Imagen wealth If you earned $1 per second. Then to make 1 million dollars would take you about 11 and a half days. But to make 1 billion dollars, would take you over 31 and a half years.
You see, it’s easy to think of wealth in terms of rich or poor, but broadly speaking, there are arguably 5 different levels of rich, and at each level, things change very drastically.
The difference between what a millionaire can do, and a billionaire can do, is simply staggering. In this post, we’ll be exploring what life is like at each of these different wealth levels, and delving into how the ultra-rich spend their money, including some of their most bizarre and extravagant purchases.
Table of content
- The first level of wealth
- The second level of wealth
- The third level of wealth
- The final wealth level
- Influence
- Prons of Wealth
- Final words
But, as you’re reading, you’ll realize that one of the biggest changes that happen at each wealth level, is perspective. Because prices feel relative to how much you earn.
So if you compare someone who’s earning $40,000 a year with someone earning 400 million a year, it’s 10,000 times more.
This means:
A Lamborghini that costs $300,000, to them is the equivalent of spending $30.A $10 million piece of art? Feels like $1,000.
A $50 million home in the Hamptons? Feels like $5,000.
So whilst to us, those purchases would feel so major, to a billionaire, it’s not even something they need to think about. And of course, when you’re that wealthy, it’s not just items and experiences you can buy.
But we’ll get to that.
The first level of wealth
Let’s instead start off, with the first level of rich: The Top 1% Even though this phrase is synonymous with being extremely rich, if your income is over about $200,000 a year, you would technically be part of the top 1% of worldwide earners.
And so being in the top 1% may not make you feel quite as rich as you think.
Because sure, you can typically afford a nice house and car, but with those things comes higher costs, so you probably don’t feel very financially secure, and you’re likely still working a full-time job.
This is why beyond this level, wealth starts being measured in net worth rather than income.
The more wealth you have, the more assets you have, and you’re probably not making your money from a salary.
The next level of rich is a Net Worth of $10 Million – $30 Million.
At this level, You can live very comfortably and have really nice house. You often fly first class internationally. If it’s a special occasion, you might book a $2,000 suite.
You can afford any healthcare you need, and in fact, no emergency financial situation can destroy your life. But you are still not “rich” in the way that money doesn’t matter.
You still have to be sensible and careful with big decisions. And in the banking world, you’re still not classified as ultra-high net worth.
The second level of wealth
Net Worth of $30 Million – $100 Million At this point, you start playing in the big leagues. And most likely you run or have a controlling interest in a very large company. You always stay at 5-star hotels, and you have multiple residences all around the world you can stay at as well.
You take holidays during prime time, for example going to Monaco for the Grand Prix or Cannes for the film festival. And you won’t bat an eyelid when the place you’re staying at costs $10-$20,000 per NIGHT.
You have personal assistants and are starting to have ‘people’ that others have to talk to to get to you.
You can buy pretty much anything that normal people think of as ‘stuff rich people buy. Like you can get any cars you want, the fanciest jewelry, and so on.
Instead of flying first class, you fly private. Although you’d typically charter a flight owning a private jet fractionally through a service like Net Jets, instead of buying it outright and having to maintain it. But at this level, your social circle changes dramatically too.
You probably socialize with congressmen, Senators, and community leaders. likely very well respected within some high-class circles.
Interestingly though, since you’re likely surrounded by other ultra-wealthy people, you may still feel you don’t have enough.
You may have just bought a new Ferrari, but your friend has a limited edition version. Sure, you just had dinner with a local governor, but your billionaire friend just had dinner with the President.
The third level of wealth
Net Worth of $100 Million – $1 billion to be at this level, you likely have ownership or control of a business that most of the public have heard of, even if they haven’t heard of you directly.
At this point, you can likely socialize with movie stars, rock stars, and the corporate elite. You can go pretty much anywhere you want, and always in style. You have multiple residences with staff, from all over the world, with elite cars at every residence.
If it’s your thing, you might have a private island. And of course, a private yacht to get you there. Almost any experience you can dream up, you can have. Want to play tennis with your favorite tennis star? Call his people.
For a donation of 100k+ to his charity, you can probably play a match with him. Want your favorite band to come and play at your private party? For the right price, they will.
Love art? Your people could arrange for the curator of the Louvre to show you around and show you some masterpieces they haven’t exhibited in years.
If you can dream an experience up, you can likely have it – donations and fees can get you to anyone. Once you have many hundreds of millions of dollars, it’s the same when buying things – you may hire people to find you the most extravagant versions of items possible.
In fact, if you’re ultra-wealthy, you can literally have to GOLD everything.
How about the world’s most expensive iPhone has a 24-carat gold casing, more than 600 white and black diamonds, and sapphire glass for the screen.
This certainly isn’t available to the public, and to buy one you’d need over 15 million dollars.
Rare and exclusive things
At this level, it’s not just about buying the fanciest most luxurious items, it’s about getting the rarest and most exclusive things you possibly can.
You could get a limited edition pen, that costs $160,000, has 4,810 diamonds inside, and only 8 are made each year. Or if you want to go a lot bigger than that, many billionaires turn to art.
Not just rare paintings, but things like this dead shark art piece created by Damien Hurst that sold for $12 million dollars.
Or let’s say you like a piano. Well, here is the same crystal piano that was used for the Beijing Olympic Games. It was purchased at auction by a private bidder for a record $3.22 million U.S. dollars!
Your mind is the only real limit to what is available.
The final wealth level
$1 Billion Net Worth and Above. Before we get into what you can do as a billionaire – which is pretty insane – it’s worth noting that the number of billionaires on Forbes’ annual rich list has significantly increased in recent years, and there are now around 2,755 known billionaires.
Of course, it’s possible there are more who have generational wealth that simply does a good job of staying very very private.
Either way, Forbes estimated these 2,755 billionaires are worth a combined $13.1 trillion, and therefore have more wealth between them than the poorest 5 billion people on earth combined.
These statistics are overwhelming, but let’s actually visualize them, to put things in perspective. This rice example really highlights that even within this billionaire category, the difference between 1 billion and the kind of wealth Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk has, is insanely vast.
Now that we’ve got a better idea of the scale of a billion dollars, let’s look at what you can do with it.
Because essentially, you can buy anything. And I do mean, anything. We’re no longer just talking about luxurious items and experiences. Firstly, you can buy access.
You can ask your staff to contact almost anyone on the planet and get a callback. It’s amazing the level of access and respects a billion can get you, where within an hour you could ask your people to get in touch with someone, and they’d be able to do it.
It’s not just celebrities either, it works the same with powerful people within politics too – especially because the billionaire may well be a donor to their political party.
And so, if you’re a billionaire you may occasionally meet with heads of state and have conversations with them.
Influence
Influence. As a billionaire, you have many ways to shape public policy and the public debate. This isn’t always done in some kind of evil way, like lobbying for lower taxes for rich people.
With your wealth and connections, you can absolutely influence big changes in the world, and not just on a political level. BecauseAnother thing you can buy is IMPACT, through philanthropy and charity.
Your money can literally change countless lives. The question is, how do you distribute it? Clean water for villages?Fund new hospitals? Try to save a dying species of animal.
With money, you can impact almost anything of your choice. But one of the biggest differences with billionaires that are often overlooked is the ability to essentially buy time.
You quite literally don’t have to wait for anything. No lines. No sitting around.
Just think about it… You’ve got your own private jet, so you just show up at the airport whenever you want, sit down in the plane, and 2 minutes later you’re in the sky and can go where you wish.
When you arrive, a driver will have been arranged to pick you up and take you wherever you want to go. Your assistant will have already got you the best table at the restaurant you mentioned wanting to eat at. Or maybe your assistant arranged for a celebrity chef to come to one of your vacation homes instead, at whatever time you choose.
Prons of Wealth
However… believe it or not, there are some downsides to being this ultra-wealthy.
Firstly, it’s nearly impossible to have normal emotional relationships at this level. It can become increasingly difficult to have friends and family that love you for who you are.
They exist, but it is pretty hard to know which ones they are. Because, your world is likely filled with yes men, and people looking to take advantage at every opportunity.
Your trust and connections with people are undoubtedly considerably weakened.
Dating also becomes an odd experience. On the one hand, some of the world’s most beautiful and intelligent women are all around you at parties and events, but again, finding someone you have a genuine emotional connection with is a different story… especially because you’re time is so valuable that you’re always busy and unable to invest in making deep connections with new people.
And even if you do find someone, the relationship balance is skewed in a strange way when you have essentially unlimited money – no matter whether you pay for everything or whether your partner makes their own money, either way, something feels off.
And finally, and most crucially, no level of money can give you everything.
Death is the great equalizer, and losing loved ones, losing your own health, and facing your own mortality, are problems that no amount of money can solve.
Final words
This post looked at several levels of wealth, but the fact you are reading this means you are nowhere close to the bottom of the total wealth pyramid.
It’s easy to look up and feel frustrated that some people have so much more than us, but just look down at the wealth pyramid for a moment.
If you have internet access to read this, plus some food in the fridge, a roof over your head, and a place to sleep… … then you are richer than 75% of this world.
In fact, even if you have $1 right now, you are still richer than the majority of the world who are either in debt or have absolutely nothing.
This post really highlights that rich vs poor is so arbitrary.
It’s not two groups, there are many many levels. And compared to most of the world, you might well be a lot richer than you think…