Rich kids may seem like they have it all, but a lot of them can't afford good old common sense. These kids grew up in a tiny, 1% bubble, and their actions show their sheltered upbringing. These witnesses describe their encounters with the worst of the worst, from the kids who intentionally crash their fancy cars to those who make ignorant comments about "poor folk." So sit back and read about the horror that too much money can create.
All content has been edited for clarity.
Karma Is A Rich Woman
“I’d say my family is an upper middle class, meaning that they drove regular cars, had a regular house, but sent me and my brother to private school because of education. My dad wanted the best for us and I appreciate he put us before himself.
Anyway, I remember we were discussing in class what we did over the summer. Some girl was expressing how her and her family rented a house in Turks & Caicos and bragged about it all day. When it came to me, I just said, ‘We went to 6 flags, and spent a week or two while staying with our other side of the family in Michigan and had a lot of fun.’
She laughed at me and called me poor the entire year because she assumed my parents were too poor to take us on a crazy vacation.
In high school (I went to a K-12 school), her parents got her a brand new BMW. I got a regular Prius. I was more than happy. She made fun of me for driving that car and would put post it notes on my car saying a lot of rude stuff.
She ended up totaling the car in the school parking lot by going into a pole. I assume her parents punished her, and gave her an old beat up car. She came to school one day in a super old 1990 car and EVERYONE called her a ‘poor peasant’. She eventually left the school. I messaged her on Facebook back then and sent her a message about how important it is to be kind to others and not judge people based on wealth status.
She only replied with, ‘Whatever car I drive, I can still enjoy my multi-million dollar home while you live in a condo. Good luck with your life!’
About a year ago she got in another car accident while under the influence and severely injured the driver. She served jail time.
I still laugh at her downfall and terrible attitude.”
“It Was A Life-Changing Moment For Me”
“I had an entitled kid experience, but on the other side.
The iPod with the click wheel had just come out and I hadn’t wanted anything more in my life. I talked to my mother about it all the time, whenever she called, I’d answer, ‘Thank you for calling Apple!’ and I changed her browser starting page to the specific iPod page because I knew she didn’t know how to change it back and I wanted it front and center. So, of course, I got my iPod that Christmas.
Flash forward a year later and I’m at school, and one of my roommates was saying how she’d like to have an MP3 player, too. I went into this long story about how I made it completely clear to my mother that there was nothing else I wanted more on the planet and all the things I did to ensure my mother bought me one. My friend checked me quick, though. She was the youngest of five and she said, ‘Oh my parents could never spend that kind of money on just one kid.’
This was maybe 15 years ago, but it still resonates with me because it made me start to re-think everything. What other spoiled brat things had I been doing or saying? How else had I been blind to how easily things came to me? It was a very simple conversation, but it was a life-changing moment for me.
So, even though this kid was a brat about it, there are people who can approach the same situation and actually stop being a heifer about that sort of thing.”
He Had Some Costly Hobbies
“My fiance’s cousin is an entitled kid. He managed to crash 4 cars while still in high school because his father would replace them. When he moved onto college, he got kicked out of several apartments for owning a dog when they weren’t permitted. He told me he didn’t care, though, since his father also funded his continuous stream of new housing. From what I last heard, his father is now paying for his long-standing crack habit.
It would be nice to have a preview of what your kid would turn out to be! The father doesn’t admit that his son is at fault for anything though. I guess he doesn’t want to believe it’s true of his only child.”
When Money Goes Above The Law
“I once had a classmate who was the richest kid at school and used to constantly brag about how rich he was and how his dad gave him anything he wants because he can afford the world.
On his 18th birthday, he got a brand new Range Rover, and even though he didn’t have his drivers license yet, he would drive that car everywhere.
I once asked him what he would do if he gets caught by cops and he said, ‘Oh my dad will bribe them so I don’t have to worry about it.’
Turns out, a few weeks later, he crashed that Range Rover while driving wasted and completely destroyed the entrance of a local bakery. What did his dad do? Bought him another brand new Range Rover a few days later and paid the cops to not arrest him for driving under influence. At least he also paid for the damage he caused to the bakery.”
Just Stop Being Poor
“I knew this one guy at my college who didn’t understand why everybody is so worked up about student loans. I remember him saying something along the lines of: ‘Why don’t people just pay the tuition upfront?’
He didn’t say it to be mean. He’s been quite sheltered for most of his life by parents who, that I assume, are well off, so he doesn’t really understand that not everyone can afford to just pay for their tuition upfront. He’s a real nice guy, but he is horribly naive when it comes to the real world.”
That’s Not An Allowance, That’s A Salary
“My fraternity brother’s monthly allowance of $2,000 was canceled from his parents because he made a few F’s. He then called his aunt for a separate allowance.
The dude was a massive brat. His dad is a very successful stockbroker in the Memphis/Germantown area. The kid only went to college so he could earn a degree to work at that company. The kid already had it made from day 1. I could write paragraphs on how big of a d-bag this dude was.
He ended up getting the money and blew the money on Xanax and weed.”
From Riches To Rags
“I knew a dude in the Netherlands who invented Flippos, which are like collectible cardboard or plastic chips you get free when you buy a bag of chips. This dude was loaded from this idea and his son was in school with my girlfriend from back then.
He got a brand new really expensive car and broke the engine on a speed bump the very first week. Next week he had another brand new one. The father is now broke and living on welfare. He used to own around 25 million euro ( 28 million US dollars) and lost it all.”
She Obviously Never Learned The Value Of A Dollar
“My little sister currently has a really ‘rich kid’ mentality when I tell her I can’t afford something or when she talks about her friends not having something kind of expensive. She’s always like, ‘Why can’t you just take dad’s card or, ya know, buy it yourself since it’s so cheap?’
I grew up really poor. I worked for everything I have and I’m still struggling to stay afloat. But my dad is finally on his feet and gives this girl everything she wants and it’s making her an entitled brat (I’m 23, she’s 12, by the way). I just want to pick her up and throw her out the window sometimes.”
His Definition Of The “Ghetto”
“I lived in a very wealthy town when I was a teen – solid middle to upper middle class, with the occasional multi-millionaire family. I remember one of the kids on the bus saying he lived in the ‘ghetto.’ There is absolutely nowhere in this town that remotely qualifies – like, this is the type of place where garden ornaments being moved to other lawns made news and there was a police investigation (I watched it closely, being one of the culprits).
We asked him why in the world he thought that, and it was because he lived in a 2k sq ft house with only three bedrooms, and most of the rest of the homes on his street were mansion-sized, so his house was clearly ‘the ghetto.’ Keep in mind, this was a nice house, it’s not like the paint was peeling, it had professional landscaping and stuff.
Not how that works, dude. Holy cow. This was when he was around 16 years old. He also complained about being ‘poor’ because he’d have to chip in for his own car, and it would have to be used.”
That’s Just Plain Wasteful
“One time in Spanish class, the teacher asked what our New Year’s resolutions were (this was just idle chit chat before class actually started, so not actually in Spanish). One girl mentioned that she planned on wearing all the clothing she buys once before throwing them out. The teacher was horrified, thinking that this student had gravely missed the point of New Year’s resolutions, and then it dawned on her that no, this was the step up.”
“I Keep Thinking She’ll Learn”
“My friend from high school is this way. Her parents forced her to major in biology to be pre-med when she started college. She made a really big deal about absolutely needing to change her major or it would affect her mental health. So she changed her major to Philosophy.
After college, she’s floundering and wants to move to California to work for a record company. She wants to do the thing in the movies where they get a job in the mail room and work their way up. I think this sounds noble, if idealistic. But her parents ‘won’t let her.’ I was confused as to how this had any bearing on her decision since we were already well into adulthood (we were like 23, but I felt very adult-y at the time) and she could pick up and move if it meant that much to her (more on this later).
Then, she gets her parents to give her seed money to start this website. Of course after like 2 years of effort, that went nowhere.
So then, she takes a couple of extra classes, applies, gets into, and starts law school. Decides she hates it. Quits.
In the mean time she’s living at home and her parents are paying all of her bills. She’s never had a job.
Now, we’re late 20s and she’s tossing around the record company idea again. Now I find out why her parents’ opinion was so important before. She didn’t want to go live in a tiny apartment with roommates because she made minimum wage. She wanted her parents to pay all of her living expenses while she was in California. And at her comfort level, that would likely have added up to around $5,000/month or more.
So, then she finally stopped talking about that, and started going back to the idea of medical school. We’re now mid-30s and she occasionally mentions having taken a chemistry course or something to prep for the MCAT. Meanwhile, she’s still never had a paycheck aside from what her mom ‘pays’ her to be the ‘office manager’ at her business.
And a few years back her parents bought her a house probably worth $800,000 which she doesn’t live in for some reason (she still lives in her room from high school), just throws parties there every few months.
Also, if she’s out shopping and sees a Prada or Chanel thing that she likes, she will drop $3,000 without batting an eyelash.
I keep thinking she’ll learn, she’ll get better, she’ll find some purpose. And I am continually disappointed. She’s actually pretty smart and determined, but so spoiled with ‘rich kid stuff’ that the stuff has become her priority rather than any career aspiration she may have.”
Big Brother To The Rescue
“My school had a guy in my sister’s year, two years below me, who made fun of her the first day of school because she had to wear the same pair of shoes as last year. Some of her friends found me and told me she was crying in the bathroom. Mind you, it was her first day of high school.
I had the girls point him out to me in the cafe and I went over and saw that this brat was eating sushi. Like with some real fancy bamboo packaging and soy sauce. I flipped it into his lap and made a scene. Kid straight looked at me and said that if I touched him, his mommy would sue my ‘broke witch of a mom.’
I am a big guy. Always have been. I was 6’2″ 210lbs of hard muscle then. Pretty peaceful dude, though. I thought about what he had just said about both my sister and mom and didn’t stop until I got pulled off him. Got suspended, drove my sister to a nearby city and got her two pairs of shoes.”
Not The Yacht!!
“Without getting into too much detail, I went to high school in a town where one of the owners of Goya had a house. One of the sons was over at my friend’s house and his brother comes over. Later they get into an argument about party plans or whatnot, and the older brother, I can never forget this, verbatim, shouts at the younger, ‘Yeah? Well I was stuck on the yacht with Dad the whole weekend!’
It was a good joke among the rest of us plebs for a short while. ‘I was stuck on the yacht!’ found its way into a variety of sentences.”
They Didn’t Even Know They Were Paying Her
“A friend of my ex had parents who bought her a house when she went to college. Like, she could stumble out the door and fall onto campus – it was that close.
They also spent quite a bit of money remodeling it to her liking, and paid for all the upkeep (snow removal, electricity, water, garbage), but the bills were in her name to help her with establishing good credit, and the house was in her name, too. The loan was in her name (parents paid it though), again mostly for credit reasons. They could have bought the house outright, but part of it was helping establish her credit. The regular bills were paid for with a couple of high level credit cards that they paid off, but used a balance on them, again, for establishing perfect levels of credit.
She had 6 roommates, it was a large house. Rent was high, it was a very nice house, newly remodeled, ideal location for campus. I would have said it was reasonably priced, all things considered. They were all charged rent by ‘the parents’ and had to pay for utilities and the like. The roommates all thought that ‘the parents’ were the owners of the house, and that the money was going to house payments and upkeep and the like.
Nope.
It went into another account for the girl to have some ‘spending cash’ while in college in addition to her monthly trust fund payouts and her non-bills related credit card that her parents kept paid off. It was a big deal when the roommates found out. She let it slip one night while drinking and having a fight with one of them.
What lead to the fight was that one of the roommates who was struggling with the bills asked if she could get another girl to move into her room to help cut some expenses. But the rich girl didn’t like the new girl, and wouldn’t allow the new girl to sublease into the place with the 7 of them. Mixed with drinks, the night sort of came to a boil. Rich girl said the other girl should get more money from her parents, or just take out another loan. Things sort of devolved from there and rich girl kinda threw the situation in the other girls’ faces, which was previously unknown, saying it was her house, she could say who lived there and who didn’t.
Words were used, boyfriends were insulted, girls were called awful names and what not. Details of the situation trickled out (utilities had been split 6 ways vs. 7, etc). The girl who was struggling with bills was called a lazy failure. Everything kinda boiled over, the other girls got involved, siding with the girl who wanted a friend to sublease with her. Rich girl had words for them too and said she was going to start laying down house rules the other girls had to follow. Other girls decided they’d rather just leave.
All six of them, who were friends before moving in together, and friends with the other girl, moved out after the huge fight (the other girls were all working jobs to pay for rent/college/utilities).
It wasn’t even like a permanent house for her. Just something they bought for her while at school.”
Kind Of A Different Way To Say “Sorry”
“There’s a house around the corner from me that has an 8 car garage, a double and 2 single, double depth garages. The house sold for around $270K, and this is in a working class neighborhood. It’s just a randomly super nice house with a gate in a neighborhood averaging $100K homes all with signs out front saying ‘support the unions, support prop …’
Apparently their kid liked to host parties all the time. After they got busted, the parents handed out flyers for a party they were hosting to ‘show off the work they did to the house and apologize for their son’s behavior,’ which seemed interesting. ‘Sorry our son was a little brat and kept you all up late when we weren’t here, come look at our super nice house as an apology.'”
Money Can’t Buy Love
“I ended a 6-year friendship with a very close of mine because I am poor and he is rich.
My friend and I had always had issues when it came to us hanging out. He would always call and tell me to go to places and I refused because I didn’t have enough money. He would also insist that he could buy me anything and that he didn’t mind.
Things changed drastically when I found out that he had a crush on me, and then we started dating. After that, the relationship took a turn for the worst because he kept insisting that I go to places with him and I kept refusing due to me not having enough money and that resulted in us fighting about this almost every day.
It got to the point where I just got tired of having to explain why I couldn’t have him always pay for me and that I do want to spend time with him but I just can’t afford it. To other people, it sounds like the silliest reason to break up and cut ties with someone but I really really hate having people do things for me knowing that I can’t give anything back to them.
I really wish we had never started dating. It ruined everything.”
Just Throw Away The Whole Car
“This rich girl in high school got a BMW for her 17th birthday. About a week later, she totaled it and a few of my friends and I wondered what had happened, considering they’re considered pretty safe and reliable. She busted her collarbone a bit, but otherwise was okay. The car was a total loss.
Apparently she wanted a brand new 2000 BMW 3 Series and she had gotten a 1997. She ended up getting the car she wanted. Her parents didn’t seem to realize what she had done or cared.
She was totally nuts. She once bought a 70’s Porsche 924 at an auction and made her parents pay for what I would consider a complete restoration on it. She never drove it.”
Way To Kill The Fun, Miguel
“When I was a kid, I got bullied a lot by this one kid named Miguel. His family was a lot better off and spoiled him, buying him the latest shoes, Starter jackets, video games, etc. He was always showing it off and especially liked to rub it into my face.
My parents both worked two jobs to try and provide a decent life for me growing up, but money was tight. Most of my clothes I either got from the thrift store or they were hand-me-downs from my older cousins. I remember one day my parents decided to treat me and take me to the Nike outlet and get a pair a brand new sneakers. This was the first pair of shoes I had in a long time that were all mine and never worn by anyone else.
I remember being so excited to wear them to school and walked into the classroom with a big smile that day. Miguel takes one look at my shoes and says, ‘Nice new, old shoes. I had a pair of those last year when they were cool.’ With a few words he completely crushed the happiness high I was riding and brought me down instantly.”
Good Food Is A Luxury In College
“I had a friend whose family was ridiculously rich. She was so blind to just how lucky she was.
She once left her limited edition Pikachu 2DS on a plane and was able to replace it and all the games she left behind too right away, but her biggest complaint was that she’d have to make up all that lost gameplay. She just kept whining about it.
She was living on her own in an apartment her parents paid for despite being thousands of miles away, and she ordered dinner from gourmet places every night. She took great care to detail for me exactly what she was having every night, complete with ‘mmmmm’s and ‘yummy’s so I’d understand just how good the food was.
I was living in a college dorm at the time, in a town that was basically a food desert. Nothing delivered unless you wanted Papa John’s, and the options for dining out besides the campus dining hall were Moe’s and a few other places of similar quality. I’d been pretty content with these (besides missing stuff from home, obviously) until her luxurious lifestyle started to make me envious. She just couldn’t help but flaunt her wealth all the time.
I talked to her once about it and at least she was kind enough to stop telling me every dinner, but everything else she said still reeked of how rich she was.”
No Time Like The Present To Learn
“I knew this kid in college. Super rich, like Saudi prince rich (I went to a US school with loads of international students).
He came into the lounge one day complaining that he was so hungry and all he wanted was mac n cheese. I told him I had a box if he wanted it. He looked at me like I had 3 heads. He asked, ‘What am I supposed to do? Cook it?’
I rolled my eyes because this wasn’t my first interaction with him. I just gave him the box and showed him where the communal pots/spoons were. Said good luck and went to bed. I think he didn’t even bother and just went to bed hungry.
He was a nice guy, just completely clueless/ignorant of anything outside his sphere.”
He Couldn’t Just Buy Them Himself?
“In college, I knew a guy who had his car shipped to school rather than just drive it up (he was from in state!).
At the end of the semester, I still had a ton of money left on my meal card, and it didn’t roll over so I had to spend it all. I was letting a couple friends who had already spent all theirs use my card for meals. I was hanging out with some people and said kid asked to use my card. I didn’t want to walk all the way to the dining hall so I just gave it to him thinking he would buy a couple things for himself.
He spent ALL the money that was left on it, I think around $300 or $400. He literally filled up his car with everything he bought. I made him unload it all out of his car and into my room. It was mostly gross flavors of Powerade and protein bars.”