On the surface, it's easy to point out who the affluent people are in the room.
"People Explain Which Behaviors Absolutely Scream 'I'm Rich'"
It's about time.
Time Is Money
"Spend money if it saves you time. Time is more valuable than money."
– tocksin
"Every time I go to State College, PA, I accept the $25 fine for street parking over night. It costs $30+ to park in one of the garages overnight. On top of that, said garage is still like a 30 minute walk from where I stay. I'd rather spend less on the parking ticket to park right next to where I'm staying lol."
The Difference
"Poor people trade their time for money. Rich people trade their money for time."
Not Dwelling Over Decision-Making
"Not thinking twice, when making plans, about whether you can afford it."
It's about attitudes.
Missed Payday
"Not noticing you haven't been paid in two months."
"I work with some people that pull in 20k+ a month. We had one come in mid March and said 'I don't think I've been paid since December.' Sure enough two months didn't pay out for some reason."
"He wasn't even mad and just kind of mentioned it like he was talking about the weather."
"If I miss A paycheck I'd notice on payday."
This Speaks For Itself
"Money talks, wealth whispers."
"This is exactly right. My ex's family were obscenely wealthy, the type that has a 'smaller' yacht that's a tender to the main yacht because it doesn't fit in many marinas, two private jets, multiple mansions. They dressed in an extremely normal way: classy and well put together, but almost boring.I love the photo of Gates, Zuckerberg, and Buffet with the caption: '$300bn in a room and not an Emporio Armani belt in sight'. This is right on in my experience."
Prime Example Of Chill
"Sometimes? Nothing."
"I know a man who's the kind of rich where it took him only a day or two to convert more than a million dollars to cash (not, like, physical cash, but the liquid asset) to buy one of his kids a house."
"He drives a rather beat-up old Subaru, when he's not riding his bicycle instead. He wears jeans and polo shirts. His watch is a <$200 digital watch - wouldn't bother wearing a fancy expensive analogue watch, all they do is tell the time, what's the point? He's lived in the same house for 50ish years."
"The only real tell is the air of total chill he has. He's not worried about much. Money insulates you from really a lot of stress."
Picking Battles
"They will never complain about the cost of something but will nit-pik the quality of work to death."
The Strangest 'Wrong Number' Stories | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
Before we all had caller ID, wrong numbers phone calls were commonplace. But now that almost everyone screens their calls, it's wrong number texts that have ...How Steve Jobs Behaved
"I don’t know if this is 'small' but Steve Jobs never had a license plate on his car. He’d always lease for five months and 29 days, because in California you have to get a license plate within 6 months. His assistant would drop off his lease and pick up a new one. I used to live in the Bay Area and saw him leave Apple and head straight into the carpool lane at full speed. He never cared about getting ticketed."
– Taney34
The Value Of Diary
"Having no clue what a gallon of milk should cost. $1? $5? $10?"
– [deleted]
Business Is Open No Matter What
"Keep a business afloat for two years during a pandemic with very little income coming in. I’m grateful for my boss and I hope his vintage Rolls Royce gets finished soon 😂"
– lasvegashomo
It's about appearances.
Not Dressing The Part
"Dressing like a hobo inside exclusive clubs and be served as the most important person there."
Designer This And That
"Working at a luxury resort, one thing I've noticed is that the people who want to give the air of being very wealthy will have lots of designer patterns on their clothes and accessories, like Louis Vuitton print, but almost all of the truly ridiculously wealthy people will basically wear nondescript leisure wear and really plain looking clothes (like plain jeans and tees with no logos)."
Basic
"The most expensive car i've seen in my life, dude parked got out in jeans, basic all star, and white t shirt. No patterns, no logos, nothing."
Sighting Of An Apple Co-Founder
"I worked at a gas station in the 90s when Steve Wozniak would come in to get gas. He dressed in shorts a tshirt and flip flops and drove a $120k car."
The Load Of Garbage
"I lived in lower middle class neighborhood after getting married. there was one house in the neighborhood that was much bigger, had a pool, new cars every year but what drove me crazy was every week this family of 4 put 7 or 8 garbage cans at the curb. most families had one maybe 2. How much sh*t are they buying to generate all that trash?"
– cheapmanbcf
Saving Face
"Perfect skin and good teeth. Rich people can afford to go to doctors and medical professionals for their appearance. I had a friend who worked for a skin doctor."
"He let her train on her friends with some new products and apparently, it's a thing where you go in on a regular basis and your skin smooths out, all the weird spots go away and you just glisten like Arwen or Galadriel. I did get to go in for one practice treatment and the other folks waiting in the room had amazing skin."
"Ever since then, I could spot moneyed women just by their complexions. Also, a good number of them.. you can spot if you know fabrics really well and how they are supposed to drape when well made."
– VapoursAndSpleen
Want to "know" more?
Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Never miss another big, odd, funny or heartbreaking moment again.
It's true about what some of the Redditors expressed about wealthy people who don't sport fancy labels.
Fashion is a statement after all, so it makes sense that people who want to get noticed choose to be visually loud, and that might include wearing clothing from brands not found at your local mall—if those are even around anymore these days.
But just because a person arrives at a party decked out in Yves Saint Laurent, Burberry, Hermès, or Chanel, it doesn't always mean they are financially loaded.
They want to create the illusion that they are posh when the opposite is true.