I’ll be the snob here, why not, I’m bored. This is how spending of the new money works. Real “wealthy” (ugh) isn’t even buying overpriced iced coffee, has a barnful of horses worth millions that you’ll never see bought or sold, and drives to see them in their station wagon with 200k miles on it. Every purchase to them is a serious one that they treat like their last dime, even when they can afford to do it 200 times over in the week. If something needs to be “liquid” quickly they pull a painting off the wall rather than touch the principal. You don’t hear about them unless they die.
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This actually made me smile. I have a friend who is older and used to board w me when she was still riding. This describes her to a “t”. One of my favorite people, ever.
pretty much describes Nelson Bunker Hunt, he was a client of my company, he drove a many years old tan Oldsmobile Cutlass and would have us submit a cost spread sheet before starting any project for him, he never questioned a cost but wanted to know before committing
Also at the time he owned about 8,000 acres of Bluegrass farm land in Lexington and owned nearly 600 head of racehorses
In 1999, when he was 71 he returned to thoroughbred ownership, spending a total of $2,075,000 on 51 juveniles and yearlings. At the time he said, “At my age, I don’t plan to do any breeding or buy a farm, I just want to have some fun and try to get lucky racing.”
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That’s the “rich person” archetype I’m more acquainted with. Kind of thought it was a regional, scots-irish thing, being from VA. I find it frustrating to contend with the theatrical level of cheapness from people like this. Like, cool, it’s so gratifying to wear your shoes until they fall apart and dutifully repair your technical outerwear from the 80s instead of buying new, because you can afford to but choose not to. And to have arbitrary rules about what you will and will not spend on, such as an unlimited data plan (too indulgent!), so you can cling to those cost-cutting measures that you can afford not to take because that’s how you virtue signal that you’re the right kind of rich. Oh and the stingy tipping at restaurants… That’s another rich person grievance.
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Back in the day, there was a funny parody book called The Official Preppy Handbook that described this perfectly, down to decaying old Bass Wejuns, LLBean clothing, artsy majors with no practical applications, and golf/sailing vacations.
I will say that for (almost) all income levels, there are always cultural and emotional implications of what is considered okay to spend money on. In one of my jobs, I dealt with some very rich parents and kids, and I’d chuckle a little when they’d be willing to drop a bajillion dollars on fancy vacations and, say, tennis or hockey, but regarded horses as frivolous “really” rich stuff, and the kid topped out on weekly lessons at kind of crappy barn as a result.
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There’s even a new-millennium update that’s just as entertaining as the original. IME these provide the best real-world illustrations of old money vs. new money ever. 
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With me, the big revelation was being able to pay for things around the house that I couldn’t do well myself, weren’t super-costly, and made my life better.
I wasn’t raised rich, but my mom was raised very poor and so she insisted on cleaning out her own gutters, cutting all her own bushes, sewed underwear holes…I admire her frugality, but I’m really short and clumsy and it’s just easier if I pay a service (or buy new things) than attempting to follow how I was raised, which was it was almost immoral to pay someone to do something you could in theory do yourself. She was, however, a very generous tipper, and I follow in that tradition!
If I ever get lots of (new) money, I am definitely paying for someone to clean my house and cut my lawn, too!
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The best thing about reading this thread is being told how rich people (supposedly) live. 
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I would imagine that like everyone, the very rich run a gamut of non-rational choices on discretionary or hobby spending. Especially for children’s hobbies.
I also think there’s going to be economic spending and earning differences between families who are in the wealth creation phase, and those who are living off investments.
Let’s say at one extreme, your family fortune was made in the robber baron 1890s but the family has been out of active business for generations. There are now a couple of hundred descendants living well on the investment income, doing useful enough stuff, but nobody has ever been positioned to make a new fortune in their own time. I expect you might be somewhat thoughtful about expenses. Also you grew up with everything you could want, so you aren’t hungry for things or experiences.
That’s going to be different from being the generation making the money, especially if you never expected to make so much money. You need to be hungry for something to really dig in and be an entrepreneur, and that hunger is going to translate to wanting to acquire things and experience as well.
I’m rather bemused by the SM trend on “old money quiet luxury” which was going strong on YouTube for a couple of years before the TV show Succession made it a mainstream idea.
I feel like a big part of the SM trend was actually African American women influencers, who were staking out a concept that distinguishes themselves from the more general teen/young adult idea that rich people all dress and play like Paris Hilton in 2000, or rap stars. There’s also a big “level up” SM trend with black influencers advising their followers on basic manners and comportment to fund a “high value man” and perhaps a job. But following Succession, “quiet luxury” is now a buzzword every where.
Anyhow, it’s amusing because in my experience as an observer was that children of the wealthy just go out into the world and manage to fit into the dress codes of where they are. And if they are in anything meritocratic, they want to advance on their merits, like anyone. On a campus where everyone is in khakis or midwash denim, you aren’t going to notice them, until you know their names or hear about their social life. Same I would think once they move onto suits and jobs.
Anyhow, people can be rational about their basic business or investment strategies, but irrational or quirky or even punitive about their discretionary spending, or hobbies, or those of their children. Parents right across the financial spectrum can over reward one activity they value and skimp on the other activity their child actually loves. And spending patterns can mirror other emotional issues like anxiety or OCD or narcissistic behavior. So I wouldn’t extrapolate too much about a whole economic class, whether it’s “old money” or “new money,” from the spending patterns of the small sample size that we observe from the middle class. Or indeed even from your own family if you were wealthy. Money gets used as reward, weapon, discipline, self expression etc in every single family, just in different ways as you move from poverty to middle class to wealth.
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In general, I think what’s normaized spending-wise is how your friends spend. Which is why it can be so difficult if you’re among people who have much more “fun” income than yourself. Also, people seldom really let on how much money they have (for obvious reasons) or the sources so it can be a guessing game if someone is richer than you or just much more comfortable being in debt than you.
A good example is someone who seems like a successful businessperson, but the business is barely in the red, but has enough investment income to live on.
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2008 demonstrated, at least among the horse show folks, who was actually wealthy and who was just spending a lot of money.
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Our trainer will do trials with other trainers she knows and has a long relationship with, but I havent’ seen it outside that
