10 Billionaires With Surprisingly Frugal Money Habits
Incorporate some of these habits into your own life and perhaps your own net worth will grow.
- Mark Zuckerberg drives a $30,000 car
Despite being able to buy a Ferrari for every day of the month, the Facebook founder drives a non-ostentatious Volkswagon GTI with manual transmission, which costs only $30,000. Other cost saving tricks: He reportedly married longtime girlfriend Priscilla Chan in their backyard, and the two were seen eating at a McDonald’s during their 2012 Italian honeymoon trip. When Zuckerberg bought his most recent home in 2011, a $7 million house in Palo Alto, some called it “still well below his means.”
- Warren Buffet still resides in the same home he bought for $31,500 in 1958
Known as the ‘Oracle of Omaha,’ longtime chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Warren Buffet is one of the richest people on the planet. But he still lives in his 6,000 square-foot, five-bedroom stucco house in Omaha. He's described the purchase as “the third best investment I ever made.” A similar five-bedroom house located next door went on sale in 2015 for a list price of ten ‘A shares’ of Berkshire Hathaway stock, equal to over $2.5 million today.
- Bill Gates wears a $10 watch
Forget Rolex. Adorning Bill Gates's wrist is a $10 watch. And perhaps most frugally, Gates remains old-fashioned in that he still likes to wash the dishes at home every night for his family. Dishwashers user electricity after all!
- Charlie Ergen, founder and chairman of Dish Network, still packs a brown-bag lunch from home every day
Of course eating out is super expensive. Dish Network founder battles those costs with a simple and inexpensive paper-bag lunch before work every day, consisting of a sandwich and Gatorade from home. He and his wife have lived in the same Denver house for over 20 years.
Until recently, the Dish CEO also stuck to company policy by sharing hotel rooms with colleagues while traveling for business. As Ergen once told the Financial Times, "My mom grew up in the Depression... I don't have a mahogany desk."
- Carlos Slim Helú, Mexico's richest man, drives himself around town and to work everyday
Many who dream of being rich dream of a chauffeur. Not Mexican telecom magnate Carlos Slim Helú, who drives himself around town in an old Mercedes-Benz, buys clothes off the rack at his own retail stores, and for over 40 years, has lived in the same modest six-bedroom house in Mexico where he raised his kids.