There are probably only a few people in the world that aren’t interested in being a billionaire. They’d be happy as millionaires but billionaire is another stratosphere. The idea of having a lot of money might not consume the lives of most people, but it’s something that most people want and work hard for. Reaching billionaire status is a way of really knowing you’ve truly made it financially. It’s not a big club; it’s an exclusive one. There are things billionaires can do that even the world’s richest millionaires might find a bit out of their budget. Read on to find out what it is billionaires can do that most people can’t.
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Donate Extravagantly
There’s always a way to donate money to help others, even if you’re against helping those who won’t help themselves. While most of us feel good donating a few thousand dollars each year, there are some billionaires that make extravagant donations. That’s not to say that all donations, big or small, aren’t wonderful or extravagant. To some, spending $500 on a great cause is the equivalent of Bill and Melinda Gates spending $5 billion on a good cause. It’s all the same and it comes from a great place. Only billionaire’s can make billion dollar donations, though.
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Drive a Super Yacht
Anyone can own a boat. Few people can own a yacht. Billionaires can own a super yacht. A super yacht is one that’s not like a regular yacht, which is what millionaires use for fun. A super yacht has it all, including helipads, guest rooms, pools, and some even have a submarine attached. Those are just a few of the options that billionaire Roman Abramovich has in his super yacht. It’s one of the most impressive, most expensive privately owned boats in the world. It’s also worth $1 billion as it is. Some choose to have additional features added onto their super yachts.
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Build a Town
When the average Joe purchases a piece of property, he usually just builds a house and calls that a big expense. When a billionaire builds a piece of property, he can build an entire town. Worth nearly $4 billion, Bill Koch is doing just that. He’s the proud owner of an impressive Wild West collection that apparently requires its very own town for display purposes. The town Koch is building has more than 50 buildings and it vaguely resembles something out of an old Western film. He’s building in Colorado, in case anyone is interested in visiting.
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Buy Your Favorite Team
It’s not cheap to own a sports team. Even some that aren’t doing well at the moment are worth over a billion dollars (some might actually cost well into the hundreds of millions, but who is counting?). Billionaires love to buy teams. Instead of just buying season tickets and calling it a day as they watch their favorite teams duke it out for the championship, billionaires such as Mark Cuban purchase the entire team and then do whatever they want. They own all the boxes. They own the team.
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Eat $25,000 Caviar
There are some millionaires that will probably go ahead and order this kind of special caviar when it’s on the menu, but if you only have a few million in the bank, it’s not worth it to you. Billionaires, on the other hand, view a $25,000 plate of caviar the same way the rest of us view a $25 piece of chicken; average. When billionaires travel to London, they often find it satisfactory to make a stop at Caviar House & Prunier for a plate of this rare and very expensive caviar (or fish eggs, for those who are keeping track).
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Own a Million Dollar Car You Never Drive
Most of us consider spending $80,000 a bit excessive when it comes to shopping for a new car, and that’s usually a car we’re going to drive every single day. Billionaires, on the other hand, spend money on cars far more expensive. Their cars are more than most people’s homes. They’re million dollar vehicles that have been outfitted with the latest technology, and they usually come equipped with a driver. After all, why not spend millions on a vehicle and then sit in the back seat for the rest of your life?
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Build a 27-Story Condo
It’s true. A wealthy businessman by the name of Mukesh Ambani took it upon himself to spend a little of his $22 billion and build his dream house. He and his wife decided that the only house that would do for their family is a 27-story apartment with a helicopter pad. Of course, some of the stories are double and triple stories, so it’s really much taller than 27 floors. This billion dollar home is the most expensive in the world, and it’s certainly not one any bank would lend money to build.
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Collect the most exclusive Art
It’s true that anyone can purchase nice art, but not just anyone can purchase really nice, really expensive, really famous art and call it a day. However, billionaires can. Leon Black is a billionaire with a love of fine art. He recently picked up a piece up for auction at Sotheby’s called The Scream, by Edvard Munch. It’s one of the most famous paintings in history, and he purchased the piece for an astounding $119 million. That’s a lot more money than even most millionaires actually have.
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Drink Million Dollar Champagne
Spending a few hundred dollars on a bottle of champagne is expensive for most people. Even those of us who lead relatively nice lifestyles don’t spend more than $50 or so on a bottle of bubbly to keep in the fridge when there’s a special occasion on the horizon. However, some billionaires find it worth their while to drop a few million dollars on a bottle of champagne called Gout de Diamants. It’s only $1.8 million for the bottle, which is decked out with diamonds, just in case you want to take home a souvenir.
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Buy Incredibly Expensive (but Useless) Stuff
Most everyone has an obsession that costs more money than it should, and we all spend money on things we don’t really need on an almost daily basis. Bill Gates, however, spends money on things no one needs, and he spends millions on it. He’s the richest man in the world, though, so who are we to judge? He once dropped $30 million on a book. Not just any book, a journal filled with scientific information called The Codex Leicester. It should come as no shock this is now one of the most expensive books in the world.
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Drink Million Dollar Cognac
Cognac is a nice warm drink perfect for a late night by a warm fire in the midst of winter. However, most people don’t spend $2 million on a bottle of it. Billionaires, on the other hand, can afford to drop this kind of cash on a bottle of cognac that costs more than most people will make in their lifetime. Henry IV Dudognon Heritage Cognac Grande costs approximately $2 billion to purchase, and it’s only available places most of the world’s population will never go. Billionaires have no problem drinking to that.
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Own an Island
Most millionaires have private homes on private islands, but those islands aren’t their own property. It’s that extra zero on the end of billionaire’s bank accounts that makes them just a little bit superior to so many millionaires (and let’s not forget there are plenty of millionaires that own their own islands, too). Billionaires all over the world think it’s great to own an entire island, so they snap them up as soon as they go on sale. Richard Branson owns an island in the British Virgin Islands that contains more than 72 acres and a home that he uses as a resort for his wealthy friends.
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Have Expensive Hobbies
Learning to fly a plane is one thing that most anyone can do provided they have several thousand dollars to spend on lessons. However, learning to fly your own plane is something that billionaires can do that not many other people can. Planes are expensive, so buying a nice luxury plane is something that you might find a billionaire doing. True, some millionaires have planes of their own, but we are talking about the biggest, baddest, most luxurious planes in the world that people learn to fly and then use to travel all over while they’re in the cockpit.
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Have a Private Jet
Much like flying a plane of your own, having a plane of your own with a crew is something that a few millionaires do, but mostly just billionaires claim. The most expensive private planes in the world can cost millions just to purchase, and that doesn’t include funding a flight crew, keeping it cleaned, maintaining the plane and filling that bad boy with jet fuel (it’s just a bit pricier than unleaded). With billions in the bank, however, it’s like owning a Toyota and filling it up every few days.
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Never Worry about Money
There might be some millionaires that worry (especially those who are going through a particularly nasty divorce and some who have addictions) but for the most part, billionaires never have to worry about money. They don’t worry how they’re going to afford college for their kids, or how they’re going to afford a decent car for their kids one day. The financial things that normal people worry about on a regular basis are not the kind of things that billionaires worry about. They do have their worries, of course, but they’re simply not the same as other people.
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