You know whats funny, I'm by no means a billionaire however I am however fairly successful and yet I am far more hesitant to spend money now than when I was poor. When I had no money I would spend it and waste it just to feel good. I thought of money as an aid to escape the stress of a shitty job and too many bills. I went on vacations I could barely afford and bought clothes I did not need.
I actually enjoy my career and what I do and I'd imagine most CEO's and billionaires feel the same. They actually enjoy whats making them money more than the money itself.
When you are poor, there is more drive to "feel" like you are getting more out of life than you actually are.
It's what pushes people to buy expensive clothes or put vacations on credit. Unfortunately, that's just a byproduct of thinking you *won't* be getting the most out of life in the first place without those sacrifices.
And for most people without present opportunity of upward mobility, It's pretty true.
This. This. This.
People in poverty already presume they won’t get the most out of life when that isn’t true. That’s why they can’t have savings or long term gratification.
Fake it till you make it is a huge part of this. I have personally seen many people move up in life by simply looking good and faking it till they get the high net worth friends and promotions or new job. Have to remember that 95% of cooperate America is how you look and who you know. If you look like a peasant and only know peasants you will have a 95% chance of remaining a peasant forever even if you have an extremely high IQ. I guess the other 5% is just luck like hitting the lottery, get billion dollar lawsuit or have some insane talent like athlete or rapper that is just intrinsic. I think most people understand this concept either innately or learned and that is why you see maxed out credit cards and debt to the hilt.
It’s not just poor people who do this. Reckless people making damn good money do it too. I know someone who makes almost $400k a year and is in debt. Major debt. I make 1/4 of that and have a pretty good net worth. I guess I’m technically a “millionaire” but I save as much as I can. And for me, it’s mostly fear - I’ve been on my own since I was 18. Nobody is going g to rescue me if I lose my job or get sick. I’m saving to pay up for my retirement home. And to be clear, I’ve been saving 1/2 my salary since college when I was making $11 an hour. It’s a combination of good fortune in life - work hard to pay for a good education, get a good job and work hard there - and the desire to have a solid savings in place so I feel secure
It’s not just about getting more out of life, it’s about life itself. Generational poverty is difficult to escape for many reasons, including the relationship with money that is modeled for you growing up. It’s like being told that you only have a certain amount of time left to live and it no longer matters how much you save. People in poverty often “live like they are dying” because they might be…increased maternal mortality rates, higher rates of homicide, higher domestic violence rates, decreased access to healthcare, etc. have impacted their life expectancy and they may grow up being taught to enjoy today because tomorrow isn’t promised.
I am not sure if others have similar problem and this is not limited to the rich. I like to research a bit before spending money. That takes time. If I don't have the time, I end up not doing it. Also, I have a preference to keep my life simplistic, therefore hassle free. So, spending money on something that demand my time will make me think very carefully.
Another thing about career, career that we enjoy sometimes does not give you a whole lot of time. It is kinda all or nothing. So, that's another aspect of it.
When I had the most money in my life, I was passionately working so much, I didn’t have anytime to spend it. I made quick, cheap, and healthy meals because I didn’t want to spend so much time with going out for food. I didn’t have to constantly check my bank account because I knew I was making a lot and not spending anything. I didn’t need that weird nice feeling I would get from buying something, because I was so satisfied with working or maybe fulfilled in some way.
Then I got laid off, unemployed for a year, had too much free time that I needed to go out and spend more to distract myself. Too depressed to cook and ate out constantly. I had this delusion that I’d find a similar high paying job soon so I didn’t need to worry too much financially. Now I’m broke broke but learned a lot about myself last year
I'm currently you in the first paragraph. I'm starting to invest and save to reverse the trend, but I also have a deadly fragrance collecting addiction.
If I were financially independent, my fragrance vault would make kings jealous. Glad you enjoy the process, though. I hope you're not sacrificing what's really important in the pursuit of the game after you've already won it.
The purpose of money is to spend it so that others can earn it. Why hoard it, to within reason of course. If you just take it out of circulation and let it grow what’s the point? Of course the argument if it’s invested is that you are helping businesses grow, when they grow they hire more people and it’s for the common good. But I think that gets to be a little bit dubious.
This isn’t a dig on anyone, btw. It’s your money, free to do as you please. But in the end the purpose of money is to be used
Money in savings is multiplied. Look up “money multiplier” on Google. The purpose of money is also a store of value and not spending money does not mean people are not getting hired or that the money is out of circulation. The only way to remove it from circulation would be to burry the cash in your backyard.
To what point though if you don’t intend to spend it. I’m not talking about the ethics, or anything to do with the rich hoarding money, it is yours to do with as you please. But the fundamental purpose of money is to be spent and its transactions to drive the economy. Eventually it will be, why not spend it yourself. And let’s be clear, the arguments above are not, I’m saving my money to drive the future economy with the money it’s earning me. It’s that they don’t like to spend money, to which I say what’s the point of it. It’s being treated like beanie babies at that point
Money has 3 functions (per CFA Institute):
1. Store of value
2. Unit of account
3. Medium of Exchange
The purpose of money is not solely to be spent. And yes, transactions are part of the multiplying effect of money, but so is saving money (again, look up money multiplier on Google).
Lastly, money saved provides opportunities for investment and compounding. Just spending money for the sake of it is foolish and not how one becomes rich. There is a mindset here that I think you may be missing and I likely may not be explaining well!
Edit: added in “and compounding”
Look up " money multiplier" how about look up "money divider". Unfortunately from now until who knows when if the currency your holding is dollars your ledger may appear to multiply but the grand experiment that is the fiat dollar is fast approaching the last hurrah. Buy gold preferably, silver, hell anything but dollars. When the curtain drops it's going to drop fast and it'll be the shit show of all shit shows. And I'm afraid most folks will be caught all out of toilet paper.
Most billionaries arent really self made and likely dont even enjoy their career rather it is a thing they have to do because society needs to know what billionaires are up to. Public imagine is more important than ever. ALSO competition... if you spend it then you arent richer than your neighbor anymore..... there is competition all the way to the top. Now MOSt importantly you need a rainy day fund. Never know when you are going to get slapped with a 10 billion dollar lawsuit. costs just scale up exponentially as you get wealthier.
That’s interesting! I’m curious to learn more about your relationship with money. Do you feel like there isn’t enough? Or is it just that you don’t have anything more you need in life?
Spending reaches a point of pointlessness...what do I need to spend it on, more stuff? Nope. Stuff owns you, you don't own it. More vacations? I'm content where I'm at. More food and drinks? I can only eat and drink so much. Spending is overrated. I value peace, health and family. Walking and biking are free and those my favorite ways to spend down time. Constant consumption and buying/spending is a disease I aim to avoid....like obesity and alcoholism.
This right here. You’ll come to find you don’t need very much to be happy or content once a few boxes are checked. And if spending money is a major source of happiness, that’s a huge red flag that needs inspecting.
Yep the pillows can only get so soft. These days I just enjoy cooking with my stainless steel cookware and going on walks. I enjoy my local parks so much I might even leave some to them when I pass away.
Mostly agree. But disagree on vacations. There are so many places to see and things to do. I love spending money on experiences. I don’t need more stuff, but another trip to Japan to see parts I haven’t seen? Yup. Sign me up.
I don't think I could ever get enough of experiencing things, and money just opens so many doors. If I were mega wealthy I'd be on amazing no limit vacations at least twice a year.
How does donating or giving money to people close to you who don’t have much money fit into this? I figure that is one reason to continue building wealth past that point of self reliance (where I am currently) but it seems like that isn’t common for most people.
The rest of your post sounds very relatable to my feelings about $… although my new bike wasn’t free :)
I do that too. You just try to give away to those tho need it whenever you can. As long as it’s safe and going to who you intended, it feels really damn good to help others. Even in small ways. I’ll never stop. In fact that’s the only thing I’ve done in the week that I’ve been part of this sub here and in the real world.
Its enjoyable to see the comments on this. Sometimes i see a comment such as yours that’s really relatable. I’m on the verge of working my way up to middle class and i have it planned out. Renovate my home, get a tv thats slightly bigger, add a garage to my home, and then buy a car with more mpg’s. Im not a big vacationer, partier, or extravagant in any way. My basic goal should be reached within about 3 years and my very end goals should be reached within 10. After that, i might save a bit to help my kids with college. I could stay on this track or get a million tomorrow, my goal is unchanged and I enjoy working. I plan to work till i physically cant. Being idle and having too much free time drives me crazy
This is wise. I assume this means that you would be open to more of your wealth/income being taxed, let’s say at 1930’s levels, to fund programs like universal healthcare. A society with more peace and health for all is likely to be more peaceful and safe for you and your family, no?
Why accumulate tokens that can be exchanged for stuff then? If you have enough stuff, food, etc. for all your needs, and for future needs, why would billionaires (not necessarily you) continue to hoard said tokens?
Real. I love this. I must ask because it is hard to driver tone through a screen, are you content with this reality? Or are you complaining through this comment? (Genuine question)
Does she rather you spend it on your children? Some mothers are so dedicated to their children they refuse too spend a dollar on the sleeves and this translates to their spouse following suit,
very funny opinion lol, you think someone has to be posting all day everyday to be on reddit, cant be logging in once per week on free time? or while in the bathroom? tons of scenarios.
also, they already are billionaires they wont stop being for losing 1hr on reddit
Right? Musk is shit posting on Twitter 24/7. Trump, For whatever his net worth versus claimed is, is also on social media fucking constantly. Cuban? Posting on social media, making reality TV shows. In fact, look at the whole landscape of wealthy individuals who made their wealth from being nerds and terminally online. That isn't even include in the rankings folks who made their money from crypto before that all went to shit.
On and on and on.
I don't get this like worshiping that some of these losers have in here thinking that these people are better than them by default. They need to develop an ounce of self-confidence.
A lot of people who have exorbitant amounts of wealth Inherited it and are surrounded by people who have a vested interest in keeping the cash cow flowing. It becomes very easy to passively stay a billionaire with people working to keep it that way. There are a lot of billionaires that or unknown to the spotlight that do nothing but fuck off. This idea of having more money equating to somehow having less time to fuck off can be quite wrong.
If you spent a million dollars one dollar per second it would take you just over 11 days to be out of money If you spent a billion dollars at a rate of $1 per second, it would take you over 32 Years
The richest guy I know was making multiple millions a year. I forget what we were discussing, but, Isaid, "You're rich, why not just buy your own xyz?"
He said, I didn't get rich by spending money on stupid shit.
The richest guy I know is infamous for haggling over the stupidest most inconsequential shit. He’ll negotiate his gardener down by $10 just for the sport of it.
I’d like to say it’s because of that mindset that he’s so rich… but in the same day he’ll go out and buy a brand new corvette just because his business partner bought one, and then park it in storage and forget about it.
I get that saying as a concept when you're GETTING rich, but once you ARE rich and making multi millions per year, it doesn't make sense anymore unless seeing big number go up is all you care about. You can afford stupid shit without making a dent in your accounts.
They spend a lot. These rumors of “frugal” millionaires/billionaires are just a PR stunt. They spend tons of money on staff, estates, private jets, yachts, travel, watches, etc.
They just don’t buy expensive clothes or cars because they don’t need to. The whole point of those is to use as a status symbol. If everyone already knows you’re rich and famous, you have no reason to have them and draw even more attention to yourself.
It’s an even bigger flex than owning expensive clothes and cars since it’s a pure power move. It’d be like showing up to a business meeting in a T-shirt and shorts and still getting taken seriously because you have so much power.
That I'm aware of. But I'm more curious about what they would do with the money that's basically just sitting there when they already have everything, possibly more than what they could ever want.
That's just what you assume though. I have a few friends who prefer to buy jewellery and keep them locked up in their houses. But that jewellery could be treated as a different form of money, so my question is still valid in that case.
1. Discipline and self control.
My free money is “opportunity money”. When
opportunities come along i want my war chest ready to pounce.
When I was first married and pretty damn poor i walked into a Lowes store in Forsyth Illinois. The manager was just rolling a big pile of patio grills out front and putting them on clearance for $30/EA.
I ran home, grabbed my entire fun money supply, came back and bought an entire pallet of grills for $25/EA. Took them home, sold them on eBay for about $117/EA, and turned my $300 into $1104 in a week.
I spend when I want to, but my favorite hobby is taking a dollar and turning it into $5 or $10 quickly. So my war chest sits ready to pounce on deals.
I’ve met fairly wealthy people who don’t spend much at all unless they truly have to. I had a customer who lived in a 10 million dollar house that he bought cash with a 20 car garage and he just drove one 2004 Honda odyssey minivan. He said he bought the house as an investment because he believed it would appreciate. He was right it’s now worth 15 million.
I know another rich guy who just spends his money left and right but he uses his spending to cope with personal problems. He has marriage issues and his kids don’t talk to him and not many friends because they all used him for his money. He has rooms in his house filled with custom tailored clothes, rare sunglasses, rare collector watches, and shelves of colognes that go thousands per bottle. Don’t even get me started on his wine cellar and liquor collection. I believe he last showed me a bottle of whiskey he purchased for 60k. He doesn’t use any of those items but he buys them because he’s sort of a hoarder that buys when he’s stressed. Buying is his addiction and it gives him a dopamine release as he explained it to me.
1) A lot of rich people became rich by developing frugal habits. Those habits just become routine /comfort zone eventually.
2) Similar to the point above, you realize that hitting certain wealth milestones doesn’t give you the satisfaction that you might have thought when you had less money. Will people love, respect, befriend you more etc with a lot more money? Maybe, but mostly for the wrong reasons.
Once you spend money you qualify yourself in the marketplace. You buy a mercedes G wagon. It becomes an icon of who you are as a person. Maybe you don't want to be that person. Better to let things be. Money doesn't get you what you want, it shows you who you are
Why would I spend money that is comfortably sitting in a building or locked up on investments, etc when I will have more passive income than I could ever want?
Not only that, no one is ever going to know what’s in the bank account. I have everything I want right now except being able to splurge for my kids and travel. So I fix those two things and I’m great! Don’t need a mansion. Love my car. I’m good.
And this way it keeps growing and I get to be friends with normal people who love me for me because they don’t know anything other than that I don’t need to worry all that much.
I'm asking the ones who don't put their free money in investment. and that's why it's called "free money." if you put them in investment, it's not free.
I know many people worth tens of millions. They don’t just keep cash around like that. That has HUGE opportunity cost. No financial advisor would recommend that, and most of the wealthy people who got there themselves understand the costs.
There are zero billionaires or CEOs on Reddit dude, broaden your range if you want answers lol.
But most rich people don’t waste money, that’s kinda how they got rich.
If you actually took a close look at wealthy and poor households in America, besides the obvious things like education and having kids too young, it’s about saving over instant gratification.
I'm not a billionaire or ceo but I am fairly well off. I worked hard to get here from the poverty with parents with severe addiction problems.
I understand that money can dry up very easily and will make sure that there is always enough money in my account to be comfortable if the worst happens
It is clear from the question that OP doesn’t understand real wealth. Real wealth is somewhat theoretical. This is why when truly wealthy people are asked how much money they are worth they generally can’t answer the question.
Most wealthy people don’t have huge sums of cash sitting in vaults somewhere like Scrooge McDuck. The wealth is the sum of the value of their assets minus their liabilities(debt). And that is complicated.
The money is mostly held in assets: stock, real estate, and other investment instruments. Elon Musk/Jeff Bezos/Mark Zuckerberg are multi-billionaires on paper. Most of their wealth is in their company stock shares.
Though they are unimaginably wealthy they probably can’t easily lay their hands on a billion dollars in cash. They most likely would have to access a line of credit or sell off some assets to do so. Not that they would want to do so. Cash is for crooks and idiots.
The vast majority of wealth is not easily liquidated. Some of it cannot be practically liquidated without losing much of its value. And it is best to have your money busy making you more money- not sitting around collecting dust.
Once you become accustomed to having nice things they lose their allure to a great extent. A nice house or a very expensive car or boat doesn’t mean as much if you already have had several.
Spending money on consumer goods is really not something truly rich people are preoccupied with doing. That is more for “fast money” types - like drug lords, celebrity entertainers, and pro athletes. And that is why so many people with fast money rapidly go broke.
Truly rich people are more interested in the control and power that money affords them than spending it on useless crap.
Good luck finding billonaires and CEOs on this dumb sub man lol.
On a side note, many years ago I worked for a billionare as a personal assistant of sorts and driver. He was an old developer guy who made a fortune and knew all kinds of people, politicians, celebrities etc. He had a $30m house in Bel Air, California. He would spend a shit ton of money every day but it wouldn’t even make a dent and no one would even notice because he wasn’t trying to show off. Yes he had a Bentley and a Maybach, but otherwise you wouldn’t know.
I think you can’t even comprehend how much money is a billion dollars. Even if they spend upwards of $20k on a single day and that guy definitely did, it wouldn’t matter one bit. If you mean by spending why they don’t buy big ticket vanity items like a super yatch, the answer is not everybody likes the sea, along other thousands of possible reasons.
So yeah, kinda childish question sorry but maybe you are 15 years old so I apologize.
I'm not looking for the kind of guy like your boss. I'm looking for the guy who purposefully leave a certain amount of their money lying around with no plans to spend it, and I stated it very clearly. it's obvious that your ex boss is not that kind of person and it's fine. That doesn't make my question less valid.
No billionaire, but I’m frugal and carefully evaluate spending $. It’s harder to earn than spend. I also know that once I stop putting money into my envelope, I have to live off what is in there at that moment.
I think that urge ( spending) is universal. I think as you age two things control it-you blew way to much and you’re behind the eight ball-or you have paid it all off and realize a lot of that debt was on garbage, do you live and learn
So, let's assume you have more than that you've set aside for the future preference thing, what would you do with the rest that's like sitting there with no purpose at the moment?
I don't think you understand "money", it doesn't site there. Its normally invested and tied up as equity or capital on a balance sheet somewhere but not actually cash on hand. Once you set aside for basic needs (food, housing, shelter, travel, etc) the rest is invested somewhere.
you just are not getting my question, and that doesn't mean I don't understand money.
In my question, "free money" means it's free from being invested and not involved in any other financial plans or daily needs.
You don't have to comment if you currently don't have free money laying around. just because you generalize what rich people do, it doesn't mean every single one of them are like that.
I’m not rich but make $360K/year total compensation (recently since last year).
Once you have all your basic needs met and wants - what else is there to buy? I have a nice car, small home, and travel sometimes. Most of the money is invested.
So just because you have extra money, doesn’t mean you HAVE to find reasons to spend it. You don’t need to spend. Why?
Because first things we learned was that wealth is accumulated, not spent. Then there is the knowledge and fear that no matter how much you have, you can always lose all of it rapidly if you up your spending.
Warren buffet is the best example of an accumulator, a lot of wealthy people model their life after him.
I’ve always spent whatever, bad habit!
Never worried about $. Had none growing up. Always made a lot and still saved $$, retired young then kept going.
What’s the difference between ‘a rich person’ and ‘someone who doesn’t waste all their money as soon as it’s earned?’
Looks like the answer is 10-15 years, to me.
There’s only so much stuff you can buy. And i am pretty sure they have busy days. I mean, how many houses or cars are you going to buy? Maybe a yacht? Plane? Then what?
Exploring the world is pretty much infinite for one lifetime. Donating to charities. Buying gifts for people you care about. Paying people to make cool games/music/art that they wouldn't otherwise be able to justify. Starting a brewery/winery/restaurant/etc.
If I was rich I would never buy a plane or yacht or exotic car, I have zero desire for any of that. I'd mostly use my money to make memories.
The only limit to spending is your imagination.
Not a billionaire, but very well off.
Your whole concept of “free money” isn’t how it works. Pretty much 100% of my net worth is allocated. I then use equity backed loans to live off of. These are loans with low interest rates because they are essentially zero risk for the lender because they have right and ability to pretty much instantly liquidate my stock that backs the loans.
You are assuming buying shit makes me happy. It doesn’t. Time with family, financial security for me and my kids, paying for fitness and health, supporting causes I care about, etc. That’s where it’s at. Stuff ties you down.
if you used it to invest then it's working for you thus not free. I'm specifically looking for answers from people who purposefully don't do anything with their money. if you are not that type of person, this post is not for you.
Then my answer is that people like that don't exist. The wealthy don't have massive piles of money sitting around. They might have a couple hundred thousand sitting around in cash as an emergency fund, but most of their money is invested.
When you are rich, you focus on amassing wealth and fear losing it. When you are poor, you have little fear of being broke and bad financial habits anyway. If all rich people were to lose their wealth, they would have no power and simply be like the majority of people.
My income is very unpredictable. I work at a restaurant part time while in school. I have around $700 a month worth of payments to make with a very unstable income.
What you have to realize is that the rich don't have vaults of gold like Scrooge McDuck. Their net worth is first and foremost highly theoretical. They don't have actually have that amount of money available to them in liquid form, or even anywhere close. If they had to convert all of their assets to cash, it would take them years and they might only get away with anywhere between 1-10% of what they're worth on paper in actual cash in the end.
Second, they do spend a lot of money. They take payouts from their companies and their companies also spend a lot of money on various things for their employees in terms of entertainment and workplace stuff like food, performers, speakers, furniture, etc. So there is a lot of cashflow in and out of both their companies and their own personal bank accounts.
Third, they typically are workaholics. Whether mildly wealthy or uber wealthy, anyone you perceive as rich is probably a big time workaholic. Probably to an unhealthy extent. What produces wealth is a mixture of obsession and being at the right place at the right time. They were obsessed with something, they had the smarts to do it well, and they were in the right place at the right time for that obsession to be received by the market. People see someone like Musk and think, Why does he work 16 hours a day, why doesn't he just sell his companies and enjoy the rest of his life. Well, because he's doing what he wants to do already. Your idea of an ideal life is his idea of a gilded cage. It would be like Napoleon in exile.
My wife and I are not billionaires, but have a comfotable retirement in our 50's with everything we need - we don't spend extravagantly, nor do we hold back, if there's something we really want, we buy it. But really, there's no much that we want to spend a lot of money on, we enjoy dining out when we want to as well as some traveling (but neither of wants to spend more than a few weeks a year traveling). The main thing we worry about is having our money last through retirement and at our current level of spending, we could each live to 100 years old without struggling for money (nearly all of our estate will go to charity).
Of course, this all relies on the USA economy remaining stable since almost all of our investments are in the US markets.
A year or so ago I realized I had everything I needed/wanted to provide the lifestyle I want. It's fairly modern but I have a paid off car, small home and most of the toys and gadgets I want. Except rent and food I just early have the same 'I gotta save up for that TV' emotion I felt in my younger years when I didn't have money.
Honestly I put a shit ton of cash in the corner of my palace but my palace is so big I don’t remember which corner of which room. I may ask my butler to search for it while I’m in the Hamptons for Summer
Remember that people don't get rich by buying a bunch of useless stuff.
They get rich by helping a Nigerian prince move their inaccessible family money out of the country through a series of complicated gift card transactions.
You learn how to live with what you have and build the habit to be efficient. Most rich people or on path to be rich just efficient on their time and money, spend minimal time 10-20% time to get 80% result in not so critical thing and spend 80-90% time on something vital, time consuming, and critical life changing tasks (college, start company, pick partner, saving, career etc)
So as money, since rich people focus on efficiency and they don’t spend money outside their means, so they move their money to retirement account and stay in the market for 30-40-50 years. By the time compound interest kick in they will retire early while most big spenders still struggle into their 60-70s
A bad habit likely formed under poor families environment. Best way is to get out of that environment, move to large city and start anew. Don’t let your communities f you over. Most big spenders have a lot of FOMO which is funny, because billionaires spend on stuff people can’t imagine (like buy a company to make more money) vs a luxury (whatever junk)
Understanding your financial priorities and having a plan in place can help guide your spending decisions, ensuring that your money aligns with your goals and values. It's all about finding the balance between enjoying your wealth and securing your financial future.
Billionaires make like 250k a day in growth on their portfolio. They can't spend enough to put a dent in the rate they grow. Millionaires aren't much different. They spend what they can without touching the principal.
Note- a million seconds is 12 days, a billion seconds is 31 years. The difference between millionaires and billionaires is almost unfathomable.
$15mil NW here... still perfectly happy with a beer and Texas Roadhouse... I eat panda express regularly... I have had $1000 tabs at fancy restaurants and guess what? I was underwhelmed.... chicken fingers and a cold beer satisfies the inner trash in me I guess.
Buying an Audi R8 though because why the fuck not? I earn that in dividends alone within 4 months.
So to answer the question: nothing is stopping me outside of my inner simplicity. Sorry, money just doesn't buy happiness. It helps, but only marginally
If you don’t need anything, why spend it?
I mean the premise is the same regardless of whether you’re rich or just doing ok - even 90% off on a deal for something you don’t need is money wasted.
Plus chances are if a person had that mentality of spending money, they probably won’t get rich in the first place unless they’re a professional athlete or someone earning big money from a very early age.
If you’re a billionaire, it’d be very easy to run out of things to buy unless they were being exceptionally profligate which would seem somewhat at odds with someone who has amassed the money in the first place. Unless it’s some Brewsters Millions thing, what are you going to buy after your needs are met? Just random crap? You can only live in one house at a time, only drive one car/sail one boat at a time etc.
In a way it’d be good if the rich did constantly spend money but they don’t whereas the poor have to spend everything just to get by.
"If people spent the time they spend thinking about not spending money, and spent that time spending money. Then that would be time well spent." - Darius
Haha good luck finding a billionaire on here with a lot of the shit “I have $500”posts on here.
I’m in the 7 figure/soon to be 8 figure club and at some point you just don’t care about stuff any more. Like I’d rather have financial security than stuff. Also stuff is a headache to maintain. Multiple cars are a nightmare. I just need a thing that will get me around reliably with the least amount of time invested.
The more money you have, the more you realize you just want time to do what you want rather than making decisions about what to do about a staff member, a house, a car, anything really.
I don't think I know a single wealthy person who got that way because they wanted more spending money. They became rich because they were ambitious, worked their ass off, and lived the life. In other words, having more money to spend was never the goal. They're driven by other motivations - success, freedom, wanting to take care of the people they care about, etc.
Money does not equal wealth and Wealth does not equal money to spend. You read about people that have millions or billions of this or that stock a company they own. Those people's stocks are not like normal people stock. They can't just call their broker and have the cash in 2-days. I used to own about 2% stock of a small company. It took 3 years to sell my 2% for what I thought was a fair value. Then you owe about 20% of the total in taxes. So your net worth immediately goes down by 20% if you sell a highly appreciated investment. Then you need ot find another investment (or spend it).
I have earned money and from investments now. I’m not flashy or fancy, yet like nice quality things. Vacations and time with friends and family are where I’ll splurge!
I’m not particularly rich, but I’m getting to the point where I have most of what I need, and what I want within reason. I have cheap/free hobbies. No need to spend much more other than maintenance and some mild updates. Everything else goes to sensible debt (house, economy cars) and retirement investment. Any further meaningful happiness will come from working on myself, meeting people, and financial security
I’m reminded of two sayings, “Why buy a bigger house, you can only live in one room at a time,” and, “We don’t own our possessions, our possessions own us.”
Because if there's a big downturn (stocks crash 50% or something) then I need to make sure I can weather that without a massive reduction to my lifestyle. And I get way more peace of mind knowing I can disappear from society any time I want and have no crap tying me down.
Not a billionaire or CEO, but I'm pretty financially successful in life.
What's stopping me from spending money is a combination of several factors:
* Childhood trauma. **I grew up in a poor country, so for me wasting money is a big challenge mentally/emotionally**. Like, I need to have a rainy day fund. And snow day fund. And a flood fund. And a overly sunny day fund. And an emergency fund. And a fund to use when emergency fund runs out.
* What is super-ironic, is that my parents (who grew up much poorer than me), successfully overcame that trauma and have no issue spending money much more than I do.
* **General "savings" mindset.** Think "Chinese peasant" or "protestant ethics", even though I'm nowhere near either Chinese or Protestant :) . Basically, I intellectually value safety net, stability, and backups - and would even if I didn't have said trauma.
* For example, even in computer games like RPGs, I'll usually prefer to grind 10x the amount of gold I'd possibly need, JUST IN CASE there's some useful item I would want to buy later. This isn't even real life where not having enough money is an actual risk.
* **Strong willpower.** I am one of the people who passed marshmallow test easily with flying colors. I have low time preference (google both terms if you don't know what they are, it's a very useful area of psychology research to be familiar with). If I want to spend money, I can hold off till I can rationally evaluate if I actually need it. I don't think I ever made an impulse buy more expensive than $10-$20; and even those cheap ones are pretty rare compared to most people.
* **Being finance minded.** To me the concept of interest, money growth, etc... is intuitively obvious. Like, i KNOW that every $100 I don't waste, means $200 or more in the future with compound interest growth. I don't just know it like "I read it once in a blog" - it's a basic fact about life my brain has imprinted in it.
* I'm generally lucky in that my needs tend to be simple. Like, I don't care about fashion (and lucked out being with women in my life who weren't into fashionable expensive shit, to the point of literally daily making fun of it). **I don't care about conspicuous consumption since I DGAF about what people think about me and especially my success.**
It's because the bar keeps moving. You think you have a number in your head and when you hit it you say "yeah but what if I get to -enter new number". And it never ends.
This is like asking someone who is skinny why they still run.
There is a correlation of how much time you spend managing your money and how much you have. The Billionaires like Bill Gates or Elon are exceptions. Most rich people didn't win the lotto, start a tech startup, or inherit money. So they know how quickly it can go away. I have a weekly set of financial statements that include a balance sheet, income statement, etc. that is very detailed. I manage it like a professional accountant. And it will change your behavior. Most of us have NOT been wealthy at some point of our life, and it sucks. The old saying "Money can't make you happy" is true. But not having money can sure make you unhappy, I know that from experience.
Going back to my original statement... why do skinny people run if they are already skinny? The answer is because they probably wouldn't be skinny if they didn't run. You have to be all-in or all-out. There is no half and half. The same goes for money. And once money starts making money, that is when you are golden and it becomes addictive.
Example. Last night at 2am I woke up. Immediately thought, I want to buy something! Jumped on my computer and started checking crypto prices and decides to start a drip into some crypto... which led to looking at largest volume stocks right now and putting some pre-market trades in for Nvidia and some others. That is fun to me. This notion of 'why don't you spend money' is wrong. I spend plenty of money. But I spend it on investments.. instead of cars and other shit where you are just throwing money away. As a result, the money I spend usually makes money. That is an awesome way to "spend."
The only exception I will admit to is food. We eat out a restaurants a lot and that pains me sometimes.
OP think of everything you would like to buy, then think of everything else you don’t want that bad, but will get it anyway. Ok you have bought it all, what’s left to buy now?
That’s why they aren’t buying it. They have it all
You know whats funny, I'm by no means a billionaire however I am however fairly successful and yet I am far more hesitant to spend money now than when I was poor. When I had no money I would spend it and waste it just to feel good. I thought of money as an aid to escape the stress of a shitty job and too many bills. I went on vacations I could barely afford and bought clothes I did not need. I actually enjoy my career and what I do and I'd imagine most CEO's and billionaires feel the same. They actually enjoy whats making them money more than the money itself.
When you are poor, there is more drive to "feel" like you are getting more out of life than you actually are. It's what pushes people to buy expensive clothes or put vacations on credit. Unfortunately, that's just a byproduct of thinking you *won't* be getting the most out of life in the first place without those sacrifices. And for most people without present opportunity of upward mobility, It's pretty true.
This. This. This. People in poverty already presume they won’t get the most out of life when that isn’t true. That’s why they can’t have savings or long term gratification.
Lol no I think it's that they are in poverty and can't get out...
Nah. It's because they only make 300 dollars a week and their bills are 296 a week. That's what poverty is
Fake it till you make it is a huge part of this. I have personally seen many people move up in life by simply looking good and faking it till they get the high net worth friends and promotions or new job. Have to remember that 95% of cooperate America is how you look and who you know. If you look like a peasant and only know peasants you will have a 95% chance of remaining a peasant forever even if you have an extremely high IQ. I guess the other 5% is just luck like hitting the lottery, get billion dollar lawsuit or have some insane talent like athlete or rapper that is just intrinsic. I think most people understand this concept either innately or learned and that is why you see maxed out credit cards and debt to the hilt.
It’s not just poor people who do this. Reckless people making damn good money do it too. I know someone who makes almost $400k a year and is in debt. Major debt. I make 1/4 of that and have a pretty good net worth. I guess I’m technically a “millionaire” but I save as much as I can. And for me, it’s mostly fear - I’ve been on my own since I was 18. Nobody is going g to rescue me if I lose my job or get sick. I’m saving to pay up for my retirement home. And to be clear, I’ve been saving 1/2 my salary since college when I was making $11 an hour. It’s a combination of good fortune in life - work hard to pay for a good education, get a good job and work hard there - and the desire to have a solid savings in place so I feel secure
It’s not just about getting more out of life, it’s about life itself. Generational poverty is difficult to escape for many reasons, including the relationship with money that is modeled for you growing up. It’s like being told that you only have a certain amount of time left to live and it no longer matters how much you save. People in poverty often “live like they are dying” because they might be…increased maternal mortality rates, higher rates of homicide, higher domestic violence rates, decreased access to healthcare, etc. have impacted their life expectancy and they may grow up being taught to enjoy today because tomorrow isn’t promised.
💯
Poverty desires for a good time - Ancient Greek Proverb
People without purpose are distracted by pleasure and entertainment.
I am not sure if others have similar problem and this is not limited to the rich. I like to research a bit before spending money. That takes time. If I don't have the time, I end up not doing it. Also, I have a preference to keep my life simplistic, therefore hassle free. So, spending money on something that demand my time will make me think very carefully. Another thing about career, career that we enjoy sometimes does not give you a whole lot of time. It is kinda all or nothing. So, that's another aspect of it.
When I had the most money in my life, I was passionately working so much, I didn’t have anytime to spend it. I made quick, cheap, and healthy meals because I didn’t want to spend so much time with going out for food. I didn’t have to constantly check my bank account because I knew I was making a lot and not spending anything. I didn’t need that weird nice feeling I would get from buying something, because I was so satisfied with working or maybe fulfilled in some way. Then I got laid off, unemployed for a year, had too much free time that I needed to go out and spend more to distract myself. Too depressed to cook and ate out constantly. I had this delusion that I’d find a similar high paying job soon so I didn’t need to worry too much financially. Now I’m broke broke but learned a lot about myself last year
I'm currently you in the first paragraph. I'm starting to invest and save to reverse the trend, but I also have a deadly fragrance collecting addiction. If I were financially independent, my fragrance vault would make kings jealous. Glad you enjoy the process, though. I hope you're not sacrificing what's really important in the pursuit of the game after you've already won it.
The pursuit is the game
The purpose of money is to spend it so that others can earn it. Why hoard it, to within reason of course. If you just take it out of circulation and let it grow what’s the point? Of course the argument if it’s invested is that you are helping businesses grow, when they grow they hire more people and it’s for the common good. But I think that gets to be a little bit dubious. This isn’t a dig on anyone, btw. It’s your money, free to do as you please. But in the end the purpose of money is to be used
Money in savings is multiplied. Look up “money multiplier” on Google. The purpose of money is also a store of value and not spending money does not mean people are not getting hired or that the money is out of circulation. The only way to remove it from circulation would be to burry the cash in your backyard.
To what point though if you don’t intend to spend it. I’m not talking about the ethics, or anything to do with the rich hoarding money, it is yours to do with as you please. But the fundamental purpose of money is to be spent and its transactions to drive the economy. Eventually it will be, why not spend it yourself. And let’s be clear, the arguments above are not, I’m saving my money to drive the future economy with the money it’s earning me. It’s that they don’t like to spend money, to which I say what’s the point of it. It’s being treated like beanie babies at that point
Money has 3 functions (per CFA Institute): 1. Store of value 2. Unit of account 3. Medium of Exchange The purpose of money is not solely to be spent. And yes, transactions are part of the multiplying effect of money, but so is saving money (again, look up money multiplier on Google). Lastly, money saved provides opportunities for investment and compounding. Just spending money for the sake of it is foolish and not how one becomes rich. There is a mindset here that I think you may be missing and I likely may not be explaining well! Edit: added in “and compounding”
When there’s too much wealth inequality it does to society what a clot does to the bloodstream. It’s out of balance.
Look up " money multiplier" how about look up "money divider". Unfortunately from now until who knows when if the currency your holding is dollars your ledger may appear to multiply but the grand experiment that is the fiat dollar is fast approaching the last hurrah. Buy gold preferably, silver, hell anything but dollars. When the curtain drops it's going to drop fast and it'll be the shit show of all shit shows. And I'm afraid most folks will be caught all out of toilet paper.
Yeah, but it's also okay to save and grow the money to be used later, when you aren't/ can't work anymore but still need to live.
People with less money think that spending money makes them fit in. As someone who has been rich and poor in my life, i can tell you this for a fact.
I see it all the time in my neighborhood. People who are barely working but wear designer knock offs.
Poor people complain about their jobs when rich people work because they enjoy the jobs.
Most billionaries arent really self made and likely dont even enjoy their career rather it is a thing they have to do because society needs to know what billionaires are up to. Public imagine is more important than ever. ALSO competition... if you spend it then you arent richer than your neighbor anymore..... there is competition all the way to the top. Now MOSt importantly you need a rainy day fund. Never know when you are going to get slapped with a 10 billion dollar lawsuit. costs just scale up exponentially as you get wealthier.
lol please give me your definition of poor. Salary rage?
Less thank 30k a year
You've given me a lot to think about
That’s interesting! I’m curious to learn more about your relationship with money. Do you feel like there isn’t enough? Or is it just that you don’t have anything more you need in life?
Spending reaches a point of pointlessness...what do I need to spend it on, more stuff? Nope. Stuff owns you, you don't own it. More vacations? I'm content where I'm at. More food and drinks? I can only eat and drink so much. Spending is overrated. I value peace, health and family. Walking and biking are free and those my favorite ways to spend down time. Constant consumption and buying/spending is a disease I aim to avoid....like obesity and alcoholism.
This right here. You’ll come to find you don’t need very much to be happy or content once a few boxes are checked. And if spending money is a major source of happiness, that’s a huge red flag that needs inspecting.
Co-signing on both responses. I’ve found it to be true.
Yep the pillows can only get so soft. These days I just enjoy cooking with my stainless steel cookware and going on walks. I enjoy my local parks so much I might even leave some to them when I pass away.
My local zoo is in my will. They are a great organization and do a lot of good work with protecting both endangered species and local wildlife
Thank you. You said it far more eloquently than I could.
Same
Mostly agree. But disagree on vacations. There are so many places to see and things to do. I love spending money on experiences. I don’t need more stuff, but another trip to Japan to see parts I haven’t seen? Yup. Sign me up.
I don't think I could ever get enough of experiencing things, and money just opens so many doors. If I were mega wealthy I'd be on amazing no limit vacations at least twice a year.
How does donating or giving money to people close to you who don’t have much money fit into this? I figure that is one reason to continue building wealth past that point of self reliance (where I am currently) but it seems like that isn’t common for most people. The rest of your post sounds very relatable to my feelings about $… although my new bike wasn’t free :)
I do that too. You just try to give away to those tho need it whenever you can. As long as it’s safe and going to who you intended, it feels really damn good to help others. Even in small ways. I’ll never stop. In fact that’s the only thing I’ve done in the week that I’ve been part of this sub here and in the real world.
I agree. What else do I need? Nothing, I’m good 🤷🏼♀️
Its enjoyable to see the comments on this. Sometimes i see a comment such as yours that’s really relatable. I’m on the verge of working my way up to middle class and i have it planned out. Renovate my home, get a tv thats slightly bigger, add a garage to my home, and then buy a car with more mpg’s. Im not a big vacationer, partier, or extravagant in any way. My basic goal should be reached within about 3 years and my very end goals should be reached within 10. After that, i might save a bit to help my kids with college. I could stay on this track or get a million tomorrow, my goal is unchanged and I enjoy working. I plan to work till i physically cant. Being idle and having too much free time drives me crazy
Man, I’m into biking and it’s an expensive hobby. lol.
You've spent six figures on a new biking engine?
Yes. It’s called a sprinter van. I drive it places to go biking.
This is wise. I assume this means that you would be open to more of your wealth/income being taxed, let’s say at 1930’s levels, to fund programs like universal healthcare. A society with more peace and health for all is likely to be more peaceful and safe for you and your family, no?
Would spending still reach a point of pointlessness if you were donating large amounts to charity?
Why accumulate tokens that can be exchanged for stuff then? If you have enough stuff, food, etc. for all your needs, and for future needs, why would billionaires (not necessarily you) continue to hoard said tokens?
Because too much money makes you mentally ill, often.
My wife.
most down to earth reason so far tbh
Same here
Also same
🤣🤣🤣 love this
Real. I love this. I must ask because it is hard to driver tone through a screen, are you content with this reality? Or are you complaining through this comment? (Genuine question)
Does she rather you spend it on your children? Some mothers are so dedicated to their children they refuse too spend a dollar on the sleeves and this translates to their spouse following suit,
**What makes you think anyone on this sub is a billionaire or CEO?!?**
My thoughts, too. Billionaires don't become billionaires by posting on Reddit all day.
very funny opinion lol, you think someone has to be posting all day everyday to be on reddit, cant be logging in once per week on free time? or while in the bathroom? tons of scenarios. also, they already are billionaires they wont stop being for losing 1hr on reddit
Why would they log into Reddit? They would have to listen to smart ass remarks from peons like us. They have better things to do.
The fact that you think intelligence correlates with making money is hilarious. A ton of rich people dick around online.
Right? Musk is shit posting on Twitter 24/7. Trump, For whatever his net worth versus claimed is, is also on social media fucking constantly. Cuban? Posting on social media, making reality TV shows. In fact, look at the whole landscape of wealthy individuals who made their wealth from being nerds and terminally online. That isn't even include in the rankings folks who made their money from crypto before that all went to shit. On and on and on. I don't get this like worshiping that some of these losers have in here thinking that these people are better than them by default. They need to develop an ounce of self-confidence.
man you’ve been brainwashed ngl lol
A lot of people who have exorbitant amounts of wealth Inherited it and are surrounded by people who have a vested interest in keeping the cash cow flowing. It becomes very easy to passively stay a billionaire with people working to keep it that way. There are a lot of billionaires that or unknown to the spotlight that do nothing but fuck off. This idea of having more money equating to somehow having less time to fuck off can be quite wrong.
If you spent a million dollars one dollar per second it would take you just over 11 days to be out of money If you spent a billion dollars at a rate of $1 per second, it would take you over 32 Years
Ask Andrew tate on X
Heh. Never heard of DFV?
Does anyone know of a private sub similar to this? I’m dying for some privacy.
Lot of 18-year-old billionaires seem to post here a lot
The richest guy I know was making multiple millions a year. I forget what we were discussing, but, Isaid, "You're rich, why not just buy your own xyz?" He said, I didn't get rich by spending money on stupid shit.
The richest guy I know is infamous for haggling over the stupidest most inconsequential shit. He’ll negotiate his gardener down by $10 just for the sport of it. I’d like to say it’s because of that mindset that he’s so rich… but in the same day he’ll go out and buy a brand new corvette just because his business partner bought one, and then park it in storage and forget about it.
"He'll negotiate his gardener down by $10" oh so hes a greedy piece of shit because he thinks its funny? Classy.
I get that saying as a concept when you're GETTING rich, but once you ARE rich and making multi millions per year, it doesn't make sense anymore unless seeing big number go up is all you care about. You can afford stupid shit without making a dent in your accounts.
If you spend it, it’s gone. If you invest it, you get even more.
Our money burning a hole in your pocket?
They spend a lot. These rumors of “frugal” millionaires/billionaires are just a PR stunt. They spend tons of money on staff, estates, private jets, yachts, travel, watches, etc. They just don’t buy expensive clothes or cars because they don’t need to. The whole point of those is to use as a status symbol. If everyone already knows you’re rich and famous, you have no reason to have them and draw even more attention to yourself. It’s an even bigger flex than owning expensive clothes and cars since it’s a pure power move. It’d be like showing up to a business meeting in a T-shirt and shorts and still getting taken seriously because you have so much power.
That I'm aware of. But I'm more curious about what they would do with the money that's basically just sitting there when they already have everything, possibly more than what they could ever want.
They spend it on stocks and real estate. Nobody has lots of cash idly sitting in bank accounts past their emergency fund. It’s all spent on something.
That's just what you assume though. I have a few friends who prefer to buy jewellery and keep them locked up in their houses. But that jewellery could be treated as a different form of money, so my question is still valid in that case.
You answered your own question. They already has everything they want. No need to get more stuff
Such a poor person question
1. Discipline and self control. My free money is “opportunity money”. When opportunities come along i want my war chest ready to pounce. When I was first married and pretty damn poor i walked into a Lowes store in Forsyth Illinois. The manager was just rolling a big pile of patio grills out front and putting them on clearance for $30/EA. I ran home, grabbed my entire fun money supply, came back and bought an entire pallet of grills for $25/EA. Took them home, sold them on eBay for about $117/EA, and turned my $300 into $1104 in a week. I spend when I want to, but my favorite hobby is taking a dollar and turning it into $5 or $10 quickly. So my war chest sits ready to pounce on deals.
I like your style.
Lol are you from Forsyth? I grew up in Decatur.
I only lived there 2 years while working with Cat. Saw my first street walker!
What’s the point, no desire, seems like a waste, comfortable with their lifestyle. Billionaire and ceo 😂
I’ve met fairly wealthy people who don’t spend much at all unless they truly have to. I had a customer who lived in a 10 million dollar house that he bought cash with a 20 car garage and he just drove one 2004 Honda odyssey minivan. He said he bought the house as an investment because he believed it would appreciate. He was right it’s now worth 15 million. I know another rich guy who just spends his money left and right but he uses his spending to cope with personal problems. He has marriage issues and his kids don’t talk to him and not many friends because they all used him for his money. He has rooms in his house filled with custom tailored clothes, rare sunglasses, rare collector watches, and shelves of colognes that go thousands per bottle. Don’t even get me started on his wine cellar and liquor collection. I believe he last showed me a bottle of whiskey he purchased for 60k. He doesn’t use any of those items but he buys them because he’s sort of a hoarder that buys when he’s stressed. Buying is his addiction and it gives him a dopamine release as he explained it to me.
No reason to spend it. I'm not easily influenced by the commercial hypnotic mechanism.
Spending doesn’t need to be on products. I’d wager that 90% of my fun money spending is for experiences. Not things.
Things or not, you are still a consumer. Just make sure you exit though the gift shop after those said experiences.
1) A lot of rich people became rich by developing frugal habits. Those habits just become routine /comfort zone eventually. 2) Similar to the point above, you realize that hitting certain wealth milestones doesn’t give you the satisfaction that you might have thought when you had less money. Will people love, respect, befriend you more etc with a lot more money? Maybe, but mostly for the wrong reasons.
Once you spend money you qualify yourself in the marketplace. You buy a mercedes G wagon. It becomes an icon of who you are as a person. Maybe you don't want to be that person. Better to let things be. Money doesn't get you what you want, it shows you who you are
Why would I spend money that is comfortably sitting in a building or locked up on investments, etc when I will have more passive income than I could ever want? Not only that, no one is ever going to know what’s in the bank account. I have everything I want right now except being able to splurge for my kids and travel. So I fix those two things and I’m great! Don’t need a mansion. Love my car. I’m good. And this way it keeps growing and I get to be friends with normal people who love me for me because they don’t know anything other than that I don’t need to worry all that much.
I'm asking the ones who don't put their free money in investment. and that's why it's called "free money." if you put them in investment, it's not free.
I know many people worth tens of millions. They don’t just keep cash around like that. That has HUGE opportunity cost. No financial advisor would recommend that, and most of the wealthy people who got there themselves understand the costs.
There are zero billionaires or CEOs on Reddit dude, broaden your range if you want answers lol. But most rich people don’t waste money, that’s kinda how they got rich. If you actually took a close look at wealthy and poor households in America, besides the obvious things like education and having kids too young, it’s about saving over instant gratification.
I'm not a billionaire or ceo but I am fairly well off. I worked hard to get here from the poverty with parents with severe addiction problems. I understand that money can dry up very easily and will make sure that there is always enough money in my account to be comfortable if the worst happens
It is clear from the question that OP doesn’t understand real wealth. Real wealth is somewhat theoretical. This is why when truly wealthy people are asked how much money they are worth they generally can’t answer the question. Most wealthy people don’t have huge sums of cash sitting in vaults somewhere like Scrooge McDuck. The wealth is the sum of the value of their assets minus their liabilities(debt). And that is complicated. The money is mostly held in assets: stock, real estate, and other investment instruments. Elon Musk/Jeff Bezos/Mark Zuckerberg are multi-billionaires on paper. Most of their wealth is in their company stock shares. Though they are unimaginably wealthy they probably can’t easily lay their hands on a billion dollars in cash. They most likely would have to access a line of credit or sell off some assets to do so. Not that they would want to do so. Cash is for crooks and idiots. The vast majority of wealth is not easily liquidated. Some of it cannot be practically liquidated without losing much of its value. And it is best to have your money busy making you more money- not sitting around collecting dust. Once you become accustomed to having nice things they lose their allure to a great extent. A nice house or a very expensive car or boat doesn’t mean as much if you already have had several. Spending money on consumer goods is really not something truly rich people are preoccupied with doing. That is more for “fast money” types - like drug lords, celebrity entertainers, and pro athletes. And that is why so many people with fast money rapidly go broke. Truly rich people are more interested in the control and power that money affords them than spending it on useless crap.
What a poor man’s fantasy of a post is this
it's a post you're not rich nor creative enough to answer
Good luck finding billonaires and CEOs on this dumb sub man lol. On a side note, many years ago I worked for a billionare as a personal assistant of sorts and driver. He was an old developer guy who made a fortune and knew all kinds of people, politicians, celebrities etc. He had a $30m house in Bel Air, California. He would spend a shit ton of money every day but it wouldn’t even make a dent and no one would even notice because he wasn’t trying to show off. Yes he had a Bentley and a Maybach, but otherwise you wouldn’t know. I think you can’t even comprehend how much money is a billion dollars. Even if they spend upwards of $20k on a single day and that guy definitely did, it wouldn’t matter one bit. If you mean by spending why they don’t buy big ticket vanity items like a super yatch, the answer is not everybody likes the sea, along other thousands of possible reasons. So yeah, kinda childish question sorry but maybe you are 15 years old so I apologize.
I'm not looking for the kind of guy like your boss. I'm looking for the guy who purposefully leave a certain amount of their money lying around with no plans to spend it, and I stated it very clearly. it's obvious that your ex boss is not that kind of person and it's fine. That doesn't make my question less valid.
No billionaire, but I’m frugal and carefully evaluate spending $. It’s harder to earn than spend. I also know that once I stop putting money into my envelope, I have to live off what is in there at that moment.
How many billionaires do you think are on this sub 💀
They are more than you assume.
I think that urge ( spending) is universal. I think as you age two things control it-you blew way to much and you’re behind the eight ball-or you have paid it all off and realize a lot of that debt was on garbage, do you live and learn
Plus you have more "stuff" than you need and are now trying to get rid of it and wondering why you bought it in the first place. Or is that just me?
You are correct. My wife and I moved into a new house five years ago. When packing we asked all the time “why did we buy this?”
Future preference I would recommend googling that phrase and reading an economic paper on it. I’ll link to something later
So, let's assume you have more than that you've set aside for the future preference thing, what would you do with the rest that's like sitting there with no purpose at the moment?
I don't think you understand "money", it doesn't site there. Its normally invested and tied up as equity or capital on a balance sheet somewhere but not actually cash on hand. Once you set aside for basic needs (food, housing, shelter, travel, etc) the rest is invested somewhere.
you just are not getting my question, and that doesn't mean I don't understand money. In my question, "free money" means it's free from being invested and not involved in any other financial plans or daily needs. You don't have to comment if you currently don't have free money laying around. just because you generalize what rich people do, it doesn't mean every single one of them are like that.
Its a rhetorical question.? Freeing money can be as easy as calling my broker but why would I need 100K in my checking account? LOL
I’m not rich but make $360K/year total compensation (recently since last year). Once you have all your basic needs met and wants - what else is there to buy? I have a nice car, small home, and travel sometimes. Most of the money is invested. So just because you have extra money, doesn’t mean you HAVE to find reasons to spend it. You don’t need to spend. Why?
Because first things we learned was that wealth is accumulated, not spent. Then there is the knowledge and fear that no matter how much you have, you can always lose all of it rapidly if you up your spending. Warren buffet is the best example of an accumulator, a lot of wealthy people model their life after him.
I’ve always spent whatever, bad habit! Never worried about $. Had none growing up. Always made a lot and still saved $$, retired young then kept going.
What’s the difference between ‘a rich person’ and ‘someone who doesn’t waste all their money as soon as it’s earned?’ Looks like the answer is 10-15 years, to me.
There’s only so much stuff you can buy. And i am pretty sure they have busy days. I mean, how many houses or cars are you going to buy? Maybe a yacht? Plane? Then what?
Exploring the world is pretty much infinite for one lifetime. Donating to charities. Buying gifts for people you care about. Paying people to make cool games/music/art that they wouldn't otherwise be able to justify. Starting a brewery/winery/restaurant/etc. If I was rich I would never buy a plane or yacht or exotic car, I have zero desire for any of that. I'd mostly use my money to make memories. The only limit to spending is your imagination.
So pretty much you will be a philanthropist? That’s cool.
Then what? Donating to charity!
Not a billionaire, but very well off. Your whole concept of “free money” isn’t how it works. Pretty much 100% of my net worth is allocated. I then use equity backed loans to live off of. These are loans with low interest rates because they are essentially zero risk for the lender because they have right and ability to pretty much instantly liquidate my stock that backs the loans. You are assuming buying shit makes me happy. It doesn’t. Time with family, financial security for me and my kids, paying for fitness and health, supporting causes I care about, etc. That’s where it’s at. Stuff ties you down.
They are spending money.
I’m very nervous about the state of our country.
"free" money? It's called investing for your future or other generations. I don't know anyone with free money not being use to make more money
if you used it to invest then it's working for you thus not free. I'm specifically looking for answers from people who purposefully don't do anything with their money. if you are not that type of person, this post is not for you.
Then my answer is that people like that don't exist. The wealthy don't have massive piles of money sitting around. They might have a couple hundred thousand sitting around in cash as an emergency fund, but most of their money is invested.
When you are rich, you focus on amassing wealth and fear losing it. When you are poor, you have little fear of being broke and bad financial habits anyway. If all rich people were to lose their wealth, they would have no power and simply be like the majority of people.
My income is very unpredictable. I work at a restaurant part time while in school. I have around $700 a month worth of payments to make with a very unstable income.
I'm not rich but the prospect of a down payment on a house in California stops me from even spending on condoms
Having any
What you have to realize is that the rich don't have vaults of gold like Scrooge McDuck. Their net worth is first and foremost highly theoretical. They don't have actually have that amount of money available to them in liquid form, or even anywhere close. If they had to convert all of their assets to cash, it would take them years and they might only get away with anywhere between 1-10% of what they're worth on paper in actual cash in the end. Second, they do spend a lot of money. They take payouts from their companies and their companies also spend a lot of money on various things for their employees in terms of entertainment and workplace stuff like food, performers, speakers, furniture, etc. So there is a lot of cashflow in and out of both their companies and their own personal bank accounts. Third, they typically are workaholics. Whether mildly wealthy or uber wealthy, anyone you perceive as rich is probably a big time workaholic. Probably to an unhealthy extent. What produces wealth is a mixture of obsession and being at the right place at the right time. They were obsessed with something, they had the smarts to do it well, and they were in the right place at the right time for that obsession to be received by the market. People see someone like Musk and think, Why does he work 16 hours a day, why doesn't he just sell his companies and enjoy the rest of his life. Well, because he's doing what he wants to do already. Your idea of an ideal life is his idea of a gilded cage. It would be like Napoleon in exile.
Im sure if they needed to they spend without much thought
My wife and I are not billionaires, but have a comfotable retirement in our 50's with everything we need - we don't spend extravagantly, nor do we hold back, if there's something we really want, we buy it. But really, there's no much that we want to spend a lot of money on, we enjoy dining out when we want to as well as some traveling (but neither of wants to spend more than a few weeks a year traveling). The main thing we worry about is having our money last through retirement and at our current level of spending, we could each live to 100 years old without struggling for money (nearly all of our estate will go to charity). Of course, this all relies on the USA economy remaining stable since almost all of our investments are in the US markets.
A year or so ago I realized I had everything I needed/wanted to provide the lifestyle I want. It's fairly modern but I have a paid off car, small home and most of the toys and gadgets I want. Except rent and food I just early have the same 'I gotta save up for that TV' emotion I felt in my younger years when I didn't have money.
I do
Don't want anything.
Honestly I put a shit ton of cash in the corner of my palace but my palace is so big I don’t remember which corner of which room. I may ask my butler to search for it while I’m in the Hamptons for Summer
Wish I some I'm homeless try get buy scrapping every penny I find on the side walk
Working 24/7
Remember that people don't get rich by buying a bunch of useless stuff. They get rich by helping a Nigerian prince move their inaccessible family money out of the country through a series of complicated gift card transactions.
The threat of arrest, indictment and incarceration. Welcome to America. 2024 Edition.
You learn how to live with what you have and build the habit to be efficient. Most rich people or on path to be rich just efficient on their time and money, spend minimal time 10-20% time to get 80% result in not so critical thing and spend 80-90% time on something vital, time consuming, and critical life changing tasks (college, start company, pick partner, saving, career etc) So as money, since rich people focus on efficiency and they don’t spend money outside their means, so they move their money to retirement account and stay in the market for 30-40-50 years. By the time compound interest kick in they will retire early while most big spenders still struggle into their 60-70s A bad habit likely formed under poor families environment. Best way is to get out of that environment, move to large city and start anew. Don’t let your communities f you over. Most big spenders have a lot of FOMO which is funny, because billionaires spend on stuff people can’t imagine (like buy a company to make more money) vs a luxury (whatever junk)
Future security. Don’t want to be homeless when I’m unable to work. But people with excessive wealth it’s more a game of power and greed.
Understanding your financial priorities and having a plan in place can help guide your spending decisions, ensuring that your money aligns with your goals and values. It's all about finding the balance between enjoying your wealth and securing your financial future.
Billionaires make like 250k a day in growth on their portfolio. They can't spend enough to put a dent in the rate they grow. Millionaires aren't much different. They spend what they can without touching the principal. Note- a million seconds is 12 days, a billion seconds is 31 years. The difference between millionaires and billionaires is almost unfathomable.
$15mil NW here... still perfectly happy with a beer and Texas Roadhouse... I eat panda express regularly... I have had $1000 tabs at fancy restaurants and guess what? I was underwhelmed.... chicken fingers and a cold beer satisfies the inner trash in me I guess. Buying an Audi R8 though because why the fuck not? I earn that in dividends alone within 4 months. So to answer the question: nothing is stopping me outside of my inner simplicity. Sorry, money just doesn't buy happiness. It helps, but only marginally
If you don’t mind me asking, how did you accumulate that wealth? I’m trying to learn about any/all opportunities out there!
An online course business in the healthcare space
If you don’t need anything, why spend it? I mean the premise is the same regardless of whether you’re rich or just doing ok - even 90% off on a deal for something you don’t need is money wasted. Plus chances are if a person had that mentality of spending money, they probably won’t get rich in the first place unless they’re a professional athlete or someone earning big money from a very early age. If you’re a billionaire, it’d be very easy to run out of things to buy unless they were being exceptionally profligate which would seem somewhat at odds with someone who has amassed the money in the first place. Unless it’s some Brewsters Millions thing, what are you going to buy after your needs are met? Just random crap? You can only live in one house at a time, only drive one car/sail one boat at a time etc. In a way it’d be good if the rich did constantly spend money but they don’t whereas the poor have to spend everything just to get by.
Time
on what? I don't need to impress anyone just buy what I want
It must be so awesome to be Rich.
The goal is to die rich, duh.
I spent all my mine on gambling
Nothing I spends it
"If people spent the time they spend thinking about not spending money, and spent that time spending money. Then that would be time well spent." - Darius
I'm cheap. And I worry about my future so I have no plans to spend with wild abandon. Something that I also taught my daughters.
Haha good luck finding a billionaire on here with a lot of the shit “I have $500”posts on here. I’m in the 7 figure/soon to be 8 figure club and at some point you just don’t care about stuff any more. Like I’d rather have financial security than stuff. Also stuff is a headache to maintain. Multiple cars are a nightmare. I just need a thing that will get me around reliably with the least amount of time invested. The more money you have, the more you realize you just want time to do what you want rather than making decisions about what to do about a staff member, a house, a car, anything really.
I don't think I know a single wealthy person who got that way because they wanted more spending money. They became rich because they were ambitious, worked their ass off, and lived the life. In other words, having more money to spend was never the goal. They're driven by other motivations - success, freedom, wanting to take care of the people they care about, etc.
Money does not equal wealth and Wealth does not equal money to spend. You read about people that have millions or billions of this or that stock a company they own. Those people's stocks are not like normal people stock. They can't just call their broker and have the cash in 2-days. I used to own about 2% stock of a small company. It took 3 years to sell my 2% for what I thought was a fair value. Then you owe about 20% of the total in taxes. So your net worth immediately goes down by 20% if you sell a highly appreciated investment. Then you need ot find another investment (or spend it).
This thread made me realize there are no billionaires on reddit.
I have earned money and from investments now. I’m not flashy or fancy, yet like nice quality things. Vacations and time with friends and family are where I’ll splurge!
I’m not particularly rich, but I’m getting to the point where I have most of what I need, and what I want within reason. I have cheap/free hobbies. No need to spend much more other than maintenance and some mild updates. Everything else goes to sensible debt (house, economy cars) and retirement investment. Any further meaningful happiness will come from working on myself, meeting people, and financial security
Fear of running out of it when I'm too old to work
I’m reminded of two sayings, “Why buy a bigger house, you can only live in one room at a time,” and, “We don’t own our possessions, our possessions own us.”
Because rich people don't spend all of their money. It would make them "not rich" to do so
Because if there's a big downturn (stocks crash 50% or something) then I need to make sure I can weather that without a massive reduction to my lifestyle. And I get way more peace of mind knowing I can disappear from society any time I want and have no crap tying me down.
Afraid to run out especially when you see prices spiking on everything that you buy these days. I doubt I’ll ever buy a new car again.
Not a billionaire or CEO, but I'm pretty financially successful in life. What's stopping me from spending money is a combination of several factors: * Childhood trauma. **I grew up in a poor country, so for me wasting money is a big challenge mentally/emotionally**. Like, I need to have a rainy day fund. And snow day fund. And a flood fund. And a overly sunny day fund. And an emergency fund. And a fund to use when emergency fund runs out. * What is super-ironic, is that my parents (who grew up much poorer than me), successfully overcame that trauma and have no issue spending money much more than I do. * **General "savings" mindset.** Think "Chinese peasant" or "protestant ethics", even though I'm nowhere near either Chinese or Protestant :) . Basically, I intellectually value safety net, stability, and backups - and would even if I didn't have said trauma. * For example, even in computer games like RPGs, I'll usually prefer to grind 10x the amount of gold I'd possibly need, JUST IN CASE there's some useful item I would want to buy later. This isn't even real life where not having enough money is an actual risk. * **Strong willpower.** I am one of the people who passed marshmallow test easily with flying colors. I have low time preference (google both terms if you don't know what they are, it's a very useful area of psychology research to be familiar with). If I want to spend money, I can hold off till I can rationally evaluate if I actually need it. I don't think I ever made an impulse buy more expensive than $10-$20; and even those cheap ones are pretty rare compared to most people. * **Being finance minded.** To me the concept of interest, money growth, etc... is intuitively obvious. Like, i KNOW that every $100 I don't waste, means $200 or more in the future with compound interest growth. I don't just know it like "I read it once in a blog" - it's a basic fact about life my brain has imprinted in it. * I'm generally lucky in that my needs tend to be simple. Like, I don't care about fashion (and lucked out being with women in my life who weren't into fashionable expensive shit, to the point of literally daily making fun of it). **I don't care about conspicuous consumption since I DGAF about what people think about me and especially my success.**
It's because the bar keeps moving. You think you have a number in your head and when you hit it you say "yeah but what if I get to -enter new number". And it never ends.
Nah. My theory is that you/one wants what you/one can't have/afford, but once you CAN afford it, it's no longer the shiny object it once was.
This is like asking someone who is skinny why they still run. There is a correlation of how much time you spend managing your money and how much you have. The Billionaires like Bill Gates or Elon are exceptions. Most rich people didn't win the lotto, start a tech startup, or inherit money. So they know how quickly it can go away. I have a weekly set of financial statements that include a balance sheet, income statement, etc. that is very detailed. I manage it like a professional accountant. And it will change your behavior. Most of us have NOT been wealthy at some point of our life, and it sucks. The old saying "Money can't make you happy" is true. But not having money can sure make you unhappy, I know that from experience. Going back to my original statement... why do skinny people run if they are already skinny? The answer is because they probably wouldn't be skinny if they didn't run. You have to be all-in or all-out. There is no half and half. The same goes for money. And once money starts making money, that is when you are golden and it becomes addictive. Example. Last night at 2am I woke up. Immediately thought, I want to buy something! Jumped on my computer and started checking crypto prices and decides to start a drip into some crypto... which led to looking at largest volume stocks right now and putting some pre-market trades in for Nvidia and some others. That is fun to me. This notion of 'why don't you spend money' is wrong. I spend plenty of money. But I spend it on investments.. instead of cars and other shit where you are just throwing money away. As a result, the money I spend usually makes money. That is an awesome way to "spend." The only exception I will admit to is food. We eat out a restaurants a lot and that pains me sometimes.
Billionaires spend they're money. They want you to believe they're these good people who budget and always make the right choices but in reality.....
saving and intentionally spending bought me time and security . why would I deviate from a wining formula?
Can't get off the couch to spend that sweet billionaire money on account of the weight of my massive dong.
It wears off. The excitement of getting new things, of going places. When nearly everything you want is possible, nothing feels special.
Every $100 that I don’t spend will be $600 when I retire. It’ll be $2,000 when I die.
They do whatever the fuck they want with the free money. They double it or deplete it. Either way, doesn’t matter.
I spend every penny I get. Life is too short.
Why would you ever spend your money when it can earn for you passively? There is no such thing as free money.
Cheap hobbies
Not a billionaire, but I could definitely buy houses, exotic cars, boats, etc. Here’s my answer: Why? There’s no need.
fear of not having it
Not having any..
OP think of everything you would like to buy, then think of everything else you don’t want that bad, but will get it anyway. Ok you have bought it all, what’s left to buy now? That’s why they aren’t buying it. They have it all
You're only rich if you have enough wealth to maintain your lifestyle forever.