5 Odd Ways Money Is Being Spent

  • Share
  • Read Later

Roughly $300 will get you a Star Wars poster at Pottery Barn, or a patient to actually take his or her prescription drugs. Meanwhile, some folks are spending $12,000 for ride-on lawnmowers, and $360K buys your 16-year-old—OK, not your 16-year-old, but P. Diddy’s 16-year-old—a new car.

$299 The price of Star Wars “wall art” at Pottery Barn Kids. Comes with flashing LEDs, but come on: It’s a poster.

$300 The amount of money one woman won over the course of a six-month lottery in Philadelphia, in which patients had the chance to win $10 to $100 daily simply for taking their prescription medicines. Why does such a lottery program exist? As NY Times reports, paying people to take their pills is arguably less expensive than the costs of hospitalization due to the fact that people weren’t taking their pills.

$12,000 The high-end price of the high-end, super-powered lawnmower market, as detailed in a WSJ story about neighborly competitions for the nicest lawns—and most pimped-out mowers.

$360,000 What Sean “Diddy” Combs paid for his son’s sixteenth birthday present, a silver Maybach (apparently, this is a car, not a rocket ship or anything). When asked about the message he was sending by giving such a present, Combs replied, “It wasn’t even about a lesson; it’s what I wanted to do… I could do whatever I want to do and you can’t question me about it.”

$2,600,000 The price paid for the privilege of having lunch with Warren Buffett. The chance to dine with Buffett and absorb his brilliant, boring wisdom was auctioned off for charity last week, and the winning bid was a record-breaking $2.6 million. It is unclear if food costs extra.