When you open up the paper and you see those coupons, it looks like dollar bills staring you in the face … It’s how I grew up. Why not? – Actress Hilary Swank to talk-show host Kelly Ripa, on clipping coupons.
So if I save $2,000 by not flying first class, that’s the same as someone paying me $2,000. Wouldn’t you sit in an uncomfortable chair for three hours for $2,000? – A successful plastic surgeon.
“That way, I’m forced to stay on a budget without counting pennies and saving receipts. I can spend only what is in my wallet. I turn it into a game where each week, I reduce my ATM withdrawal amount by $20 to determine how low I can really go.” – Alan Corey, author of A Million Bucks by 30.
Millionaires tend to pay about $16 – including tip – for a haircut at a traditional barbershop. – Researchers from the University of Georgia Survey Research Institute.
When negotiating a new salary, always end the negotiations with a request for a nine-month review, instead of the usual 12-month review. It always gets approved, and it gives you a three-month head start on a potential salary raise or bonus. – Alan Corey.
It’s amazing how much smarter everyone thinks you are once you have money. Two days after I sold my company, I got asked to speak at a conference I had been trying desperately to speak at for six years. – Peter Shankman, entrepreneur and angel investor.
I once went all the way to the head of customer support at Dell over a problematic computer that was out of warranty, and I was shipped a new one the next day. If you are willing to go up the chain, you will very likely reach someone who is willing to bend the rules to rectify a complaint and fix the problem. – August Turak.
I was working at AOL in the 1990s when the company let go of 300 people. I was one of them. The movie Titanic was coming out, so I took my rent money and had 500 T-shirts printed that read, ‘It sank. Get over it.’ If I didn’t sell those shirts, I was homeless. I sold 500 shirts in six hours and made five grand. Then I called USA Today and gave a reporter the story. I sold 10,000 shirts on the Web over the next two months and ultimately racked up 100 grand. That was my very first company. – Peter Shankman
If it’s modest, people think, All she bought me was a vase? But when you give something over-the-top (I bought someone a house once), people say, ‘She’s showing off.’ – A retired California tech executive and multimillionaire
And the rich don’t all have teams of high-priced lawyers and accountants to do the paperwork. Many of them do their own, just like the rest of the world. – A partner at a prestigious law firm
“Anytime the newspaper lists my name among the 100 top-paid executives in the area, I get a ton of requests from people asking for money. It happened so much that I had to come up with a strategy to deal with it. Now I say, ‘I’m happy to give. I’ll match however much you raise yourself.’” – A retired California tech executive and multimillionaire.
I buy three suits every five or so years and own only ten total. That’s all I need – T. Boone Pickens, oil billionaire, in an interview with Kiplinger’s magazine in 2012.
When I go to other people’s houses, I don’t like watching TV on their smaller screens and listening through their wimpy stereo sound systems. It feels like you’re watching TV while slightly blind and deaf. – Allen Wong, multimillionaire developer of many bestselling apps and author of Lifehacked
“After I made a bit of extra cash by being an app developer, I decided to give some to my old friends and family members who were living paycheck-to-paycheck during the recession. But I knew that most of them wouldn’t accept it. So instead, I asked them for app ideas, which I’d code and sell. They weren’t great ideas, and the apps barely make any money. But that wasn’t the point. I’d pay my contributors thousands of dollars anyway.” – Allen Wong
“I still collect all the tiny pieces of soap and put them together into one bar. I still squeeze the toothpaste tube dry. And I grow a lot of my own vegetables.” – August Turak, founder of two successful software companies and author of Business Secrets of the Trappist Monk.
“The really wealthy are usually not the ones who wear the most expensive clothes, have the latest handbags, or drive flashy cars. [I] see a lot of people who live in houses that sell for $10 million driving ten-year-old Toyotas.” – A successful plastic surgeon
“Your home might not have a ballroom, but you can save yourself stress by creating an off-limits area when entertaining. Bonus: You can shove the ‘I don’t know what to do with this stuff’ pile into one of those rooms and shut the door.” – A real estate broker from Million Dollar Listing New York on Bravo television.
“My big break was when I was hired to represent a company started by people I knew from high school.” – A partner at a prestigious law firm
This article first appeared on Reader’s Digest.