Last year, I was speaking at a gathering of wealthy male investors. The organizers posted the results of a survey showing that only a small percentage of wealthy men believed their wives spent too much.

　　'What?' shouted one participant. 'Those guys have to be lying.'

　　There is no reliable measure of who spends more among the rich: men or women. Both will say the other is the bigger spender.

　　A recent survey by Wilmington Trust, Campden Research and Relative Solutions proves the point. The companies polled 40 women (I know, that is more like a show of hands than 'survey'), each with a net worth of $25 million or more.

　　About half the respondents inherited their money, a quarter got it from their husbands and the other quarter earned it themselves. That is roughly in line with other surveys of wealthy women and the source of their money. One interesting note: among the self-made women, 90% got their money from owning a business, rather than earning a salary.

　　As for spending, almost all the women (90%) described their spending habits as 'below their means.' The report on the survey said that is 'possibly because they do not view their extreme wealth as defining their success.

　　'Women tend not to spend as much as men and splash their names all over the place,' said one woman in the survey, describing her spending as conservative and he lifestyle as 'below the radar.'

　　Many women also worried about wealth having bad effects on their children and didn't want to spend lavishly to set a bad example.

　　At the same time, 70% of the women said they 'buy nice things when necessary.' And 93.5% of the women said they were responsible for making decisions on major purchases, which implies that they do a lot of the big spending.

　　Of course, for truly major purchases a house in Aspen, Colo., a Gulfstream, a Feadship the couple probably makes the decision together.

　　But what about other purchases? Do you think men or women do most of the high-end spending?

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