I like this thread!
Being wealthy is not a license to be wasteful. I still have trouble figuring out where that line is drawn, but it just kills me to have to spend more time to recover from having wasted something earlier. The worst is when I get rid of a spare part that I've been hoarding for a decade ("But I might need it someday!") and then need that exact part a month later. Yeah, I can drive to Home Depot and buy it (again!) for a buck, but it used to be
right here and now I've wasted all this time getting back to the same point.
I thought Buffett sold the Berkshire jet in exchange for an unlimited NetJets membership, but I might be behind the latest status. In any case, being wealthy means being able to fly on a private jet to go see someone-- but being filthy rich means that everyone else gets on their private jets to come see you.
Being wealthy is picking up nothing smaller than a nickel from the public restroom floor. Pennies can stay where they are.
What does being wealthy mean for you?
Our island offers a free recycling "Tour de Trash" that shows off Oahu's waste-processing operations. It attracts retired nuclear engineers by the busload.
One of the tour stops was our neighborhood sewage-processing facility. We learned how it all works and then walked around the site to see the various pieces of equipment. One area consists of large screens (of various mesh sizes) in the flowpath that keep most of the debris in the raw sewage from jamming the pumps. Each screen filters out progressively smaller objects, diverts them down a ramp, and rinses them off in a holding bin. The bin is switched out every few days and the contents are dumped on a large concrete pad for drying, sorting, & recycling.
As we walked about, one of the concrete pads was filled with objects that were an inch in size or smaller. The pile was at least six feet wide, ten feet long, and six inches deep. It had a lot of gravel and mulch and small pieces of plastic, but it was also filled with coins.
My spouse is a hardcore coin retriever, and she'll immediately pull any penny off any public restroom floor. When she saw this pile of sewage-marinated "free money", I thought she was going to go crazier than a four-year-old in a candy store. Why, there might be $30 just sitting in the pile! The tour guide shook his head sadly and said "I wouldn't touch any of that." She eventually calmed down long enough for me to pull her away to the next exhibit...