They say money can't buy happiness, but it can buy a lot of things that make you happy!
1. Well, one ultra-rich person in particular. The CEO for a company I used to work for put a giant tank (pool) with a submerged "sunken ship" inside of it in his back yard so that he could scuba dive around in it.
2. Watching the weather report for multiple cities with ski resorts. If a lot of snow drops someplace, on moments notice a group of about a dozen will meet up at the private jet and go skiing for a couple days. During the trip, they might jet over to see a nearby sporting event. Then back to work as if nothing special just happened. A couple days later the designated accountant on the trip will send a spreadsheet around to everyone with their part of the bill for the trip. This bill can also include loses from the poker games played on the jet during flights.
3. Dated a guy who had a place at Ocean Reef (super exclusive, extremely wealthy community in upper Florida keys).
Sat with 5 other couples, going back and forth about whose mega yacht we should take out that evening.
Bob and Cindy's is the closest to the canal... but oh, Jim and Donna's is bigger! But, Mark and Tina's jacuzzi is already heated!... but Dale and Ira's has a full staff tonight!
I was just like... I have a kayak...
Ashleym527
4. Seasonal furniture.
"Well, it's getting on into April so we better get the spring couches and chaise lounges out of storage, and swap out the winter dining table and china for the spring set. Better get out all the matching drapes, too."
7ofalltrades
5. Buy property in London and dig out the basement 2-3 stories for conversion to luxury living.
6. Buying and selling people. Let me explain... (Continued)
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Buying and selling people. And then getting them to battle in front of an audience of thousands of people. On a football field.
7. Legally watch current theatrical films in the privacy of your own home theatre.
8. They buy fine art - museum-quality pieces - when it becomes for sale and hold on to it until it appreciates to a point where it's worth more to collectors than they originally paid for it.
That way, not only do they make a tidy profit, but they also get to enjoy the artwork in their homes as it increases in value.
Back2Bach
9. Oh it gets so much better than that. They give it away and make money doing so. This information is pretty old, so these loopholes might have closed or changed in some places, but it goes like this:
1. Buy painting for $1 million
2. Painting appreciates to $2 million
3. Donate painting to a museum. Museum pays you the $1 million you originally paid for it, so you get your original money back.
4. The $1 million of appreciation is considered a donation, which is tax deductible so you get to deduct that from your taxable income. This saves you (in the US) ~40% of $1,000,000 (or $400,000). In the past or in other countries, the top tax rate might be as high as 60% or even 90%.
So, you get your money back, plus a $400,000 (or $600,000 or $900,000) profit. You don't have to pay capital gains on the appreciation of the painting. You also don't have to pay a broker's fee. Plus, selling a multi-million dollar work of art can take a long time and with an auction, there's no guarantee you'd get the appraised price anyway. With an appraisal, you get someone to tell you what the price is. You are paying the appraiser. What do you think the odds are he's going to tell you a price you don't like?
Pretty sweet deal if you ask me.
Before 1969, this worked as described above. But, the top marginal tax bracket abused the crap out of this loophole, so they changed it. Since then, you do have to pay capital gains tax on a portion of the difference between the sales price and the fair market value, as I'll show below.
People have a bit more to say about this, so I'll go through... (Continued)
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Complaint #1 It's not a donation if you get paid! You just sold it cheap!
Yes and no. The portion of the fair market value that you got paid for is a sale. The portion of the value you didn't get paid for is a donation. Note this only works when you're selling something to a qualified charity. It's called a "bargain sale".
Complaint #2 You could sell it and make a $1 million profit!
Yes, sometimes. Obviously people still sell art so it's not always best to donate. But remember, this isn't a used lawn mower you can throw on Craigslist and someone will come pick it up this afternoon. There's maybe a handful of people in the world who can afford a multi-million dollar work of art and might be interested in buying it. If none of them happen to want the piece you're selling, you're out of luck. You ain't selling no art today.
Because of the aforementioned scarcity of buyers, you're going to need a broker like Sotheby's or Christie's to sell it. They don't work for free. They can charge up to 20% of the sales price in fees. So your $2 million sale - $400,000 fee gets you $1.6 million. Some money right now is often worth more than theoretical money some years later, or maybe never.
Complaint #3 The museum can't/won't pay for a painting!
They can and will. They can turn around and sell it for the fair market value for a $1 million profit because they're a non-profit so they don't have to pay capital gains tax and they're a museum so they don't have to hire a broker because people who want to buy art will come to them. If it's a particularly famous piece (which it probably is if it's doubled in price) they can exhibit it and drive ticket sales.
Also, as other people mentioned, this is only the tip of the iceberg. You can loan it to a museum and get a deduction for that. You can start your own museum and avoid taxes that way. There's all kinds of crazy things you can do with trusts.
Look, I'm not going to say rich people are all smart. I've met plenty of dumb ones. But you don't get and stay rich by being stupid about money. If they're paying millions or tens of millions of dollars for art it's because there's an angle in it somewhere where they can come out ahead. Yes, they're not infallible, they can get burned sometimes (you don't get rich by being risk-averse either), but they're not just romantic art-lovers either.
PMMeUrHopesNDreams
10. The following is a true story based on real events
"Hey -whostolemyusername- you wanna fly down on my jet to Myrtle Beach and Golf tomorrow?"
"uh...I have work...sorry"
11. Using the term "Summer" as a verb. (eg: we're going to summer in the Hamptons)
12. Go abroad for dinner.
I hear of wealthy Londoners (or nearby) who simply jump in their helicopter and fly to Paris for an evening meal, then come home again.
Eddie_Hitler
13. Having house managers at all of their properties. These people coordinate all the domestic staff, and manage the properties so that they are instantly liveable at a moment's notice (down to the flowers of choice in every room) even if the owners only come in for a week or two in a year.
Their secretaries will usually call the house manager the day before saying "oh they'll be in London for a few days" and the manager will arrange everything from the pickup at the airport in the cars he knows each member prefers, coordinate with the secretaries to figure out any appointments they may have, instruct the chef to make their favourite menus.... all of this is done without any input from the owner. That's what they pay for.
all-you-need-is-love
14. This one is pretty messed up. My classmate at university was from a wealthy Russian family that had (Continued)
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that had deep connections to the government and oil industry. He was so ridiculously rich that I couldn't even fathom it.
Anyways he found a few friends of similar ilk and they started some kind of underground club where they would fly in really hot Instagram models from all over the world for "photoshoots". In return for buying them nice clothes and things like that, they would hold just ridiculous sex parties where some really messed up stuff went down. Think the kinkiest of the kinky and that is what they did.
The only reason I even knew about it is because I worked as a part-time limo driver and these guys would occasionally hire me to drive their girls around. Before you ask, I never got in on the action.
[deleted]
15. I just learned the other day that wealthy families go on "shopping trips" to other states just for shopping.
Never considered that some people might say "hey this weekend, let's fly to New York and get some new stuff." without having an underlying reason to be there (visiting family, business, tourism)
Also, my friend growing up had another friend who had a legit Giraffe taxidermied (?) in his bedroom that was multiple stories.
haffbaked
16. I was once offered the opportunity for someone to run me a bath for $500 at a hotel (no added perks, not sexual, no company- just a bath with rose petals blah blah). No thanks.
17. I had some family friends growing up that had a handmade monopoly table.
It was wooden with silver pieces, and they used real cash.
ohgreatitsryan
18. I have a relative by marriage who buys land just so (Continued)
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just no one can develop it.
19. Met a cool young girl at my college - she was like a princess - she said that was the closest English word to describe her status. Before coming to school, she had NEVER - dressed herself, bathed herself, walked up or down stairs without a maid holding her hand... I initially found this out when I heard her ask someone for help going down a flight of, like, 6 stairs. She was cool about it, though, and learning.
20. Not just the ultra rich doing it, but a new one on me... Valet garbage service.
I was out in LA walking around a neighborhood (not gated). You tell it was the kind of neighborhood where people would have housekeepers.
It happened to be garbage day. Suddenly all these brown skinned people appeared. They went into the yards, got the garbage cans from where they were stored. Wheeled them out to the curb, then as soon as the garbage truck passed, they wheeled the garbage cans back into hiding.
I talked to someone who lived there and turns out it's part of the homeowners' agreement that garbage cans cannot be left on the curb at all and they paid an extra fee for this mandatory valet garbage service.
Maggie_A
21. Building an extra wing onto the mansion to display 30,000 mounted dove heads.
22. My cousins have travel-around tutors that go with them when they travel around the world, so they technically never miss school. They aren't bound by the schedule of public or private schools in Texas, where they technically "live".
Also, they were just in South America shooting (Continued)
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Also, they were just in South America shooting Dove (apparently) and they killed 30,000 in a single week, between my uncle, his 15-year-old son and his 12-year-old son.
My step-grandfather (uncle's father) was...displeased about the display, despite having been a hunter his whole life. Somehow, in his age, he's discovered the wrongness of some of the things he's killed. Specifically about doves he said, "I was at the [country club] last week and they have lots of doves out there. The regular gray ones and the white-wing variety. And they're just so beautiful and I said to myself, 'How could you have ever killed these magnificent things? How could you look at yourself in the mirror?'"
This man has been a hunter for most of his life and he's sworn off of it forever. He doesn't even fish anymore.
SheaRVA
23. A girl I know is a nanny for a very rich family and they flew her to the other side of the world to take care of one of their three kids. Just one. The other two have their own separate nannies.
mepulixer
24. Buying their kid's way into a particular school, especially alma maters.
All it takes is a few well-timed donations, and suddenly your kid gets a private tour, lunch with alumni relations officers, and consultations with an admissions specialist. There are all sorts of assurances that this is so the kid can get to know the school, and that none of these people influence admissions.
But really. Assuming the kid isn't truly dumb, a couple hundred thousand goes a long way in helping them "stand out" from the crowd.
25. Old money in my part of the world have a thing for fully restored private railcars, with all the modern amenities of a high end RV. They pay to have a track branched to their personal storage shed and then take them out maybe once every other year. Of course the process of taking them out involves paying a company such as Amtrak to haul the thing to their main line, hook it up to a commercial passenger train, and then lug them around the country to their destination. Get a handful of private railcar owners together and they hitch up, rent an engine, and tour the country with close friends the old fashion way on entirely private luxury train.
NathuramGodse
Experiencing death is a fascinating and frightening idea.
Who doesn't want to know what is waiting for us on the other side?
But so many of us want to know and then come back and live a little longer.
It would be so great to be sure there is something else.
But the whole dying part is not that great, so we'll have to rely on other people's accounts.
Redditor AlaskaStiletto wanted to hear from everyone who has returned to life, so they asked:
"Redditors who have 'died' and come back to life, what did you see?"
Sensations
Happy Good Vibes GIF by Major League SoccerGiphy"My dad's heart stopped when he had a heart attack and he had to be brought back to life. He kept the paper copy of the heart monitor which shows he flatlined. He said he felt an overwhelming sensation of peace, like nothing he had felt before."
PeachesnPain
Recovery
"I had surgical complications in 2010 that caused a great deal of blood loss. As a result, I had extremely low blood pressure and could barely stay awake. I remember feeling like I was surrounded by loved ones who had passed. They were in a circle around me and I knew they were there to guide me onwards. I told them I was not ready to go because my kids needed me and I came back."
"My nurse later said she was afraid she’d find me dead every time she came into the room."
"It took months, and blood transfusions, but I recovered."
good_golly99
Take Me Back
"Overwhelming peace and happiness. A bright airy and floating feeling. I live a very stressful life. Imagine finding out the person you have had a crush on reveals they have the same feelings for you and then you win the lotto later that day - that was the feeling I had."
"I never feared death afterward and am relieved when I hear of people dying after suffering from an illness."
rayrayrayray
Free
The Light Minnie GIF by (G)I-DLEGiphy"I had a heart surgery with near-death experience, for me at least (well the possibility that those effects are caused by morphine is also there) I just saw black and nothing else but it was warm and I had such inner peace, its weird as I sometimes still think about it and wish this feeling of being so light and free again."
TooReDTooHigh
This is why I hate surgery.
You just never know.
Shocked
Giphy"More of a near-death experience. I was electrocuted. I felt like I was in a deep hole looking straight up in the sky. My life flashed before me. Felt sad for my family, but I had a deep sense of peace."
Admirable_Buyer6528
The SOB
"Nursing in the ICU, we’ve had people try to die on us many times during the years, some successfully. One guy stood out to me. His heart stopped. We called a code, are working on him, and suddenly he comes to. We hadn’t vented him yet, so he was able to talk, and he started screaming, 'Don’t let them take me, don’t let them take me, they are coming,' he was scared and yelling."
"Then he yelled a little more, as we tried to calm him down, he screamed, 'No, No,' and gestured towards the end of the bed, and died again. We didn’t get him back. It was seriously creepy. We called his son to tell him the news, and the son said basically, 'Good, he was an SOB.'”
1-cupcake-at-a-time
Colors
"My sister died and said it was extremely peaceful. She said it was very loud like a train station and lots of talking and she was stuck in this area that was like a curtain with lots of beautiful colors (colors that you don’t see in real life according to her) a man told her 'He was sorry, but she had to go back as it wasn’t her time.'"
Hannah_LL7
"I had a really similar experience except I was in an endless garden with flowers that were colors I had never seen before. It was quiet and peaceful and a woman in a dress looked at me, shook her head, and just said 'Not yet.' As I was coming back, it was extremely loud, like everyone in the world was trying to talk all at once. It was all very disorienting but it changed my perspective on life!"
huntokarrr
The Fog
"I was in a gray fog with a girl who looked a lot like a young version of my grandmother (who was still alive) but dressed like a pioneer in the 1800s she didn't say anything but kept pulling me towards an opening in the wall. I kept refusing to go because I was so tired."
"I finally got tired of her nagging and went and that's when I came to. I had bled out during a c-section and my heart could not beat without blood. They had to deliver the baby and sew up the bleeders. refill me with blood before they could restart my heart so, like, at least 12 minutes gone."
Fluffy-Hotel-5184
Through the Walls
"My spouse was dead for a couple of minutes one miserable night. She maintains that she saw nothing, but only heard people talking about her like through a wall. The only thing she remembers for absolute certain was begging an ER nurse that she didn't want to die."
"She's quite alive and well today."
Hot-Refrigerator6583
Well let's all be happy to be alive.
It seems to be all we have.
Trying to lose weight is a struggle understood by many people regardless of size.
The goal of reaching a healthy weight may seem unattainable, but with diet and exercise, it can pay off through persistence and discipline.
Seeing the pounds gradually drop off can also be a great motivator and incentivize people to stay the course.
Those who've achieved their respective weight goals shared their experiences when Redditor apprenti8455 asked:
"People who lost a lot of weight, what surprises you the most now?"
Redditors didn't see these coming.
Shiver Me Timbers
"I’m always cold now!"
– Telrom_1
"I had a coworker lose over 130 pounds five or six years ago. I’ve never seen him without a jacket on since."
– r7ndom
"140 lbs lost here starting just before COVID, I feel like that little old lady that's always cold, damn this top comment was on point lmao."
– mr_remy
Drawing Concern
"I lost 100 pounds over a year and a half but since I’m old(70’s) it seems few people comment on it because (I think) they think I’m wasting away from some terminal illness."
– dee-fondy
"Congrats on the weight loss! It’s honestly a real accomplishment 🙂"
"Working in oncology, I can never comment on someone’s weight loss unless I specifically know it was on purpose, regardless of their age. I think it kind of ruffles feathers at times, but like I don’t want to congratulate someone for having cancer or something. It’s a weird place to be in."
– LizardofDeath
Unleashing Insults
"I remember when I lost the first big chunk of weight (around 50 lbs) it was like it gave some people license to talk sh*t about the 'old' me. Old coworkers, friends, made a lot of not just negative, but harsh comments about what I used to look like. One person I met after the big loss saw a picture of me prior and said, 'Wow, we wouldn’t even be friends!'”
"It wasn’t extremely common, but I was a little alarmed by some of the attention. My weight has been up and down since then, but every time I gain a little it gets me a little down thinking about those things people said."
– alanamablamaspama
Not Everything Goes After Losing Weight
"The loose skin is a bit unexpected."
– KeltarCentauri
"I haven’t experienced it myself, but surgery to remove skin takes a long time to recover. Longer than bariatric surgery and usually isn’t covered by insurance unless you have both."
– KatMagic1977
"It definitely does take a long time to recover. My Dad dropped a little over 200 pounds a few years back and decided to go through with skin removal surgery to deal with the excess. His procedure was extensive, as in he had skin taken from just about every part of his body excluding his head, and he went through hell for weeks in recovery, and he was bedridden for a lot of it."
– Jaew96
These Redditors shared their pleasantly surprising experiences.
Shopping
"I can buy clothes in any store I want."
– WaySavvyD
"When I lost weight I was dying to go find cute, smaller clothes and I really struggled. As someone who had always been restricted to one or two stores that catered to plus-sized clothing, a full mall of shops with items in my size was daunting. Too many options and not enough knowledge of brands that were good vs cheap. I usually went home pretty frustrated."
– ganache98012
No More Symptoms
"Lost about 80 pounds in the past year and a half, biggest thing that I’ve noticed that I haven’t seen mentioned on here yet is my acid reflux and heartburn are basically gone. I used to be popping tums every couple hours and now they just sit in the medicine cabinet collecting dust."
– colleennicole93
Expanding Capabilities
"I'm all for not judging people by their appearance and I recognise that there are unhealthy, unachievable beauty standards, but one thing that is undeniable is that I can just do stuff now. Just stamina and flexibility alone are worth it, appearance is tertiary at best."
– Ramblonius
People Change Their Tune
"How much nicer people are to you."
"My feet weren't 'wide' they were 'fat.'"
– LiZZygsu
"Have to agree. Lost 220 lbs, people make eye contact and hold open doors and stuff"
"And on the foot thing, I also lost a full shoe size numerically and also wear regular width now 😅"
– awholedamngarden
It's gonna take some getting used to.
Bones Everywhere
"Having bones. Collarbones, wrist bones, knee bones, hip bones, ribs. I have so many bones sticking out everywhere and it’s weird as hell."
– Princess-Pancake-97
"I noticed the shadow of my ribs the other day and it threw me, there’s a whole skeleton in here."
– bekastrange
Knee Pillow
"Right?! And they’re so … pointy! Now I get why people sleep with pillows between their legs - the knee bones laying on top of each other (side sleeper here) is weird and jarring."
– snic2030
"I lost only 40 pounds within the last year or so. I’m struggling to relate to most of these comments as I feel like I just 'slimmed down' rather than dropped a ton. But wow, the pillow between the knees at night. YES! I can relate to this. I think a lot of my weight was in my thighs. I never needed to do this up until recently."
– Strongbad23
More Mobility
"I’ve lost 100 lbs since 2020. It’s a collection of little things that surprise me. For at least 10 years I couldn’t put on socks, or tie my shoes. I couldn’t bend over and pick something up. I couldn’t climb a ladder to fix something. Simple things like that I can do now that fascinate me."
"Edit: Some additional little things are sitting in a chair with arms, sitting in a booth in a restaurant, being able to shop in a normal store AND not needing to buy the biggest size there, being able to easily wipe my butt, and looking down and being able to see my penis."
– dma1965
People making significant changes, whether for mental or physical health, can surely find a newfound perspective on life.
But they can also discover different issues they never saw coming.
That being said, overcoming any challenge in life is laudable, especially if it leads to gaining confidence and ditching insecurities.