IMAGINE a world where money is no object, where everything is within your grasp, where you can not only afford everything in the shop, but also buy the place itself. A tiny fraction of the six billion people who inhabit this world don't have to imagine, they are an elite band of multi-millionaires whose extravagant lives are the envy of the masses.

Elton John, for one, has built a reputation for spending which is fast becoming legendary. Court proceedings this week, in which he is suing his former accountant, reveal his supreme talent, not only for music, but for parting with the folding stuff. His 20-month shopping spree of £40m beggars belief. But when you spend £283,000 on flowers and have a craving for Cartier, it's not so surprising.

And it pales into insignificance compared to the real spendthrifts. The world's richest man, the Sultan of Brunei, Hassanal Bolkiah, inherited a fortune said to be worth £25bn, a good part of which he has managed to spend.

His wives have their own jumbo jet which transports them in sheer luxury around the world, while he flies his own, just for fun. When one of his daughters turned 18 he bought her an Airbus.

It's a trait which runs in the family. His younger brother Jefri bought a £6.2m necklace from Bond Street jewellers Asprey. He was so pleased with the purchase he decided to buy the shop, paying £241m, almost twice its value, and forgetting that he and his family were its best customers. But that's inherited wealth for you.

Others come into money through their work, with fate smiling on their fortunes. Posh and Becks - Victoria and David Beckham - enjoy a good spend thanks to the success they're enjoying in the pop world and Manchester United, respectively.

From humble beginnings - Posh is the daughter of the owner of an electrical business, Becks is the son of a gas fitter - their fortune passed the £25m mark long ago and continues to grow as they become the world's most merchanised couple.

When they got engaged they popped over to Rodeo Drive, in Hollywood, for the ring and Becks thinks nothing of spending £60,000 a month. If you are wondering what on, then take a quick look in his garage at the Ferraris, Porsches, Aston Martins and Jaguars.

Meanwhile, Victoria has an insatiable appetite for designer clothes and jewellery. Even their son Brooklyn is into designer label toddler wear, including a miniature version of his dad's £1,250 designer jeans.

Others like to spend their dosh on their home. Microsoft founder Bill Gates has built a little place on the coast near Seattle, which has so far cost £33m. Inspired by the space station in 2001 Space Odyssey, it boasts a computer which senses he is home, turning on the lights when he walks in a room, controlling the temperature and flashing up his favourite works of art on flat screen televisions around the 45-room mansion. As he moves around the house, the computer tracks him, switching on the television, or re-routing the phone.

But money doesn't always buy happiness, as pools winner Viv Nicholson found to her cost. The Yorkshire housewife blew £150,000 she and her husband Keith won on the pools in 1960 - and helped coin the phrase "spend, spend, spend" in the process. Keith died at the wheel of the Jaguar he bought with the winnings. She got embroiled in drink and drugs until the money ran out.

So the really rich have the money and enjoy flaunting it - and who can blame them.

It's a daydream shared by most of the population since the launch of the National Lottery gave everyone the chance of becoming multi-millionaires. But the reasons they like to spend are as complicated as they are subliminal.

Consumer psychologist at the University of Northumbria, Jim Goudie, says money can lead to insecurity and lavish spending can be a sign of this.

Eminent psychologist Sigmund Freud called it reaction formation. "It's about an absence of love," Mr Goudie says. "The parents can't express their love warmly for their children and feel guilty, so they give lavish gifts to them instead. The kids, who have had little emotion shown towards them, see the toys as the sort of things to be desired and valued.

"Possessions take on importance later in their lives, they themselves grow up to be the same and they spend too much on gifts for themselves.

North-East people have lived with unemployment and poverty for years. When they have money they spend it before they are in a position where they can't.

"Those brought up in poverty long for material things so if they get cash they spend, spend, spend," says Mr Goudie.

Obsessive buying can also show insecurity and a need to demonstrate to the world what they have achieved. The spending becomes more about making a statement than for enjoyment.

People who are born rich often feel secure as a result but are careless with their fortunes. They can spend without thinking, only to find that the family fortune has been frittered away. They can end up going from rags to riches to rags in four generations.

Not all millionaires are spendthrifts; some become Scrooges. "Poverty can go either way," says Mr Goudie. "They can adopt a hoarding philosophy of life. They will remain very insecure, thinking it is going to be taken away from them at any time. They have drive about them but are motivated by a mean streak."

If money comes too easy, the effects can be far-reaching, as with Lottery winners. "They can be knocked sideways. Most people don't believe they are going to win and are in shock. When they get the money they are totally ill-equipped to deal with it and have no idea how to control it. There are so many stories of marriages breaking up, of them being bored because they have given up their job, even a world cruise loses its appeal after a while.

"They are unskilled in terms of getting things out of life. They are used to working nine to five, 50 weeks a year. When this is taken away there are no rules any more about how to behave and they are left feeling very unsettled."

Fame can bring its own type of insecurity, making the rich suspicious of the people around them, even their friends, and the feeling that the world is out to rip them off.

Money can't buy happiness, say the rich. But it can certainly help, reply the poor. The reality, according to the experts, is that money can make people lose touch with what it is to be a human being.