Yachts. Caviar. Expensive vacations. Live-in nannies and dog walkers. Some dude who plays live jazz for your fish.
Wait, what?
The rich waste no expense. After Redditor expertfailist asked the online community,
"What are some luxury items which you never knew existed that only the mega-rich can afford that blew your mind?"
We admit we kind of like some of these. It's sometimes fun to live a little vicariously.
"By all accounts..."
"I know a couple who live in NYC who have a live-in "nanny" for their two dogs."
"They hire a different veterinary student every few years. The student gets their own suite, a town car, a generous salary in the high 5 figures, paid trips home twice yearly, and nice bonuses."
"Their only job is to care for the pets, including home cooking their meals, walks, training and any appointments."
"By all accounts, it's a pretty sweet gig."
Where do we sign up?
"The wealthy version..."
"The wealthy version of a public storage unit: an exceptionally wealthy family I know refers to a wing of the local art museum as their '..public storage unit.' They funded the wing to store their huge collection of classic and modern art since it was more practical than private storage--it included a climate-controlled, 24/7 secure location managed by professionals. Plus, the curators would handle the swapping out of pieces to/from the museum and the home when they needed a different style or era to fit the mood of the next dinner or event at the house. This was funny because sometimes the swaps would introduce a dozen or so pieces not before displayed at the museum--essentially creating a new exhibit that the museum would package and promote. Behind the fuss, the family just wanted to create the right ambiance for grandma's 80th birthday party."
And keeping those pieces in circulation no doubt increased the art collection's value while helping the museum meet its fundraising goals.
"Some superyachts..."
"Some superyachts have support vessels or "shadow yachts." It is essentially a second ship that follows you and your yacht and carries smaller boats, jet skis, helicopters, subs, you name it."
"A guy in my town..."
"A guy in my town bought four plots of construction places for houses across the street and turned them into gardens, solely so his view wouldn't deteriorate. The plots were 500k each."
"The floor would rotate..."
"Rotating garage floor. The owner hated the idea of backing out of a garage. The floor would rotate 180 degrees when he was ready to drive out."
"I used to work for an engineering firm..."
"I used to work for an engineering firm and we did the engineering (HVAC, plumbing, electrical, fire protection) for high-end residential in NYC. There was a client who owned a floor in an apartment building on Central Park West. The people below him moved out so he bought that floor to host parties. He had a 6" thick sound and vibration dampening system installed on that level so he wouldn't bother the people that lived below. The building was old and the existing elevator would not stop the additional 6" higher on that floor only, so he installed a new elevator in the building. He also paid for French plasterers to come and live in NYC while they do the ornate plaster crown moulding in the apartment."
"I went to a billionaire's home..."
"I went to a billionaire's home that didn't have a pool. He had a man-made lake with an island in the middle and boats/jet skis."
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Science is science. Fact is fact. Truth is truth and simple is simple. These are things we must now attest to in 2021. Can we please all get onboard with wha...Do we know the same guy? Though something tells me more than a few of the ultrawealthy have their own private lakes and islands so it's equally likely that we don't.
"They had around twenty horses there..."
"I remember doing a job at a very rich family's country house in Denmark. They had around twenty horses there and staff hired to ride them because the family themselves had no time for that."
Imagine explaining this job to your date. Not a bad gig at all, for what it's worth.
"I know a lady..."
"This one is a bit dated... You'll see why."
"know a lady that went to spend the night with a friend and was gifted an entire Encyclopedia Brittanica set."
"That sounds weird in 2021, but this was the late 70's and you couldn't just google or wikipedia things. Just owning an entire set of Encyclopedia Brittanica was a sign of wealth, they were a very expensive and non-essential item to fill up a bookshelf and look rich. People bought these things on payment plans like a car."
"Turns out they had many sets stored somewhere in their house just to hand out as very large and heavy gift to visitors. - After all, how RICH must you be if you can afford to hand out a "sign of wealth" like that just for visiting. It was a mega power move."
"I watched a documentary..."
"I watched a documentary once on food rich people eat and there was a place that provided caviar that came from... get this... sturgeons that get played live jazz music."
"Recorded jazz music wasn't good enough, it had to be performed live by a pianist."
"Live jazz. For fish."
Contrary to what you may have heard the rich are most definitely not like us. Don't listen to what the magazines might tell you: Most of those people wouldn't so much as look at you if you lacked the financial capital to buy an island of your own.
Have some of your own stories to share? Feel free to tell us about it in the comments below.
