I always admire rich men who do not live lavishly. There are more important things than shiny things, and it is heartening to see people who know that, regardless of which culture they come from.
And the sad truth is the majority of "shiny things" are sold to people living vastly beyond their means trying to pretend to live like these wealthy people.
I'd be extremely interested to see actual statistics on these things, if only they were available. Even more interesting would be to see how it breaks down brand by brand.
Frinstance I'm guessing that the majority of the watches made by certain well-marketed and expensive watch manufacturers (I shan't name any names lest someone glance at their own wrist and feel the need to make an impassioned defence) are bought by people who really can't afford to spend that much on a watch. On the other hand, there are watches in the same price range which are probably only getting bought by people who can afford them, and most of 'em are probably brands that most people have never even heard of.
I am right in front of me a pretty robust consumer survey (n=52,000) which indicates 63% of Rolexes bought in the US are bought by people with household income less than $100,000. Median HH income for a Rolex purchaser is $50-75K.
Most popular watch brands among HH inc >$100k are Timex, Fossil and Casio but the brands most disproportionately bought by these people, of the 17 brands in the survey, are Tag Heuer (51% of Tags are bought by $100k+), Movado and Swatch. Rolex comes in at #4
I actually did read that book (I bought it on sale, natch).
But the whole thing is seriously flawed, because all his statistics are based only on the small fraction of millionaires whom he actually interviewed, who are surely not a random sampling of all millionaires.
Watches are one of the items that spending money on isn't that bad of a splurge. Nice Rolexes hold value pretty well, and antique ones are collector items.
Not that I would ever buy a Rolex. Suunto's [1] are more my speed and are like having a mini-weather computer on your wrist (altimeter, barometer, compass). They are not $15 casio cheap, but way cheaper than anything like a Tag or Rolex and actually useful for my mountain climbing :)
