sent some people to try and steal them. The house security caught them, so instead of being on..
These stories highlight that there is zero benefit to society to allow people to make more money than they can possibly spend. I know people like to say "but they earned it, they can do what they want...blah, blah, blah" but that argument is stupid in my opinion. Nobody earns earns more money than they could ever possibly need without it costing a whole bunch of people. I realise that there is no easy way to limit personal wealth, but the big problem we face is that most people (even poor people) don't even think we should try. Free healthcare for every person on the planet should be a goal. You can never convince me that people who work minimum wage jobs are not providing value in our societies. You provide value, you should as a minimum have somewhere to live, food to eat, and health looked after. My rant could go on, but I'll stop now.
I know a guy who was flown from Alicante to Switzerland on his bosses private jet with printed Excel docs and documents to sign because the boss didn't want to use a computer. The boss was staying at a hotel and he told my friend to come up to his suit. He was in bed with 2 hookers. Made my friend wait till he finished and got out of bed naked, signed the docs. The girls were walking around naked, He pointed to one girl and he said,do you like her? pulled the girl over and said, she all yours if you want. She's paid for till the end of the month.
