Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin - Why Billionaires Are Buying Bunkers

Episode Date: March 20, 2024

Doomsday prepping used to be a very niche category. But after the past few years we’ve had, the preppers are a little less fringe. In fact, there are new preppers. And they’re the 1%. From Mark Zuckerberg to Bill Gates, today Nicole takes you through the totally wild— and a little spooky— prepper economy. $ If you're ready to find your dream team, use LinkedIn Jobs. Post a job for free at: linkedin.com/mnn $ Want to level up your money moves? Check out Facet. Facet is the next generation of personalized financial planning that is making professional financial advice accessible to the masses, not just the rich. Facet will help you understand and expand your financial opportunities by providing you with a team of financial planners (with the CFP® certification you want) and a team of professionals across all the major food groups of your financial wellness: retirement planning, tax strategy, estate planning and more. To claim Facet’s offer for Money Rehabbers, go to: https://facet.com/moneyrehab 

I love hosting on Airbnb. It's a great way to bring in some extra cash. But I totally get it that it might sound overwhelming to start, or even too complicated, if, say, you want to put your summer home in Maine on Airbnb, but you live full-time in San Francisco and you can't go to Maine every time you need to change sheets for your guests or something like that. If thoughts like these have been holding you back, I have great news for you. Airbnb has launched a co-host network, which is a network of high quality local co-hosts with Airbnb experience that can take care of your home and your guests. Co-hosts can do what you don't have time for, like managing your reservations, messaging your guests, giving support at the property, or even create your listing for you.

I always want to line up a reservation for my house when I'm traveling for work, but sometimes I just don't get around to it because getting ready to travel always feels like a scramble, so I don't end up making time to make my house look guest-friendly. I guess that's the best way to put it. But I'm matching with a co-host so I can still make that extra cash while also making it easy on myself. Find a co-host at airbnb.com slash host. One of the most stressful periods of my life was when I was in credit card debt. I got to a point where I just knew that I had to get it under control for my financial future and also for my mental health. We've all hit a point where we've realized it was time to make some serious money moves. So take control of your finances by using a Chime checking account with features like no

maintenance fees, fee-free overdraft up to $200, or getting paid up to two days early with direct deposit. Learn more at Chime.com slash MNN. When you check out Chime, you'll see that you can overdraft up to $200 with no fees. If you're an OG listener, you know about my infamous $35 overdraft fee that I got from buying a $7 latte and how I am still very fired up about it. If I had Chime back then, that wouldn't even be a story. Make your fall finances a little greener by working toward your financial goals with Chime. Open your account in just two minutes at Chime.com slash MNN. That's Chime.com slash MNN. Chime feels like progress. Banking services and debit card provided by the Bancorp Bank N.A. or Stride Bank N.A. Members FDIC. SpotMe eligibility requirements and overdraft limits

apply. Boosts are available to eligible Chime members enrolled in SpotMe and are subject to monthly limits. Terms and conditions apply. Go to Chime.com slash disclosures for details. I'm Nicole Lappin, the only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. It's time for some money rehab. Doomsday prepping used to be a very niche category, but after the past few years we've had, the preppers are a little less fringe. And in fact, there are new preppers. They are the top 1%. Today, we're going to take a look at the totally wild and a little spooky prepper economy. When I talk about the prepper economy, I'm not just talking about stocking up on non-perishables. The world's wealthiest people are doing survival, but making it fashion.

Today's billionaires are building bunkers that are straight out of some dystopian nightmare with moats of fire and water cannons. And no, I am not kidding. So let's take a step back because you're probably thinking, Lappin, what is driving this frenzy for ultra secure hideaways? Well, it's a fun cocktail of anxieties, civil unrest, cyber threats, nuclear warfare, climate change. I mean, take your pick. Oh, and let's not forget the global pandemic, which was a particularly salient reminder of how quickly everyday life can spiral. And then there are all the apocalyptic movies and shows that are coming out. All of the streamers have their own version of this. Netflix has Leave the World Behind,

Max, formerly known as HBO Max, has The Last of Us, and Hulu has Handmaid's Tale. I mean, Luxury Safe Room was even featured on an episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians, and the provider of that, Atlas Survival Shelters, now says they sell one of these luxury safe rooms every day at $200,000 a pop. So enter bunker mania. And like any mania, it feeds on itself. So when it goes public that very knowledgeable, plugged-in people start building doomsday dens for themselves, more people feel like they need to do that too. For example, it made waves that Mark Zuckerberg announced he was building a shelter under his ranch in Hawaii. Another biggie was Bill Gates, who allegedly has underground

security areas under each and every one of his homes. When other billionaires see these pretty smart dudes making disaster plans, they jump on the prepper bandwagon too. I mean, there's been a run on bunker air filtration systems in a way that there's been a run on banks during financial crises. And don't get it twisted. These bunkers aren't just a hole in the ground. We're talking about multi-million dollar luxury sanctuaries equipped to withstand everything from ballistic attacks to natural disasters. Zuck's shelter I mentioned, that's going to run him $100 million to build. And just to give you a sense of what a multi-million dollar spend will get you underground, let me take you through Money Rehab Cribs Prepper Edition. The president

of Creative Home Engineering, it's a company that helps the ultra wealthy make their bunker away from home dreams come true, talked to The Hollywood Reporter about the Prepper economy, and he described one of the projects he's working on that is so wild, I just have to read it to you verbatim. He said, quote, I'm wrapping up a project for a client that includes nine secret doors that didn't spare any expense and an underground shooting range accessed by this massive fireplace that rotates like the one in Indiana Jones. There's a giant staircase that raises up to reveal a big basement where a vehicle elevator goes down into the garage. We also installed a British phone booth. When you dial 8 6 7 5 3 0 9

on the receiver, the song plays and the glass turns opaque so that you disappear then the back door opens up and there's actually a slide that takes you down two levels where there's a sensor that causes the back panel of the booth to return and the glass to go transparent so nobody can understand how you got out of there the house also happens to have a giant shark tank in the basement that shares a one wall with swimming pool, so it looks like you're swimming with sharks. And the pool is more like a water park with a flow river, a lazy river, a grotto, a glass basement so that you can see a go-kart track underneath the pool. He has a safe room, and we did one secret door that's exclusively for security, but the rest is mostly for showing off. And then there's a company, SAFE. That's S-A-F-E,

an abbreviation for Strategically Armored and Fortified Environments. SAFE is crafting a survivalist's dream on a 200-acre property complete with a lake that can turn into a fiery barrier at the flick of a switch, where the only access to the fortress is a swing bridge. And then they took all of the dirt created by manufacturing the lake and used it to build a whole mountain as a natural fortification around the property. In addition to cutting a tunnel through the mountain with flamethrowers, gassing systems, a steel wall that closes midway that could stop a 16-wheeler going 80 miles an hour, and barricades on both ends of the tunnel.

In this prepper economy, this kind of crazy is the rule, not the exception. In my deep dive into luxury bunkers, I saw people buying cars that are less reliant on computer interfaces and therefore would still function in an electromagnetic pulse, state-of-the-art decontamination booths, bunkers outfitted with full medical operating tables and schedule one drugs in locked cabinets that can only be remotely opened by a physician, ballistic armored pocket doors, security vaults, secret doors behind mirrors, helicopters, underground museums, safe rooms with bulletproof doors that open with a fingerprint. And believe it or not, it goes on and on and on. And the extravagance doesn't stop at defense capabilities. These

bunkers have amenities that blend high security with high luxury because no billionaire wants doomsday to be boring. So think water cannons for fighting hypothetical invaders and enhancing a jet ski football game. And secret passages for making a perilous escape that also lead to underground entertainment havens with flight simulators. This is so opulent that it's almost kind of funny. But it's also a sobering state of affairs. The shiny nature of these survivalist palaces speaks to our deep-seated anxieties about the world's direction, the reliability of our societal infrastructures, and the lengths to which those

with means will go to ensure their safety and comfort amidst all of this uncertainty. To me personally, I think making safety a luxury is a little bonkers. If you're going to invest in security, invest in financial security so you can pay for your own doomsday bunker if you want to, or, you know, something a little more practical. For today's tip, you can take straight to the bank. I am not convinced that an emergency bunker is a great investment, but one that I do think is a good investment in yourself is an emergency fund. If you're having trouble scrolling away money for your oh crap fund, use your tax refund if you get one. The average tax refund last season was almost $3K,

so if this year's average follows that same trend, you'll have a healthy seed for that emergency fund to grow. I love hosting on Airbnb. It's a great way to bring in some extra cash, but I totally get it that it might sound overwhelming to start, or even too complicated if, say, you want to put your summer home in Maine on Airbnb, but you live full time in San Francisco and you can't go to Maine every time you need to change sheets for your guests or something like that. If thoughts like these have been holding you back, I have great news for you. Airbnb has launched a co-host network, which is a network of high quality local co-hosts with Airbnb experience that can take care of your home and your guests. Co-hosts can do what you don't

have time for, like managing your reservations, messaging your guests, giving support at the property, or even create your listing for you. I always want to line up a reservation for my house when I'm traveling for work, but sometimes I just don't get around to it because getting ready to travel always feels like a scramble, so I don't end up making time to make my house look guest-friendly. I guess that's the best way to put it. But I'm matching with a co-host so I can still make that extra cash while also making it easy on myself. Find a co-host at Airbnb.com slash host. One of the most stressful periods of my life was when I was in credit card debt. I got to a point where I just knew that I had to get it under control for my financial future and also for my mental health.

We've all hit a point where we've realized it was time to make some serious money moves. So take control of your finances by using a Chime checking account with features like no maintenance fees, fee-free overdraft up to $200, or getting paid up to two days early with direct deposit. Learn more at Chime.com slash MNN. When you check out Chime, you'll see that you can overdraft up to $200 with no fees. If you're an OG listener, you know about my infamous $35 overdraft fee that I got from buying a $7 latte and how I am still very fired up about it. If I had Chime back then, that wouldn't even be a story. Make your fall finances a little greener by working

toward your financial goals with Chime. Open your account in just two minutes at Chime.com slash MNN. That's Chime.com slash MNN. Chime. Feels like progress. Banking services and debit card provided by the Bancorp Bank N.A. or Stride Bank N.A. Members FDIC. SpotMe eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply. Booths are available to eligible Chime members enrolled in SpotMe and are subject to monthly limits. Terms and conditions apply. Go to Chime.com slash disclosures for details. is Emily Holmes. Do you need some money rehab? And let's be honest, we all do. So email us your money questions, moneyrehab at moneynewsnetwork.com to potentially have your questions answered on the show or even have a one-on-one intervention with me. And follow us on Instagram at Money News and

TikTok at Money News Network for exclusive video content. And lastly, thank you. No, seriously, thank you. Thank you for listening and for investing in yourself, which is the most important investment you can make.