There’s a certain breed of celebrity that accumulates enormous wealth and then proceeds to act like the heating bill is going to ruin them. These aren’t people who fell on hard times.
They got rich and stayed cheap. Some of them are admirably practical. Others are just a little baffling. Either way, their habits make for genuinely interesting reading.
1. Sarah Jessica Parker
Sarah Jessica Parker grew up in a household that struggled financially, and she’s spoken openly about how that shaped her.
Despite earning tens of millions over her career, she’s known for shopping at discount stores, clipping coupons, and avoiding extravagant purchases. She once mentioned still feeling uncomfortable spending money carelessly. That kind of economic anxiety tends to stick around longer than the circumstances that caused it.
2. Warren Buffett
He’s worth well over $100 billion, and he still lives in the same Omaha house he bought in 1958 for $31,500. Buffett famously eats at McDonald’s most mornings, with his usual order running no more than $3.17, and drives himself to work in an ordinary car.
His frugality isn’t an act for the cameras. It predates his fame by decades. People close to him describe a man who genuinely has no interest in luxury for its own sake.
3. Halle Berry
Berry has been candid about the financial insecurity she experienced early in life, including a period living in a homeless shelter in New York City after running out of money at age 21, before her career took off.
Even after becoming one of Hollywood’s highest-paid actresses, she’s talked about being careful with money and avoiding waste. She’s said her upbringing made her allergic to the idea of spending recklessly, regardless of what her bank account says.
4. Jay Leno
For most of his tenure hosting The Tonight Show, Leno banked his entire NBC salary and lived entirely off his stand-up comedy income. He’s discussed this strategy repeatedly over the years, framing it as a discipline he set for himself early on.
The result is a car collection worth an estimated $52 million to $100 million, funded without touching his primary salary. Living off one income stream when you have two takes real commitment, and Leno has stuck to that model for decades.
5. Kristen Bell
Bell and her husband Dax Shepard have been unusually public about their budgeting habits for people at their income level. She’s talked about using coupons, comparing prices before purchases, and refusing to pay full retail when a deal is available.
They’ve discussed flying economy on commercial flights when plenty of their peers wouldn’t consider it. Bell frames it as a values thing, not just a money thing.
6. Shaquille O’Neal
Shaq earned over $290 million during his NBA career alone, plus hundreds of millions more from endorsements and business ventures. He’s credited his stepfather, Army drill sergeant Phillip Harrison, with instilling the financial discipline that eventually shaped his approach to money.
After blowing his first major paycheck and learning a hard lesson about taxes and spending, Shaq made a deliberate shift, funneling earnings into investments rather than consumption. He’s also known for hunting discount deals on everyday purchases, which at his level of wealth is more philosophy than necessity.
7. Mila Kunis
Kunis grew up in a family that emigrated from Ukraine with almost nothing, and she hasn’t forgotten it. She’s talked in interviews about refusing to overspend on clothes, preferring to shop at Target over designer boutiques, and keeping her lifestyle grounded despite her earnings.
She’s also mentioned a habit of always checking prices before buying. None of that is a performance. It reads more like someone who watched her parents sacrifice too much to treat money as disposable.
8. Dave Grohl
The Foo Fighters frontman and former Nirvana drummer is worth an estimated $330 million, and by all accounts still lives well below his means. Grohl has talked about the modest circumstances he grew up in and how that left a permanent mark on how he thinks about spending.
He’s said his money goes straight into his bank account, driven regular family cars, avoided the rock star clichés, and built a reputation as one of the most down-to-earth figures in mainstream music. Some of that is personality. Some of it is clearly habit.
The Connections
What connects all eight of these people isn’t a lack of ambition or an inability to enjoy success.
It’s that somewhere along the way, usually early, usually out of necessity, they developed a relationship with money that fame and fortune never fully rewired. The wealth changed their circumstances. It didn’t change the instinct.
