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holdenc

Is this question really that hard to answer? I'll take some stabs:

- Dalton (school) for the kids, and a nice donation to the alma matter to assure legacy status

- Museum board memberships for the wife

- A vanity career in writing, photography or abstract art

- The best therapist money can buy

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That... honestly sounds horribly pointless to me. As in, I read that and thought "Aaaaiieeee!" Am I the only one who feels that way?

No, it's got to be humour - these are things real rich people do which sound awful, not things "holdenc" really cares for.

Oh.

I think I got caught by a corollary of Poe's Law to the effect that without a smiley, there's no parody of terrible ways to spend money that somebody won't mistake for reality.

"The best therapist money can buy"

It seems like the best therapist money can buy would almost by definition be reasonably priced.

Paying more money for a better therapist is somewhat like paying more money for better wine and scotch. You don't want to pay too little, but there's a point where you reach diminishing returns, and it's more about a tradeoff between time and money, or the ability to say you spent money prestigiously.

The best therapist I ever saw charged the typical amount. It had to do with who we both were as people.

If you want to drink better wine and scotch, then educate yourself, associate with knowledgeable people, and devote time and money to finding what you like. The same probably goes for therapists.

I remember reading (and cannot find the source) that therapy has a very high happiness vs spend ratio.

It makes some sense : If a couple of hours talking things over with a sensible person can make you happy with your current state, maybe there's no need to try an 'blow your mind' with some pointless extravagance (fast, expensive car, for example). Many of the best things in life are free - if only you can appreciate them.

Are there any high profile examples of people who didn't change their lifestyle much at all?

Probably, but the problem is if they didn't change much they are probably not high profile. The millionaire next door type of thing.

It's quite possible to be high profile because of what made you rich, not because of how you spend money. Bill Gates would still be known even if he lived in a $1500/month appartment, drove a car worth $500 and left all his money unused in a bank account.

At one time, Warren Buffett would have been a perfect example, but I think he has a private plane now, which dilutes the impression a bit.

He was forced to be his shareholders, actually, because wasting time in coach was reducing shareholder value.

He also owns the company - marquis jet (well, it's parent who i can't remember the name of).

NetJets. Warren Buffett was a customer for 3 years before buying the company, though. The Marquis card is interesting, but I think the traditional fractional ownership plan is a lot more popular.

Yes, it's called "The Indefensible."

Warren Buffet is a one case, for the most part.

Pretty sure I read Zuckerberg still rides a bicycle to work everday, and rents an apartment among other things.

He just bought a $7million dollar house, so....

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/05/mark-zuckerberg-hou...

Mark Gorton also bicycles to work, though from somewhere fancy in New York. Biking to work isn't a financial decision for a lot of people though.

Ingvar Kamprad, founder of IKEA, is said to still fly by coach and be cheap in general. This might just be the public image he's presenting though.

He is, in general, extremely frugal. However, he also owns a chalet and Porsche that he drives when at the private chalet (although, I'd argue that for someone worth more than 20 billion dollars, that's fairly frugal.)

I seem to recall that IKEA offers their more frequent flying employees business class tickets but if they choose to take the standard (slave) class tickets they get 50% of the difference.

I don't know if this is the case any more but I am reasonably certain it was some time ago, alas I have no source.

Michelangelo Buonarroti

Craig Newmark

Yes but I want to say to anyone who wants to do this

Give the money away!

Someone else can do so much more with it.

It really annoys me when people do the "I'm a billionaire who drives a pinto" thing.

Either splurge or give but don't just sit on it.

You could, you know, spend it on people other than yourself.

A lot of the philantropic efforts are dealing with manifestations of the problems instead of root causes. They're giving the man a ration of fish instead of fish rods.

Charities that give out food to the hungry take the money away from research that could result in genetically modified foods that are extremely cheap and easy to grow.

Charities that provide college scholarships for gifted/athletic/underachieving/overachieving students contribute to overall inflation of the cost of education for everybody else.

Splurging doesn't achieve a net effect of life improvement for society in general, and neither does blind charity.

Sometimes the effects are even directly counterproductive: if you dump loads of free grain into a poor society, guess what happens to local farmers who are trying to grow and sell grain for a living?

So your point is what? Giving to charities is universally bad? One should should just throw out the whole concept of charity, because some are less effective than others?

Original poster suggested "just giving" instead of "sitting on the money". Implied rushed decision can be counter-productive.

Bill Gates is a good example of efficient philantropist, instead of donating to charities who spread awareness about malaria or global warming, he invests in lasers that kill malaria mosquitos and deep-ocean technologies that prevent global warming.

Ah I see the confusion now. I didn't mean to do it without thinking about it.

Just that it frustrates me that someone who could happily live with $70,000 a year sits on millions or more.

Make use of the money in some way for someone even if its not yourself

- The best therapist money can buy

Or a round trip to Peru, where a good shaman can sort you out with a carefully planned ayahuasca experience.

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