13 Frugal Habits of the Super Rich and Famous
Becoming wealthy and staying that way takes a certain level of discipline. Sure, an occasional splurge won’t put you in the poor house, but frequent frivolous spending can quickly erode your net worth. The frugal habits necessary to achieve financial success and maintain it can be surprisingly simple. Read on to meet 14 business leaders and celebrities, including renowned investor Warren Buffett and retired race car driver Danica Patrick, whose penny-pinching choices — from clipping coupons to clipping their own hair — have helped them build and maintain their fortunes.
As Knight Kiplinger observed in The Invisible Rich[1], “the biggest barrier to becoming rich is living like you’re rich before you are.” Learn more about the cost-cutting moves that help make these successful millionaires and billionaires who they are.
NOTE: Net-worth estimates are as of May 2019 and were sourced from Forbes.com and CelebrityNetWorth.com.
- Age: 37
- Estimated net worth: $60 million[2]
- How she struck it rich: Race car driver
- Frugal habit: Makes her own meals while traveling
The recently retired driver, who ended her 14-year career after crashing at the Indianapolis 500 in 2018, keeps costs in check even when she’s on the road by cooking for herself and told us it’s the most frugal thing she does[3]. “I love to cook. While it can sometimes be hard to have all the right ingredients when I’m on the road, I love stopping by local farmers markets and cooking as often as I can. The food I make is much healthier than always eating out at restaurants, plus it’s a great way to save money,” Patrick says.
She’s right. Preparing your own meals can help you build up your savings over time. For example, if you spend $8 buying lunch from a restaurant every day, you can save $60 a month and $720 a year by bringing your own lunch made using ingredients that cost only $5.
- Age: 41
- Estimated net worth: $10 million[4]
- How she struck it rich: Professional boxer and entrepreneur
- Frugal habit: Skips the hair salon and styles her own hair
Ali, the daughter of legendary boxer Muhammad Ali, is now a cookbook author[5] and an entrepreneur with her own hair styling product line[6] after an undefeated boxing career. But long before all of that, she was operating her own nail-salon business at age 18, and now she runs a salon of different sorts from her own home. Instead of shelling out cash for a professional blowout every week, Ali prefers to style her own hair, as well as her 6-year-old daughter Sydney’s hair. “My time is precious. I don’t have time to drive an hour to a salon and then sit there for a couple more hours getting my hair done. It’s really not that serious or important to me,” she told Kiplinger.com[7].
