10. The Rich Buy Cars
From exotic cars to people, here is my list of the top 10 ways the rich spend their money. In the tenth position are vehicles. For some strange reason as soon as people have money they suddenly suffer from vehicular obsessive compulsive behavior, as if four wheeled couches somehow give them worth. One example is the Sultan of Brunei (net worth of over $20 billion) who is reported to have purchased up to 2,500 exotic cars. Personally, I think it’s the financial version of sock stuffed trousers and Kleenex stuffed bras.
9. The Rich Buy Homes
Now I ain’t never understood the need for a home that’s so darn massive that you darn near need yourself an indoor chauffeur. But, I guess it’s like the car thing, the bigger and more expensive the better, though the the maximum space actually being occupied at any given moment is limited to the owner’s body mass, which is comparatively tiny. I must admit though, some are spectacularly magnificent.
8. The Rich Buy Vessels
Poor folks buy boats. The rich buy vessels manned by marine vassels. Yacht and ships are also one of those ‘bigger is better’ head spaces with jaw dropping examples of what people can do with money rather than helping people. At $4.8 billion, The ‘History Supreme’ is considered the most expensive yacht ever made. Much of the expense is from its solid gold exterior. It is currently owned by an anonymous Malaysian businessman.
7. The Rich Buy Planes
This one cracks me up. You see, unless you’re evacuating villages or moving massive amounts of equipment and troops, how bloody big do you need? And you thought automobiles depreciated once they were driven off the lot? An example of such extravagance is the $500 million super private jet – the Airbus A380 ‘Flying Palace’. Owned by Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, it has room for the Prince’s Rolls Royce and his horses, as well as five private bedrooms and two dining rooms.
6. The Rich Buy Philanthropy
Philanthropy is the best use of money there ever has been, and will be. Unless of course it’s one philanthropist giving to another, like when Warren Buffett donated around $3 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, or, when Mark Zuckerburg, founder of Facebook, gave $1.9 billion to his own corporation’s non-profit arm, The Chan Zuckerberg Foundation. Bad form old boys…
5. The Rich Buy Clothes
Dressing to impress does not come cheap. Designer clothing can easily run into thousands of dollars, with collectible clothing valued in the millions, with Yumi Katsura’s White Gold Diamond Dress fetching a whopping $8.5 million. Unlike homes, yachts and cars, clothes go out of fashion so wardrobes have to be updated constantly to keep up with trends.
4. The Rich Buy Jewelry
I’m not sure of what the world’s total wealth in jewelry is, and that’s a good thing, because I have blood pressure concerns. But it is for sure astronomical, because the Hope diamond alone is estimated to have a worth almost a quarter of a billion dollars. But don’t expect to run out and buy it, because it hasn’t been for sale for hundreds of years.
3. The Rich Buy Art
The value of some art collections could wipe out an entire small nation’s debt. The world’s most expensive painting to sell at auction was Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘Salvator Mundi’, which sold for $450.3 million. So it’s no surprise that expensive art is an absolute ‘must have’ for those who are financially superior and want to flaunt it.
2. The Rich Buy Security
Being rich can be very hazardous to your health. According to an article in Fortune magazine, just keeping Mark Zuckerberg and his family safe runs in excess of $10 million per year. Total costs to have the protection of royalty can be over $100,000 per day, which means you’d need to make around $50 million per year (after taxes) just to cover basic security costs.
1. The Rich Buy People
There was a time when owning people was illegal, but not today. Now people own whole teams of them! And they make them fight against other rich people’s teams. The chains are longer steel, but monetary, and believe or not, they even make people ‘try out’ for the opportunity. According to Forbes, the most expensive team to date is the U.S. Dallas Cowboys, owned by Jerry Jones and with an estimated value of $5 billion!
And there you have it folks, Will’s top 10 ways that the rich spend their money.
