The Oddities of Stingy Billionaires: An Old Armchair and Tea Bags
The lives of the wealthiest people in the world have always excited the minds of ordinary people. The very word «billionaire» is associated with luxury, yachts, «cars», diamonds, suitcases of money and golden toilets. However, history has many examples of owners of «factories, newspapers, steamships» saving every penny even on their own children. «MK» has collected the most striking stories of greedy and petty billionaires of the past and present.
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American Henrietta Green went down in history as the richest woman in the world by the beginning of the 20th century. After her father's death in 1865, she inherited $7.5 million. The savvy rich woman found a profitable use for the money: she invested part of it in war bonds, and the other part in railroads. She spent the remaining millions on buying real estate and trading bonds on the stock exchange. As a result, by 1916 her fortune had grown to $100 million.
But, despite her wealth, which was unimaginable at the time, Henrietta saved on literally everything. According to her friends, the millionaire did not turn on the heating even on the coldest days. At the same time, she rented tiny apartments all her life to avoid paying taxes. She rarely turned on the hot water tap, and almost never washed her hands to avoid wasting soap. And she was even worse about her appearance: she bought new dresses only if holes appeared on old clothes. She washed only the hem, as the dirtiest part of the dress. According to her, this was to save on soap and wages for the laundress. Apparently, this was often why she smelled bad. And she ate no better: she bought only broken cookies for tea, because they were cheaper. After reading the latest newspaper, she immediately sent her son to sell it. And the sellers in the local shops, in order not to have to deal with her once again, immediately lowered their prices.
Green even managed to save on her own son Ned. The boy was sledding and broke his leg. The stingy mother did not go to a good doctor, but took her offspring to a hospital for the poor. The treatment did not help, gangrene developed and the child's leg had to be amputated.
Henrietta spent the last years of her life in proud solitude: her husband had died, and she had no contact with her family or children. The millionaire gave her soul to the devil at the age of 81. And even at the moment of her death from apoplexy, she was counting money: she argued with the maid over half a cent and discussed the benefits of skim milk.
Her daughter and son divided her enormous fortune equally, but spent it differently: the woman began to do charity work, and the man, who was crippled by his negligent mother, spent the money on buying big houses and yachts.
The richest Swede in history, Ingvard Kamprad, the founder of IKEA, bought erasers and pencils in bulk while still in elementary school and sold them at exorbitant prices to his classmates. But he didn’t spend the money he earned — he saved it.
Having amassed a multi-billion dollar fortune over time, he continued to save even on himself: he ate at the cheapest eateries, flew economy class, traveled by public transport and stayed in three-star hotels.
All the furniture in his old house was from the IKEA store, with the exception of an old chair that served him faithfully for 32 years. Kamprad loved to drink tea from tea bags. Moreover, he threw them out only when the boiling water was no longer colored dark.
The billionaire was also a real stingy person at work. For example, he required all his subordinates to use both sides of the paper, and mercilessly fined those who were guilty.
He spent his holidays not on ocean islands and seaside resorts, but in his native Sweden — on the banks of some river with a fishing rod in his hands. Kamprad even distributed his fortune prudently: he left all his assets to his three sons, and his adopted daughter got only $300 thousand, saying that the money was not intended to be spent on satisfying his unbridled desires, but for investing in business.
A native of the United States who built his career on investments, 93-year-old Warren Buffett, with a fortune of $135 billion, is not at all shy about saving. For example, according to his daughter, she once had no money to pay for parking, and she asked her father for 20 bucks. Buffett, of course, lent her the money, but she had to pay it back that same day.
The story of his home has become the talk of the town. Despite all his wealth, the American still lives in the house he bought back in 1958 and has no plans to move out. He drives a cheap used car with the inscription «Frugal» and eats in fast food chains: he gobbles up French fries, the cheapest hamburger and washes it down with Coca-Cola.
One of his company's employees once admitted that Buffett sees money everywhere: even under his own feet. He told a story about how the businessman picked up a one-cent coin in the elevator of the center where his headquarters are located, and at one of the parties, when a waiter offered the rich man wine, he said that he would rather take it in cash.
But the billionaire doesn't skimp on charity. Several years ago, Buffett was diagnosed with stage 2 prostate cancer, which he says he was able to overcome after a 100-day course of radiation therapy.
The founder and owner of the world's largest hypermarket chain Walmart started his business with a minimum initial capital of $25 thousand, of which $20 thousand he borrowed from his father-in-law and only $5 thousand were his own savings during his military service. Having opened his first store at the age of 26 in the small American town of Newport, he eventually became the owner of the largest retailer on the planet. Walton's innovation, as he himself admitted, was not «discount stores» as such (consignment shops had existed for a long time), but the fact that «discounters with a good assortment can appear in small towns» that all other representatives of the industry ignored. The Walton family fortune (Sam himself died in 1992) is estimated at $267 billion in 2024.
However, the richest man in the United States from 1982 to 1988, lived his entire life in the remote American province of Arkansas. When lightning once struck his old ranch-style house in the woods and it burned down, Walton and his wife moved into a trailer. Perhaps the billionaire would have continued to live there, but his wife protested. Then Sam Walton built a house on the old foundation, but even smaller than the previous one, since the couple's four children had already grown up and lived their own lives. The founder of the famous hypermarket chain drove an old 1979 pickup truck, stood in line at his own stores and talked to unsuspecting customers. At the same time, he spent huge amounts of money on charity: he supported zoos, libraries, theaters and even entire small towns. Being a church activist, after charity dinners he calmly washed other people's dishes.
50-year-old Moscow native and Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who emigrated to the United States with his parents at the age of six, despite a fortune of almost $100 billion, continues to live the life of an ordinary average person.
He wears worn jeans, the simplest T-shirts, inexpensive sneakers, and comes to work on roller skates. He still does not have a big house, as befits a respected millionaire, living in a small three-room apartment. He goes to one of the cheapest American supermarkets for groceries and always looks at the price tags. And if he is not satisfied with the cost of the product at the checkout, he returns it to the shelf. According to rumors, all his ex-girlfriends always complained about the same thing in their relationships with Brin: all dates ended with the closing of the bill in restaurants 50/50. And they did not even have time to dream about flowers.
At the same time, he spends a lot of money on good causes. Especially on research into Parkinson's disease. The billionaire's mother suffers from this terrible disease. As Sergey Brin noted in one of his interviews, he himself is also a carrier of the LRRK2 gene mutation, which is why he has a high risk of developing this unpleasant disease.
The manifestations of saving by the rich are often explained by greed. However, from the point of view of psychology, this phenomenon may have much deeper reasons. According to psychotherapist, consultant to millionaires Natalia Ukhanova, each of the above-mentioned heroes has similar character traits: they are able to persistently and methodically follow their idea and implement it. For them, obstacles are a challenge, which is a reason to achieve more, and not a brake. Their life is dedicated to finding ways to most effectively implement their goals. The best strategy, the result — that's what interests them. At the same time, personal well-being and a high standard of living may not be included in the list of significant goals at all: for them, this may simply not be important compared to the results in business. And then why spend money? The idea of saving was valuable to Sam Walton. He said that he changed 18 planes (he used them to travel between his stores, while he himself drove them), but none of them were bought new. Ingvar Kamprad was also proud that his chair was already 30 years old, and he was “faithful” to it, despite his wife’s discontent. Here the idea of saving is combined with the habit of what is already there. According to Natalia Ukhanova, this can be considered not so much greed as painful pragmatism. Which, by the way, led to him creating a brilliant system of managing his company, which allowed him to save significantly on taxes. This is also what forced him to sign an agreement with his daughter, according to which she received only $300 thousand out of his countless billions.Sergey Brin also adheres to the moderate lifestyle that he is used to in his family. It is important for him to implement his ideas, but the idea of having the biggest and most expensive house does not apply to them. As he says himself: «I learned to be frugal and be happy without a lot of things.» However, he spends money on luxury if he wants to: in 2005, he bought a Boeing 767 for personal use. He has a yacht, real estate, and it would be unfair to call him greedy. In addition, by the end of 2022, he donated more than $ 1 billion to organizations that treat Parkinson's disease. This generosity is explained by the fact that Sergey's mother was diagnosed with this disease. It is believed that he himself is at risk. This is an example of generosity caused by a traumatic mental situation, the psychologist believes.
The ability to save is part of the financial thinking of these people, allowing them to have large incomes and small expenses. “This is a certain system of values: people could boast of effectively built businesses, implemented innovative ideas, and, of course, wealth, but it would never occur to them to make a yacht or an airplane an attribute of success,” Ukhanova emphasizes.
If saving looks like greed that is not advisable, then the reason for this may be psychological trauma: for example, the fear of parting with money, since in childhood one had to go hungry, or the habit of making do with little as a safe strategy for living in a poor family. Experienced need, hunger, poverty can leave a serious mark on a person’s psyche. And even becoming wealthy outwardly, he can remain in the position of “poor” inside. In this case, compensatory behavior works: to live modestly, to have only the necessary, but at the same time to save money, thus creating guaranteed security. “In the life of each of our heroes there is a story about poverty and the hardships of life in the parental family,” the psychologist notes. “I think this also influenced their lifestyle.”
Most often, misers are those who, having created large sums of money, begin to greedily absorb all the excesses of life and lead an idle lifestyle. This is all due to the fact that there is internal insatiability and fear of suddenly losing it all. “And those who, despite having a lot of money and opportunities, lead a modest lifestyle are precisely people with a healthy psyche and quality management of their lives, without fear that this may all end one day, because there is a clear understanding and awareness of how everyone create it from scratch,” coach and mentor Kristina Kowalski continues the conversation. According to the expert, one should also not assume, following psychologists, that such behavior is remnants of old experience, because this is a one-sided story. It is quite possible that such people are adherents of the philosophical movement of stoicism, when a person receives a dopamine surge from self-restraint. “This is a scientifically explainable physiological fact: when we consciously limit ourselves in something, the production of dopamine increases in us and we feel happier,” says the coach. According to Kowalski, it is necessary to save 90% of people from the addiction of consuming more than they really need. We need to take an example from healthy people who aim not to consume, but to create, because this is the evolution of personality — in creation and reasonable consumption of small things.