It's always fascinating to get a peek at the lives of the ridiculously wealthy, so when u/alexduvalo asked Reddit to share some of the things that rich people buy that regular people might not be aware of, I was instantly intrigued. Here are some of the top comments:
1. "Support ships for your mega-yacht. The biggest yachts don't travel alone. They generally have small cargo ships that do everything from house additional staff, to transport your cars so you always have them when you make port, to holding all of your toys (helicopters, submarines, day-boats, etc.). They'll often travel a day or two ahead of the yacht to a destination so that your staff can unload your things at the next villa you're summering in."
2. "Proxies. People you pay to be you when you can't show up somewhere. They show up, take notes, and have a limited amount of the power given to them by the person who hired them to act on their behalf."
3. "Cloning pets. Someone I know spent about $100K cloning his dog."
4. "There are membership-based vacation clubs. Similar to high-end country clubs, but for travel. You may pay a one-time initiation fee that can be upward of $100K–$250K to get 10 years of access to purchase incredibly exclusive vacation/rental property experiences. I work in the travel industry, and I know of multiple companies like this."
5. "You don't really 'buy' this, but, family offices. You need to have an incredibly high net worth to even think about these services."
"They're really like an 'easy mode' for so many of life's annoyances. Having trusted lawyers, financial advisors, personal assistants, and other staff on hand for everything just takes so much of the hassle out of day-to-day life.
Feel like buying a new Range Rover? Well, you sure as hell don't need to mess around with that process yourself — just ask your family office to handle it and have it dropped off at the house.
Want to buy some property you saw while on vacation? Just have them work out the details and give you the final paperwork to sign.
Getting sued because of some shit you said on Twitter? Your lawyers are working around the clock with no other clients just for you. And on and on — a team of dedicated assistants is a hell of a luxury."
6. "Access. Need to call a governor? He's on speed dial and will phone the senators too. Need to talk to the CEO of Coca-Cola? He's waiting for you and immediately assigns someone to fix your problem. Do you want to yacht around the horn of Africa? The closest naval fleet will tell you the safest route and provide 'support' so pirates don't mess with you."
"I own a company and interact with a lot of billionaires and CEOs. I'm by no means rich but hang in the circle enough that I've emailed CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, and they've hooked me up with huge 'free' things as a small perk or thank you.
I've been PAID to fly places just to have a one-hour meeting and then get a free VIP week-long vacation with the mayor or consulate showing me around.
It's trippy and I've never really felt at home, but I'm eternally grateful for these travel opportunities."
7. "An acquaintance of mine is one of six pilots 'on retainer' for a wealthy family."
8. "I work in the film industry, and one time I booked a trip for someone to fly from London to California for a weekend and it cost more than my yearly salary. This was 2010, and it was $35,000 for first class airfare, private car, and hotel, because they realized Friday morning that based on his contract that he needed to be present while the film was being finished that weekend, and his contract specified the accommodations needed to be first class/five-star hotel, etc."
9. "Time. For example, I own a boat; I work my ass off on it repairing, cleaning, storage, etc. If I were rich, I would just pay to have all of that taken care of so that I could just make a call and the boat would be ready to go anytime I wanted it. The rich spend their money on toys, but they also spend money buying the time to use those toys and to live their lives."
10. "Private doctors. My nephew married into a very high net worth family. They employ a general practitioner/hospitalist with privileges at several top-level hospitals. He caters, in-house, to any and all medical needs they may have."
11. "On-staff mechanics. People see the Floyd Mayweathers and Tom Cruises of the world buying tons of cars and motorcycles, but when you have a fleet like that, you basically need on-staff mechanics who at the very least keep your cars clean, but also handle all the maintenance."
12. "Incredible convenience. My in-laws were well off. Way before the internet, I had an unexpected emergency when my brother was in a bad car accident in another state. I had been out shopping with my sister-in-law when my mother-in-law called the store and told us to come home right away, but she didn't say why."
"It took me 20 minutes to make what was normally a 40-minute drive. I'm pretty sure I scared my sister-in-law to death with my driving.
When we got home, my in-laws gave me the news. They also had airline tickets waiting for me so I could be on a plane right away. How? They had a travel agent they'd used for years.
In the half hour between the time they got the call from my family to the time I walked through their front door, they had called the travel agent, who had booked the ticket and had it hand-delivered to my in-laws' home."
13. "Rich people often get so much for free because they're rich. Money begets money as well as access. It's crazy how much free stuff and access you get just because you're rich."
14. "Opportunity. You can throw a hundred business ideas at the wall, and only one sticks. If you are rich enough, when you finally do something right, everyone calls you a genius — like you didn’t buy your way through 99 failures first. Most people only get one shot."
"Also, corporations will literally bend over backward to employ rich people's useless kids. The bank I used to work at had a guy like that and after six months had to let him go, but 'couldn’t wait to work with him in the future' because his family was loaded. They couldn’t be honest and tell him what a useless fuck he was; they wanted him to come back when he finished university instead."
15. "Kidnap and ransom insurance for their loved ones."
16. "I worked on a contract with a guy that had a therapist on staff that would follow him around everywhere. This on-staff therapist would just help him and his friends out with mental health stuff on the fly. The therapist would even come to the strip club when we went."
17. "I work for the super rich/elite of California — tycoons and politicians and old money types. They don't wear the 'poor' name brands like Gucci or Prada. They buy these random brands you've never heard of where a white T-shirt costs $3K. Money talks; wealth whispers."
18. "I don’t think many people know that there are luxury hospital floors for rich people."
"My suite at Johns Hopkins had a kitchenette stocked with things I requested, not just for me but my guests. I also had an extensive catering menu to choose from, or I could ask for whatever I wanted any time, day or night."
19. And finally, "I have a friend who works with rich private school kids in New York. One of them casually mentioned their 'gift closet.' He asked them to clarify. Apparently, they have a closet that they keep full of gifts in case they have a visitor or need to bring something to a party. When he asked what kind of gifts they kept in there, she said it was nothing crazy — just iPads, Nintendos, cameras, etc."
Do you know of any other extravagant rich people things that most people don't know about? Tell us all about it in the comments!
Note: Responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.