I worked for a wealthy man.

I remember two stories among many:

He once told me he was upgrading the doorknobs and hinges in this house. The bill just for those items came to $45K.

We were both getting coffee in the office once, and he looked towards me and ask, “My socks cost more than everything you’re wearing.”

And he liked me.

Nono, the price of his socks were more than everything you’re wearing. They probably cost the same as your socks :)

I have a couple clients like that. 40k on this, 25k on that. Doinky little overpriced home-improvement geegaws. And I'm thinking, "I could pay off my credit cards and take a year off for my own serious projects, for what you're spending to upgrade your stupid crown molding".

Two nouveau riches run into each other shopping on the Fifth.

- Look at this, got me this tie for $1000

- Hah what a dummy you are, they sell them for 1200 two blocks away!

How did he create this wealth

> “My socks cost more than everything you’re wearing.”

That’s a strange thing to waste money on for signaling. It just showed the lack of understanding on marginal utility on commodity items.

> It just showed the lack of understanding on marginal utility on commodity items.

I think you're showing the lack of understanding of marginal utility.

By the time you're spending $45k on doorknobs, $400 on socks might offer equal marginal utility per dollar.

I think a lot of what this thread shows is that everyone has a different utility function.

That's kind of whats interesting about the modern economy is we can all express our preferences in how we spend. The bottom end has gotten much cheaper and the top end has gotten exponentially more expensive, and in many markets the middle has sort of disappeared.

This contrasts a lot with the 1950s boom era where there was a big thick middle end and not a huge range from bottom to top.

I have a t-shirt I bought at the Gap around 1996 that is still wearable, though a bit worn-looking where the collar meets the shoulder seams. Thick, sturdy cotton. It was probably around $15, which would be about $30 today.

There is no such plain ladies’ fit t-shirt consistently offered anymore. Either tissue-thin and less than $20, or involves a silly print and/or ruffles and lace.

> The bottom end has gotten much cheaper and the top end has gotten exponentially more expensive, and in many markets the middle has sort of disappeared.

This enrages me so much. I hate cheap crap, but I equally hate over the top, necessary, expensive crap.

I prefer something well made, with minimal functions, for a middle price. But finding this is becoming increasingly rare as time goes on.

Renovation isn’t the hobby here, they’re not doing it themselves. But a passion for cooking justifies the high end kitchen. An interest in architecture and design justifies bringing good examples of it home.

Sure, if you have the money and interest, spend it.

But people often conflate "investment" & consumption when its anything related to home renovation. I'd still argue these types of "hobbies" are 90% consumption, and for most of the people I know.. usually financed with loans.

No one I know with a $100k kitchen cooks any better than my poor immigrant grandmother did.

Think of it like a machine shop. Expensive tools work way, way better than cheap ones.

I also have a restaurant grade toaster. It costs quite a bit more than the usual toasters do. But the usual ones would always break after a year or two. The restaurant toaster makes better toast, and has worked fine for 25 years now. It was actually cheaper to get the restaurant grade one over the long haul.

> The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes "Boots" theory of socioeconomic unfairness.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory

On the other hand, if the wealthy person bought the $10 boots and invested the other $40, the investment could throw off enough money to keep him in annual $10 boots forever.

What are you doing to your toasters? My toaster had a good 10+ year run before I ultimately gave it away because I purchased a toaster oven. This was a Target/Walmart unremarkable kit that must surely have cost <$40, most likely something around $20 because I was a broke college kid.

They would just quit. Like my drip coffee maker. The heating element or the switch always breaks after a couple years. It's hard to buy an expensive one, as those always come with lots of buttons and a manual. I just want one that I put the coffee and water in and turn it on.