scholarme, lol, some of them are as large as a Carillac and just as heavy, and that is the reason I will never own a large leather bag. If I hit the motherlode with my investments, I might buy a Chanel mini. Black caviar leather, silver chain, square. That is as large as I can go with a purse. Had a bad case of purse shoulder and will not want to repeat that experience!
I don’t get at all that there is “moral superiority” in paying excessive taxes to the government. Of course, we should all pay what we owe, but there is no superiority in giving it away to the government.
If I felt like giving away all of my money, it would be to worthwhile cause or institution, and that certainly does not include the federal government!
My comment about the towels was really intended to make the point that “rich” depends a lot on one’s frame of reference. Probably I should have said that the towels were color-coordinated with the shower curtain. Now, I don’t think “rich” people even have shower curtains.
My new definition of rich: If a person says, "When I was looking around in the Hermes shop . . . " as if it is more than a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence, the person is probably rich.
A person is probably upper-middle class if the person knows that Hermes is not pronounced “herms,” nor “her-mees,” nor “her-mays.”
I remember reading a story about this issue back last millennium. A male was a landscape designer and planning for a woman who came from old money. She commented on his shirt and he stated he got it at an specific upscale store. She stated that was a store she had never entered or had made a clothes purchase. In his mind, he thought he was going to the stores his clients were using but realized he was wrong.
MamaB–using a trust to avoid estate taxes is legal. One of the tradeoffs of creating a trust is that you give up some control over the money in the trust to a trustee. If money in a trust generates revenues, the trust pays taxes.
Not sure why you feel that a trust violates some moral or ethical code, assuming that assets in the trust were obtained legally.
I recall when Martha Stewart was on trial a few years ago, she showed up for court with her Birkin bag. That was what made the headlines, and apparently her attorneys told her to not bring it to court again!
Enjoying reading about designer clothes, but I just can’t imagine spending $$. Chico’s is more than I want to spend!
@MOWC, too bad my grandmother didn’t know you back in the day ! She refused the advice of her accountant and financial advisor…she was a friend to the IRS
There are so many “classes” of rich people - old money, new money, Yankee money, southern rich, preppy rich, Euro rich, celebrities, tech rich, on and on. It’s impossible to lump everyone together and say this is “what rich people do” or this is “what rich people buy.”
lje62- Unfortunately, when my very wealthy grandmother died, we discovered, to our horror, that she had also refused the advice of her financial advisors and did not protect her assets. We (firstly my parents) lost a lot of money to taxes- needlessly.
"As soon as I told her that the Akris top was too expensive, she agreed and went off looking for alternatives. "
Ha - gourmetmom I thought of you yesterday! I was shopping at Nordstrom with my mother buying her an outfit for my kids’ upcoming college graduations. She was trying on an outfit where she needed a black tank top underneath. She had some at home, so she didn’t need to buy one, so we asked the saleswoman to please bring in a black tank top so we could see how it looked. She brought in one, my mother tried it on, and it turned out to be a St. John black tank top that was $300-something! It WAS really soft! We commented on it, and the woman went and brought us back at $28 tank top, which would have been equally fine in this circumstance.
Today, according to this thread, I am rich beyond belief. I don’t share a bathroom with my husband and I’m wearing a Pucci scarf. I bought it on sale and considered it a major self-indulgence, though 
(My definition of rich includes never having to work or worry about money, ever again. Oh well. Not rich.)
Gourmetmom, that is the point. People behave in different ways with different amounts of wealth. We all know how we behave at our current level of wealth. But we do not really know for sure how we would behave if we were really rich.
I sometimes daydream about winning the lottery. Kind of funny since I do not play the lottery. But my daydream always starts with " I will keep this, and donate the rest." Then I proceed to plan what causes that I participate or believe in that will get donations. It also includes how much my kids will get. It’s kind of a fun daydream while walking or working out for me!
Silly I know because I will never have that kind of wealth. But it is a lot of fun thinking about where I would contribute and could make a difference. I always leave H and I a good chunk however. And we would move to a better, not necessarily bigger, house. And would fly first class and buy some luxuries. In my daydream, at least!
I remember when I was very young working at an IB, our boss called us in the night before a meeting with a client to let us know not to wear anything flashy to the meeting - no Hermes tie or scarf, and no expensive bag/brief case. We were also told not to talk about any exotic vacations/dinners. I remember almost all associates and up at this IB wore Hermes scarves and ties, so we all kind of looked at each other wondered what we would wear. We finally settled on BB Repp ties.and white shirt for guys, and I was on my own.
^^Oldfort - did you know why for this particular client flashy was a no-no?
When DH and I first got married, I bought Jane Bryant Quinn’s book"Making the Most of Your Money."
One of the best lines in that book has stuck with me over the years and it seems to fit here: "*Need rises with income. What was out of the question when you made $25,000 becomes urgent at $50,000 and indispensable at $80,000 *!
^^^presumably because clients don’t like to think that they are paying for that stuff, or that the bill will be padded to accommodate employee luxuries. We had a major customer - one of the biggest retailers in the world, and they demanded frugal. We couldn’t even buy them a cheap fast food lunch - against the rules. Everyone flew coach and stayed at the Residence Inn. Of course, we accommodated all of it and fit right in…this was during the economic boom of the 90s, so it was actually quite refreshing. We had other customers who would order dessert to go from the most expensive restaurants to take home to their spouse - on our tab.
@Pizzagirl Haha! That seems to be the oldest trick in the book.
If OP is interested in shopping habits of the unimaginably wealthy, I suggest reading [Driving the Saudis](http://drivingthesaudis.com/HOME.html).
" A Chauffeurs tale of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness on Rodeo Drive"
" We had a major customer - one of the biggest retailers in the world, and they demanded frugal. We couldn’t even buy them a cheap fast food lunch - against the rules. Everyone flew coach and stayed at the Residence Inn."
Was this Walmart by any chance? They are notorious for this - their suppliers can’t buy them anything.
My father worked in a business that had both Walmart and KMart as clients, and the differences in company culture were quite large. All the KMart guys lived high on the hog, expected to be entertained via Broadway shows and steak dinners and so forth, and were really out of touch with how their core consumer lived. The Walmart guys, because their culture forbade accepting so much as a modest lunch, stayed much more in contact with how “real people” lived.
Few years ago we had a retailer customer who told us that she couldn’t accept a dinner for more than 75 or 100 (whatever was the maximum gift amount). We had a hard time of finding such restaurant to take her out to. Luck for us she didn’t drink, so her portion of the bill was actually below that limit.