Someone Asked "What Was The Most 'Out Of Touch With Reality' Thing A Rich Person Ever Said To You?" And 30 People Don't Hold Back

One time a client’s kid gave a coworker an iPad. Brand new, unopened box. My coworker was a little uncomfortable receiving such an expensive gift from a kid.

The kid just said “don’t worry, I just grabbed it out of the gift closet.”

We were confused, so we asked him what a gift closet is. Apparently, their family keeps a whole closet loaded with stuff like this - Apple Watches, cameras, iPads, etc so that whenever they need to give a gift, they always have something on hand.

I have a friend and she is very wealthy. She was talking about finding a charity for Christmas. I mentioned that there were people going places and paying off Christmas lay a ways. I mentioned a town I grew up in as a possibility. I told them the per capita income is 9k. And she said, “9k a month!!!! How do those people live!!!” Then I had to tell her 9k a year. She was floored.
Edited to say: she is actually a very very sweet and caring person and donates millions a year to so many wonderful places and causes.

“Why don’t you just buy a house? It’s going to be cheaper than paying rent.”

Thanks. Just let me find the down payment that I don’t have yet.

A coworker of mine was talking with a parent once (summer camp in a rich town). The parent mentioned how she loved my coworkers dress, and wanted to know where she bought it, with the stipulation that it cost under $10,000… turns she had bought the dress on clearance for something like $10. When she explained this, the parent just laughed like it was a joke, saying “no really, how much was it.” Never seen someone thaaat out of touch.

“My father gave me a small loan of a million dollars.”

My boss asked me why I didn’t just buy a house in her neighborhood instead of renting an apartment. The houses there were $300-500,000 (very pricy for my area), and she was paying me $9/h….I had literally just applied for food stamps.

"Oh you get seasonal depression? Why don’t you just go to the Caribbean for a week and the Mediterranean the next? It always helps me.”

A button fell off my jacket. My rich friend recommended where to buy a new jacket. When I took out the needle and thread, he was very confused.

“Money doesn’t buy happiness”.
I understand the intent behind the saying and obviously money doesn’t physically buy happiness in and of itself, but anyone who has lived poor can understand that that’s kind of nonsense. I’ve been at points where I had zero anything. No money, no resources, nothing to fall back on. I’ve gone hungry. I’ve struggled just to pay for the most simple things. Anything that breaks is a huge problem. When you’re completely broke or struggling to make ends meet, more money would absolutely make you happier. Not having to worry about food makes people happier. It seems that it’s always people with money who say that phrase.

Why have roommates at all? I don't think anyone I knew had roommates. Seems like too much trouble. Just spend the extra hundred on rent and live at peace.

-an 80 year old man.

New CEO started for a large company I used to work for, and six months in she announced changes to the office schedule. No more work from home days (this was years before Covid), and no more flex schedules: strict 8-5 for everyone. This negatively impacted parents like me who dropped their kids off at school on the way to work.

In a subsequent meeting where many of us expressed the difficulties with this new schedule, she at one point said, "look, I get it, change is hard. When our kids were little we had to have three nannies!"

I started looking for a new job right after that.

This actually happened:

I work for a large tech company. My first year there, I had a co-worker that had God level money. We were booked for a business trip to London. I boarded the flight, didn't see him, thought he missed the flight.

I get off the plane and he's texting me from our hotel in London. He arrived 5 or so hours before I did. I get to the hotel, check-in and meet him for dinner. I ask if he took an earlier flight as I didn't see him.

Nope. He told me he was racing his vintage Ferrari(s) in Southern California, lost track of time. Realized he was probably going to miss the flight so he flew his own jet to NY (with the Ferraris on-board), then "grabbed a flight on the Concord" and beat me to London.

And he genuinely said this like he'd just grabbed Starbucks on the way home. He was incredibly down to Earth and very humble, but his assessment of everyday life related to travel was so far out of my realm of reality.

That was my first brush with God level money.

I do IT for the 1% in LA. This is my life all day. “My son crashed his Mercedes, so he and I will stop by the dealership to pick up a new one.”

“You sure he won’t crash that one too?”

“It’s just a car, we can always replace it.”

"Poor people are poor because they're lazy."

Back when I worked in payroll a doctor yelled at me because his administrator didn’t process his bi-monthly incentive on time so it missed his check. He was supposed to go pick up his new Mercedes with that money (it was 6 figures) so he threw a fit to have a check cut that day. Two weeks later that same doctor did not approve a check to be cut for an hourly employee whose hours (2 weeks worth) didn’t get approved on time because it was only $1000 and they wouldn’t miss it. I had to go above him to get it approved because I knew that employee would definitely be negatively impacted by not being paid on time.

My ex was a teacher in a private college in Switzerland. Once she asked her class (5-6 kids coming from ultra rich families) if they knew the price of a loaf of bread. First reply: “uhm… 100 Euro?”

Another time a kid from UAE told her he was paying about 15k of phone bills a month, because he was still using his Emirates SIM card, in roaming all the time. He said it wasn’t much.

Some of them were usually ordering sushi delivery for lunch or dinner, from the nearby city (like 20-25km down from the college which is up in the mountains). It’s like 1 hour round trip by car. They were paying 100-150 CHF delivery fees and thinking that was normal.

The horrific thing is that these kids will be the top managers of tomorrow.

“I don’t think I’m rich.” Said to me by an A-list actor who has made six figures per episode and owns at least 2 multi million dollar homes.

Our CEO mourned having to sell 4 of the company’s private jets in a town hall meeting because it was really personal to him and hurt. Meanwhile the personnel cuts were described as necessary in the same meeting.

I was complaining about mortgage payments, and she said "I know, I finally just took the money out of savings and paid mine off so I wouldn't have to worry about it every month."

“Why does public transport still exist?” This dude was legitimately convinced that there is no reason for public transport to still exist. He thinks that everyone is rich enough to afford cars