🗑What One of the Richest Zip Codes in America Throws Away

So I had a bit of time on my hands and did some snooping the other day.

This is by far the grossest, dirtiest and humiliating experiment I’ve ever done yet afterwards besides the smell, I felt proud.

As most things, I convince myself to do weird activities to get out of my comfort zone because we only have 1 shot at life anyway and I’m just a curious human!

Not sure if I regret it or not but I know I would have regretted not doing it!

Turning garbage into gold is becoming a lucrative business these days as a majority of people are spending the most time they ever did bored and restless at home ordering, delivering and throwing away as much junk they never knew they had deep in the garage or in a room they haven’t entered since they moved in!

At least spring cleaning is taken seriously these days.

These residents, those who live in a zip code where the average household income is $400k and typical home price range is from $4M-$20M consider what they throw away junk yet the trash buster, as I like to call myself found some pretty neat yet at the same time mostly boring stuff.

As a heads up, I didn’t end up keeping any belongings although some were quite spectacular since I wanted to prevent any covid spread that might be trailing on these items but it was fascinating to uncover and investigate upon all of them.

Belongings

If you’re truly wealthy, you have no reason to flaunt your wealth. You don’t care about image and could live like Zuckerberg wearing the same gray U-neck shirt daily driving a Honda Accord to work.

But when you are stupidly rich meaning poor inside but want to look rich, you do the complete opposite. You do everything it takes to show off with brands to cars and would easily go into debt for other’s approval and aww.

Now that we’ve uncovered what the wealthy pay attention to and clearly it’s hard to find out about because they look like the average Joe, let’s uncover what a typical millionaire owns and spends. 

FYI, it’s in the fine details that count.

-They’re frugal-spend below their means

-Prioritize saving over spending

-Spend no more than 3x annual gross income on housing

-Have no more than 2 properties

-Keep costs low and pay attention to what they need not what others have

-Know the grass isn’t greener on the other side

-Median home value for millionaires is $850k

-They pay themselves first a.k.a they don’t touch their salary just deposit it into a savings account, investment account and retirement plan and bonuses are hidden

-They don’t play the lottery

-They work because they want to not because they have to, they live to work not work to live

-They don’t budget instead prioritize

-Weekly they check out their expenses and how their investments are going

-They have roughly 5–7 income sources, majority passive

-Real estate is the largest hedger against inflation-they prioritize it

-Low cost index funds are their best friend-less time, work, effort and headaches compared to a day trader picking individual stocks

-On average own 1 sensible 5+yr old car

-Prioritize family gatherings over material goods

-Don’t wear flashy clothing

-Eat out more, cook less to save money-understand why here

-The average suit is $200 and dress is $100

-They are constant learners and know the best investment is in themselves

Types of Goods

After examining what core habits keep the wealthy truly wealthy, what is true regardless of net worth is that you always need to own some amount of goods and physical assets so what exactly does the rich hold?

Yes, we all have junk in our homes that we don’t need but millionaires in particular believe in the frugal minimalist stealth wealth lifestyle the most.

This means they value:

-Less = More — leads to appreciation and focusing on appreciating assets such as antiques, investments, real estate, improving their health, happiness, vacations, etc.

-No need to impress based on clothing, clothes or furniture

-Minimalist lifestyle = clean and simple space = clear mind

-Less stuff = no trouble cleaning and less money waisted needing to sell items just sitting in the home serving no purpose

So what specifically are these items?

Well let’s take a look at what I found.

Experiment

For the past few hours during the day so I wouldn’t be seen as a robber or be too suspicious, I went to 30 homes that were on quiet streets relatively close to the town but still segregated, not near traffic or a busy populated area. I checked out one home in the area I was investigating in and it was just sold for $3M, roughly $200k less than asking price.

I figured this is where the real millionaires lie and digging into what they don’t need will uncover what they value.

So what exactly was inside?

-A bunch of food packaging and meal-packaged delivery boxes from relatively priced food chains: Blue Apron, Daily Harvest, Whole Foods and Trader Joes were in the list

-Supplies and stationary items: kids pencils, staples, rulers, clipboards, post-it notes

-Random junk: napkins, clothes, more food, gum wrappers, blankets and a Rubik’s Cub, a bunch of documents, chapstick, notebooks and lots and lots of BOOKS

-Confidential mail ripped up with special documents that were ineligible (it’s important to remove your name from any documents especially your address so someone at the dumpster facility doesn’t trace and hack your identity!)

-Containers, shoe-laces, lacrosse sticks and golf balls

-Technology: old monitor, drawer from a desk, keyboards

-A few pieces of cheap jewelry-not real gold or silver

-Wrappers, containers and boxes from various brands

Most popular delivery package box brands:

-Amazon

-Walmart

-Daily Harvest and Trader Joes bags

-Urban Outfitters

-Lululemon

-Banana Republic

-J.Crew

The coolest/most expensive things I found:

-Broken art piece of Venice, Italy

-Cartier Ring

-Ripped up cloud couch from RH

-Stained Gucci pouch

It’s a shame that these precious luxury items that go for at least a couple thousand have now gone to waste.

That’s exactly why I didn’t see many of them in millionaires’ trash cans.

They know better.

Believe it or not, there was no gold, expensive or fine jewelry, baseball collectibles, precious medals, champagne classes, fossils, Rolex watches, movie props or memorabilia, just average people stuff to live. Of course the more you have, the more you can splurge but at the same time, the faster you can loose it all.

If you know what you need and what will make your life easier, that’s all you need and most of the time, it’s all in the basic necessities from food to a soft blanket.

Sure going out to eat is nice but cooking in, trying new recipes and spending time with family in the comfort of your home is never the same in a cramped loud restaurant.

I can almost guarantee you if I snooped in a lower class neighborhood’s garbage, I would see practically the same thing in regards to food since it is the second major expense behind housing but far more fake counterfeited luxury goods and material goods that depreciate in value. Barely anything related to education or healthy eating.

Health = wealth after all.

To become rich, it doesn’t matter how much you make rather how much you spend and what you value.

Wealthy people can buy anything they want and everything they want yet don’t because they know that you can loose it fast and value the hard money they’ve earned.

If you want to up your chances of becoming wealthier, here are quick tips on how to spend your time and they will have a correlated affect on what you spend and evidently throw away:

-Don’t look at what others have

-Extreme inheritances are very, very rare except for my friend who got lucky

-You can wait at least 24 hrs for a big purchase, if not it’s not a good idea to get it

-The lower your income, the more time you spend with video games + TV

-Luxury brands are overrated and have no fundamentals in price

-Over-price homes aren’t always an investment, make sure you know the area will boom in the future and most importantly, the price doesn’t go over 3x your annual gross income

-Buying instead of renting if you plan on living in the property for more than 5 years is best. Find out here if you should rent or buy

-Avoid car splurges at all costs-cars depreciate by half the moment you drive it off the lot

If you want to learn more about a person, see how they treat others when no one is looking.

If you want to find out what they value, dig into the trash.

Millionaires are regular people. Let’s banish the stereotype that they are living their best life on yachts, eating caviar and buying an Apple Watch every time there’s a new model.

In order to attain and stay wealthy, you cannot live like everyone else.

Cheers to spring cleaning!