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?

去年，我曾在一個富有男性投資者的聚會上發言。組織者公布了一項調查的結果，顯示只有很小一部分富翁認為自己的太太花錢太多。

有錢，但不顯擺一位與會人士大叫道：什么？那些家伙肯定在說謊。

目前還沒有可靠的方法來評斷富人堆里誰花錢更多：是男性還是女性。雙方都會說對方花錢更多。

由Wilmington Trust、Campden Research和Relative Solution最近聯手進行的一項調查證明了上述觀點。它們調查了40位女性（我知道，與其說是調查，不如說是舉手了事），她們每位的資產凈值都在2,500萬美元以上。

約有一半的被調查者的財產是繼承而來，四分之一得自丈夫，剩下的四分之一是自己賺的。這與我們對富有女性及其財富來源的調查基本相符。值得注意的一點是：在白手起家邁進富人行列的女性中，90%是自己當老板開公司賺的，而不是靠掙工資得來的。

至于支出，幾乎所有女性（90%）都說自己的支出習慣是量入為出。調查報告中說，這可能是因為她們并不認為自己的極大財富就是成功的全部意義所在。

調查中的一位女性說，女性往往沒有男性花錢多，也不會四處宣揚自己。她說自己的支出是保守型的，生活方式很低調。

很多女性也擔心財富會對孩子造成不良影響，所以不希望亂花錢，以免給孩子樹立壞榜樣。

與此同時，70%的女性說，她們會在必要的時候買好東西。有93.5%的女性說，買大件的主意都是由她們定，這暗示她們經常花錢買大件。

當然，對于真正的大件──比如在科羅拉多州買座房子，一架灣流(Gulfstream)私人飛機，一艘Feadship游艇，夫婦兩人可能會一起作決定。

不過買其他東西的時候呢？你認為男性還是女性的高端花銷更多？