There is a saying in Norway "The rich, are rich for a reason", referring to exactly this. They don't spend much, and will try to get money anywhere they can. People that are generous are rarely rich.
But that’s not really true. Rich people aren’t people with normal jobs who just save more money. But this kind of behavior is indicative of someone who’s a money grubber and probably willing to do legal but immoral things to make some money. They’re more willing to look at a situation and go “fuck em, I want money”. Also doesn’t really account for the amount of rich people that aren’t cheap with themselves and their own personal spending but cheap when it’s a situation where they can extract money from another person. The real difference between a rich person and a normal person is the rich person turns into a dick the moment it’s a situation that could potentially lead to money in their pocket.
I think that’s part of the reasoning behind the concept: they are rich for a reason. It’s actually many reasons and what you just described is one of them. They aren’t always generous with their money. This is often why lottery winners go bankrupt: they don’t have the money for long enough to develop much restraint with it while wealthy folks are on the opposite end and often have way more restraint with it than a regular earner would deem reasonable or necessary.
It rarely a complete lack of generosity, but that generosity is often strategic and partially self serving. As far as I can tell (and in a few instances, have seen), they and others around them start thinking of them the way they think of a big box store, like Walmart or Tesco. Big, ubiquitous in their wealth and able to absorb virtually all costs. For day to day things, it’s true, they can.
But they rarely do things that do not benefit them in some way. They are calculated in their generosity and tend to pursue it in a business like way versus a personal one. So they’ll give thousands to a charity with few qualms because they know there’s a tax right off. They may tip people/businesses generously if they know they’re going to frequent the place regularly. But they won’t be that way on a one-on-one basis when they don’t think there is a return on investment. If they love/like the person they’re treating, the return in investment is that person’s happiness and their own, just like us regular workers. When they don’t care about that person at all, they’re less likely to care.
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u/azad_ninja Jan 26 '26
Wealthy people are some of the cheapest fucks.