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simonw • today at 7:34 PM • 2 replies • view on HN

Terry Pratchett once wrote about the concept of "horizontal wealth". Vertical wealth is where you spend money on rich people stuff - yachts and suchlike. Horizontal wealth is where you spend more money on the things you liked before you got rich: https://chibuikeani.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-price-of-happin...

"But horizontal wealth means not letting your increased income dictate your tastes. You like books and now you have money? Buy more books! Change those catenary bookshelves for good hardwood ones! In my case, build a library extension to your office. And, of course, you buy what will be useful for that most wonderful of pursuits, blind research, which is research without direction for the sheer joy of it."

(Original source is his book A Slip of the Keyboard - this linked blog post quotes that bit.)


Replies

wcunning • today at 8:19 PM

I bought a house, lived there for a couple years and then bought a better tractor (Kubota L45) than we had on the farm growing up. Now I can get 10 truckloads of woodchips from ChipDrop and mulch a whole acre of my yard in an afternoon.

vntok • today at 7:38 PM

This documentary of a French nouveau-millionaire perfectly showcases this mindset: https://youtu.be/jK4wnCLuBtI?is=2Q2QYQyfoCnaObhv (AI powered English subtitles available)

> "I bought 10 Kangoo vans"

> "I used to drink one bottle of [awful] wine a day, now I drink 10"

> "He bought 1500 pairs of the [horrible] shoes he wears everyday"

> "I used to spend a month a year camping, now I can spend 10 months a year camping"

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