In this case, it might seem to be "what trick can I use that ultra-wealthy use?" or "how can I be prosperous on a budnget" but it really is "what is it like to be rich?"
I think the conclusion is probably that they don't buy anything we don't know about.
You could have a single part-time minimum wage job and you're not going to waste your time worrying about $0.05/mo. 60¢ a year? Please.
Going for an exotic tropical beach location? Well they normally stay in sterile 5* bubble which is boring beyond belief and very unauthentic. You can go ie to Seychelles or Bali, live with locals in cheapish airbnbs, swim on same beaches or go to same restaurants they do, if you want, or even better eat with locals too. You can dive on same spots, kite surf on same spots etc. You will remember such vacation much more than they will do.
Or another typical one - skiing holidays. You can go ie to Verbier or Chamonix and ski next to kings, princes or industry moguls on same slopes they do, use same lifts, but you can ie go of piste for some extra fun. Sure afterwards you can only go to public spa but that may be better equipped than their private one. Or you can paraglide over them (on your own, not with paid instructor). And so on and on...
I know you can outmatch them only on specific aspects of those experiences, but that part is rather easy. Rich play their game of life in general very safely, so you can have way cooler things if you take some risks, and invest time into learning how to get best out of travels and adventures. Rich generally pay others to figure these out for them, and then of course such service is not well tailored to specific personality and expectations as much.
Example 1: the overwater bungalow in the Maldives where I could watch fish swim under a glass table and step right off the balcony into the reef to join them.
Example 2: the stupidly expensive hotel in Laos where my wife and I were the only guests one night, so we got to enjoy a tropical sunset at our private pool bar with our private orchestra playing just for us. (The GM, who dropped by for a chat, told us a honeymooning couple last year had dropped six figures to buy out the place to do the same.)
Very similar experiences can be had in ie Togian islands in Sulawesi. And I could go on. Not everything is yet spoiled for rich.
As said its not full end-to-end experience, ie getting there in economy flight class instead of direct private jet is... well different, but the gist of adventure and reason why actually travel there can be easily matched, or surpassed. While leaving much more intense trail of memories and experiences with locals, which is what you are left with at the end. Instead of having everything served on plate like a clueless baby, you discover and 'fight' for your own adventures. And while paying 1-10% of price rich living next door paid.
Coming back from such vacation makes it feel like it lasted massively longer. 2 weeks feel like a month at least, 3 like few months. 3 months in India & Nepal spent in such way felt, and I am not joking, like decades spent traveling. A very surreal and profoundly enjoyable feeling, when memories of life back home feels like memories from previous life before one reincarnated.
But I'll throw you a bone: it goes both ways. I've had equally memorable experiences doing things like sitting with a couple of farmers on the floor of a jam-packed 3rd class train carriage in Thailand, sharing a bottle of Maekhong and watching the rice paddies go by. And commuting to work with canal boats in Bangkok barrelling down the klongs at ridiculous km/h was much more fun than taking a taxi, as long as you didn't bonk your head on a bridge or slip and fall into what's basically ripened sewage.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/everettpotter/2023/09/17/netfli...
If he wanted to not ski with the poors he would do as rich people already do and go to Deer Valley.
Although last I heard Powder Mountain was pivoting a bit to an premium resort kind of deal, same kind of thing Windham Mountain in NY is doing. Still, neither are pricing out normal skiiers yet, they're just edging in to "do you have more money than sense? dump some of it in this overpriced 'mountain club'" territory. If I had Reed Hastings money I wouldn't bother buying one of them up, I would just fly in to any of the existing nice ones with better terrain and facilities than Powder Mountain (or Windham) have.
This makes no sense to me. First of all Chamonix is hardly what I'd consider a 'rich' people ski resort. You're far more likely to be skiing next to a broke ski bum than "kings, princes or industry mogul". But beyond that, why can't the rich people ski off piste? In fact the rich people have the option to decide on a whim to take a helicopter to the really nice off piste runs and do 7 runs in a day if they feel like it, while you and I can only do one since we have to walk up. They can also travel to some of the finest skiing in the world, do two quick runs, decide the snow wasn't great and then just chill at the hotel bar and fly home early, knowing that it doesn't matter because if they want they can just come back in a few weeks.
Rich people can (and do) do all things you do, but they can also do a bunch of additional things that you and I cannot hope to do.
The topic is stuff they buy that I don't know about.
> Title: What do insanely wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about?
> Text: I was just spending a second thinking of what insanely wealthy people buy, that the not insanely wealthy people aren't familiar with (as in they don't even know it's for sale)?
The comment just plain and straight doesn't answer the question being asked.
It's kinda amazing how much more it is upvoted than comments with relevant answers. Maybe because emotions from dreaming of what it's like being rich (that's what it actually goes about) are so strong, the interpretation of the question is getting bent towards experiencing them.
Money can't buy happiness but nether could the absence of money. It's not really a good argument against money.
Probably all of the current problems in my life could be solved with money.
CAN you be happy because you have money? Yeah, why not. WILL you be happy if you have money? No guarantees at all.
It always depends on the circumstances and the person but generally I would say that money can definitely buy happiness. I think that sentiment is mostly cope by those less wealthy.
This is a symptom of societal unfairness. In this case there are different ways to react, but this is one of them. Tennis isn’t oppressing anyone, so no one is getting emotional about the pro tennis players knowing all the tips.
But the story since the 70s has been that you can have anything you want if you just work hard enough and are skilled enough (particularly in North America and the UK). Which means that if you don’t have something you want, then it is no one’s fault but your own.
Except in realty there are a whole host of external factors that influence once’s ability are accrue nice things.
It’s hard to reconcile these two things in our minds. We don’t have any narrative except the current one. So either we accept that we’re simply not good enough, or we accept things are broken with no solution. The former is often the most emotionally tolerable.
So when people see people with more than them, they don’t think, “good for them, we all choose how much we want to work for and I’m happy at my level”. Instead there is a collision of irreconcilable thoughts, and what comes out is, “they’ll never know what true love is”.