Ten things that I thought were just for rich people!

I’m old school.

When I hear someone talk about lavish lifestyles, I don’t think of billionaires Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg. I don’t even consider Jeff Bezos with all his Amazon shares. Oh their wealth inequality and behavior come across as unseemly to me. For example, an Amazon worker in a $15 an hour minimum wage job would need 32,000 years to make one of Bezo’s billions.

But no, I go back further than that.

Instead, I think of Gordon Gekko, the fictional corporate raider, from the 1987 movie Wall Street. I see Gekko, played by Michael Douglas, walking on the beach in the early morning. With an early version of the cellphone, he calls Charlie Sheen’s Bud Fox to tell him he just wired him $800,000. He wants to be surprised with a new big investment.

It’s the scene where Douglas says his famous line: “Money never sleeps, pal.” One of the most powerful lines from the movie outside of “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.”

I can’t help but think of other fictional characters too like the Ewings from Dallas or the feuding factions of the wealthy Gioberti and Channing families set in the fictitious Tuscany Valley from Falcon Crest. Or even millionaire Thurston Howell III and his wife Lovey from Gilligan’s Island or the crew and passengers of The Love Boat. The shows drove much of what I thought it meant to be wealthy in America.

Oh how wrong I was. It’s funny to look back. Here’s a few things that I thought were for just for rich people:

10. Island and cruise vacations. I know now that everyone and their mother has taken a cruise. They’re popular vacation destinations. Back in the day, however, it seemed such a lavish thing to do. The food. The drinks. The beautiful locales. It seemed like a such an out-of-this-world expense.
11. Travel, period.
12. Starbucks, Dunkin, and other pricey coffee shops. My dad lectured us as kids to be frugal with our money. He used tell us that you don’t pay someone else to do something when you could do it yourself. I think of that every time I spend my hard-earned dollars on store coffee. I still love my Dunkin. I just need to tell the Scrooge in my head to put a sock in it.

7. The light blue Tiffany jewelry box. I was right about this one. It was a huge deal for me when I took a work trip to Chicago in the late 90s. I stopped before flying back home to buy my wife a small Tiffany necklace. When I walked into the store and told the woman attendant that I wanted to purchase the necklace, I half expected bells and whistles to go off. I thought for sure that a security officer would come out from a back room and arrest me. “You’re not allowed in here, Sir. This is for adults only. Fakes like you need to leave.”
8. Certain beers and liquors. Miller High Life bills itself as the “The Champagne of Beers.” And when I used to see their annual Christmas commercial, with a horse-drawn sleigh, I was certain it was for the rich and famous.
9. Health is wealth. Gym memberships. Workout equipment. Health food. I figured money, money, money!

1. Nightcaps. Rich people on TV seemed to down a brandy or whiskey just before bedtime. I figured rich people everywhere must drink them.
2. Pools, pool tables, ping-pong tables, snowmobiles. Anything that represented leisure seemed extraordinary and out of the budget for a normal family.
3. Fireplaces.
4. Eating in your car. My parents didn’t allow it. I naturally assumed it must be a thing for rich people. The funny thing is that now I hate to eat in my car. I hate the stale smell of fast food that stays in your car.

Oh how wrong I was. True wealth comes not from a stack of hundred dollar bills, but from time, freedom and options, health, purpose and fulfillment, financial security, peace of mind, family and great relationships, and love.

Before you knew better, what actions or products did you think were exclusive to the wealthy and the rich?