David Schottenstein talks about his array of rare whiskies like a teenager might talk about his sports card collection. The 30-year-old multi-millionaire — his net worth has been estimated at around $50 million — owns bottles worth $20,000 or more.

“I once bought a bottle that was used at Princess Diana’s wedding,” he said, adding that he only paid $350 for it at an auction.

His most prized vintage: a Macallan 60 that was distilled in 1949 in Craigellachie, Scotland and bought in 2009. “I’ll never drink it,” he said of the scotch that Christie’s auction house values at between $16,000 and $25,000. “If I get bored of it I’ll sell it.”

It’s just one of the many pricey things that Schottenstein collects, though he says he pays less than the sticker price and considers his purchases as investments that will grow in value. He likes buying jewellery, too, and owns some pieces that are now valued at $200,000.

There aren’t many people like Schottenstein — 20- and 30-somethings who have more money than they could have ever imagined — but you have probably heard of a few of them.

According to Wealth-X, a company that tracks the ultra wealthy set, 1.6% of Ultra- High-Net-Worth (UHNW) individuals — defined as having more than $30m in assets — are under 30, while 5.5% are between the ages of 30 and 39. Among them: Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Napster founder Sean Parker and TAL Education Group founder Zhang Bangxin.

Many young UHNW individuals are, like Schottenstein, entrepreneurs. Schottenstein sold his first business, custom tailor Astor & Black, in 2011 to a private equity firm for about $42m and now runs Viewabill, a technology company that helps businesses track their legal bills.

For the young and extremely affluent, life is a complicated mix of spending and saving that includes buying big ticket items like cars, houses, alcohol and handbags, travelling around the world and reinvesting in their businesses to make even more money, said Mark McMullen, the Geneva-based head of family office for Stonehage, a wealth management firm that deals with ultra-wealthy individuals around the world.

The under-35 group of wealthy typically tries to use the money they have to make even more.

“These are highly entrepreneurial, highly ambitious people,” McMullen said. “Because they’ve made money quickly, they think it’s easy to do and they often try and recreate what they’ve already done.”

Meet the new young and rich — stave off your jealousy and you may be surprised by just how practical some of them are.

No Hollywood Here

When Sonita Lontoh, an Indonesia-raised entrepreneur who now lives in Silicon Valley, sold her first business — China-focused gaming company wan1wan.com — at the tender age of 26, she immediately rushed out to buy a $24,000 pink Hermes handbag.

Having so much money was “liberating,” she said.

One misconception that people have about wealthy young people is that they live like Lindsay Lohan — occasionally-troubled and always after the finest things — said Tim Pritchard an advisor to the ultra wealthy at Richardson GMP, a Toronto-based wealth management firm.

Pritchard, who counts young business owners and wealthy professional sports stars as clients, said some do get mixed up with illicit drugs and excessive drinking, but the vast majority are workaholics and their desire to build companies usually doesn’t change.

For instance, Lontoh, now-38, didn’t suddenly become a hard-living Hollywood type replete with all-night drinking and all-day shopping sprees. She bought a loft with her husband that cost seven-figures, flies in first class more often, occasionally takes private jets and indulges in her handbag habit, but, she said otherwise her lifestyle did not change dramatically.

“I did not party all the time,” said the tech executive, although some of her wealthy friends did.

Living large doesn’t last

That’s not to say that some people don’t live it up.