Horse expenses are bonkers. I wish all my enemies get into horse stuff as a hobby. I used to work for a boss who made $5 million a year and he would get into SCREAMING fights with his wife in the office over the phone about how they couldn't afford to fly the horses to Europe for her to compete in horse dressage competitions. I'd be working away three doors down and in the hallway he'd be hollering from his office, "LINDAAAA!!!!! WE CAN'T AFFORD IT!!!!!"

He was making $5 million a year and he was MISERABLE. Those stupid horse expenses completely drained his life and finances to the detriment of everything else, he was one of the most unhappy people I've ever encountered in life.

> I used to work for a boss who made $5 million a year and he would get into SCREAMING fights with his wife in the office over the phone about how they couldn't afford to fly the horses to Europe for her to compete in horse dressage competitions.

Something I hold as a truth in life is that the neither money nor what it's spent on is the issue when it comes to spouses screaming at each other about what they can afford.

Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness.

Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.

I think a lot of it is comparison, too. He was jealous of the guy who made $20 million a year and took netjets everywhere. That guy was jealous of the guy who was a billionaire and had his own private jet. They all wanted to be the next rung up the ladder!

Kind of sad, really. They could probably save quite a lot of money in the long run by spending a few quid on a psychologist (assuming the horses could spare it).

> I wish all my enemies get into horse stuff as a hobby

that, or golf

You don't really need to be ferrying quarter million dollar horses to Europe to enjoy having horses. If you're not in an HCOL area, and not doing anything remotely fancy, you should be able to keep a horse for around $1k/month if you have a few grand buffer for vet emergencies, and you're not buying a lot of tack, equipment or supplies. You need to be into horses for their personalities, though, and willing to take on older/rescue cases, and not have fantasies of Olympic competition.

Well, presumably you didn't have a debilitating horse addiction.

(It is fascinating to me, though, how these "I'm broke due to [completely bonkers lifestyle expense]" things span almost all income levels. From "decent salary but has four cars for no obviously explicable reason" to crippling horse addictions, for some people there just seems to be no income level at which they will not screw up their finances.)

I read this book about Michael Jackson called "Untouchable" that detailed how he was $500 million in debt at the time of his death in 2009 due to crazy spending habits. He would walk into an antiques warehouse and buy the entire floor, then rent storage space to hold his new purchases because he had no room in his properties. He also had a 130 person personal staff.

His income was $25 million a year but his spending was at $50 million a year.

https://www.reddit.com/r/interesting/comments/1fc6wsc/michae...

“Crippling horse addiction” has so many meanings even in context. From heroin to animal cruelty to gambling to horse dancing. Wonderful phrase, I tip my hat to you.