Oftentimes, super wealthy celebs seem pretty out-of-touch when it comes to money.
So, it’s surprising — and a little refreshing — when a celeb is actually pretty money-conscious. Here are 29 times celebs were surprisingly frugal:
1.
T-Pain flies commercial, but some fans have criticized him for not taking a private jet. In a 2025 Twitter video, he said, “To take a private jet from Atlanta to Vegas and then back to Atlanta is $126,000. And y’all are asking me…Do you understand what I’m saying? Are you okay now? You feel like it? ‘No private jet? What, you not taking a private jet? You not spending all this money to go make money?’ Why would you do that? In what world is that smart? Then y’all will be like, ‘He going broke again!'”
In the caption, he tweeted, “If it don’t make dollars it don’t make sense!!! Pass me the Biscoff cookies.”
2.
In a 2025 TikTok video with Got Sole, Ben Affleck went sneaker shopping with his 13-year-old son, Sam. When Sam eyed a pair of Dior Air Jordan 1s — which retail for over $6,000 — Ben said, “You like those ’cause they’re expensive.” He wouldn’t buy them. After learning the price, he told his son, “That’s a lot of lawns you gotta mow there!”
3.
When Kieran Culkin was 19, he moved into a one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan, and he called it home for about 20 years. He lived there with his wife, Jazz Charton, and their daughter, Kinsey, until Succession Season 3 wrapped. In 2021, he told New York Magazine, “I’m finally making money for the first time in my 30-something-year career!”
In 2021, he told The Chris Moyles Show, “We live in New York City apartments, I’m sure it’s similar to this [in London]. It means the corner of our bedroom is the nursery. So, we weren’t really prepared for all that. And then eventually, friends kept telling us, ‘You know you’re gonna have to give that kid its own room’. We have a one-bedroom apartment, there’s, what, the kitchen? I don’t know. Where does it go?”
“So eventually, the kid took our bedroom, and my wife – [who was pregnant] the second time while we were shooting through the pandemic – we’re sleeping on a mattress on the living room floor because the baby has the bedroom. And she, at one point, turns to me, and she goes, ‘You see how we live, right?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah.’ She goes, ‘You know you’re on a hit TV show, right?’ Alright, I’ll move us. We’ll move,” he said.
4.
In 2023, Jessica Alba told SheKnows that she teaches her kids not to be wasteful with hand-me-downs. She said, “Honor grows out of clothes, and then it gets passed down to Haven instead of Haven buying brand-new stuff every time. And Hayes even inherited some of Honor and Haven’s clothes. I do a lot of, like, sharing and trading with those types of things, like clothes or other home items. We try not to make anything just go to waste.”
5.
In 2025, Timothée Chalamet arrived at the London premiere of A Complete Unknown on a rented Lime electric bike to beat traffic. On the French chatshow Quotidien, he reportedly said, “There was a traffic jam, and I actually wasn’t allowed to park there, and I got a £65 fine. And actually, it’s horrible because it was an advert for them.”
6.
Rather than constantly upgrading to the latest model, Chris Evans kept his iPhone 6s for seven years. In a since-deleted Instagram post from 2022, he said, “RIP iPhone 6s. We had a good run. I’ll miss your home button. I won’t miss the nightly battle of trying to get you to charge. Or your grainy pictures. Or your sudden drop from 100 per cent battery, to 15 per cent, to completely dead all within minutes. It was a wild ride. Rest easy, pal.”
7.
Per Afro Tech, at the 2024 Building Wealth Today for Tomorrow Financial Empowerment Summit, Keke Palmer said, when she was about 18 or 19, she filed for bankruptcy. She said, “I was so spooked. I was like, ‘What went wrong?'” The experience spurred her decision to live below her means, enabling her to create a safety net. She said, “If I got $10,000 in the bank, then my house would be $500 a month. That’s how under I mean, because I can probably afford something $2,500 maybe, but I’m going way under. You know why? Because I wanna invest in my business. So if I wanna invest in my business, then the material things that I’m having currently might have to take a short back. Instead of wearing Gucci, I’m wearing Zara. I live in a good place. I drive a cool car, ’cause my money is going elsewhere…I got a Toyota right now in my driveway.”
8.
In 2018, Sarah Michelle Gellar told CNBC Make It, “I cut coupons to this day. I’ll never forget, one time I was at Bloomingdale’s, and they had these coupons — Bloomingdale’s has really good coupons — and I was taking them all out. I was doing holiday shopping. And someone behind me turned around and said, ‘I can’t believe how long you’re taking. Why are you using coupons?’ I remember looking at her like, why should I pay more? Like, if there’s a coupon there, I’m going to use it. Just because you’re successful doesn’t mean that you should be errant in your spending. I’ve never believed that…I still don’t like writing big checks. I don’t like making big purchases. I will go back and stare at a leather jacket for a couple days before I even purchase it.”
9.
In 2018, Sarah Michele Gellar also told CNBC Make It, “I remember I was the last one [on Buffy] to get a new car. I got a new car the second season of the show. I was the last one; everyone else had gotten it. Until I was totally sure, I was not ready to trade in my poor, sad first car…a green Chrysler LeBaron. It was pretty awful. I was stressed. I didn’t know much about cars. I remember going, ‘I’m going to get a Range Rover when I learn how to drive and get a license,’ not understanding how expensive Range Rovers were. So the first time I saw how much a Range Rover was, I said, ‘I am not getting Range Rover.’ Needless to say, I’ve still never had a Range Rover.”
10.
In 2018, Zach Galifianakis told Jimmy Kimmel Live, “[My ’98 Subara Outback has] been my car. I told myself when I bought it, I’m gonna drive it for 20 years. And this past autumn, it started breaking down, so I got a brand new electric car that I’m very excited about.
11.
50 Cent had a smart reason for skipping the stereotypical rich people purchase — a yacht. In 2023, he told Brian J. Roberts, “A yacht, to me, when I look at the yacht, it’s beautiful in the water on a day when you can go out and get on it. But, The Final Lap Tour, I had 93 dates, right? I’m going to be off moving around so much that the yacht turns into a hole. It turns into a hole in the water that you could just keep throwing money in because you don’t really have time to get on it. And it’s just sitting there, and it’s probably going to look like it’s damaged or weathered after it’s been in the water and then take it outta the water. So I gotta do maintenance to clean shit off of it that was floating around it. And it’s just gonna create an expense that, if you didn’t have the expenses within lifestyle, that wouldn’t make sense.”
However, he segued into why he made the very expensive decision to fly private. He said, “With all of that touring and stuff like that, if I decide I’m not going to be on a bus, I’m gonna fly private everywhere I go. If it makes less wear and tear on me because I’m going to 93 different territories, yeah, I don’t care about the expense.”
12.
Ed Begley Jr. has a tradition of taking public transportation to the Oscars. In a viral TikTok from 2024, his daughter, Hayden, shared that they were taking the Los Angeles Metro together. She said, “As someone who has thrice taken the bus to the subway and then walked about half a mile in seven-inch heels to the Oscars, I do understand my mother’s hesitation. Thank God there are people like my dad who don’t mind wearing running shoes on a red carpet.”
Ed told the New York Times, “I never feel that I’m wasting my time taking the bus or the subway somewhere because I bring my script with me or do Jumble or Wordle. I do the LA Times and New York Times crossword every day.”
13.
And in another TikTok, Hayden said that her dad, Ed Begley Jr., “buys all of his clothes at Costco.” She said, “I feel like I’m in a very unique situation where I don’t have the stereotypical actor dad. I’m like 99 percent sure my dad would have his same personality if he was a plumber.
14.
In 2012, Kristen Bell told Conan, “I’m very frugal. I use a lot of coupons. I almost exclusively shop with coupons. Well, the best coupon you can get — possibly in the world — is the Bed, Bath & Beyond coupon. You know it’s the best one, ’cause they’ve got, like, 20% off, and if you go and buy, like, a duvet or an air conditioner or whatever, you could be saving upwards of $80!”
15.
In 2016, Sarah Jessica Parker told The Edit, “I will only buy secondhand clothes for my son, James Wilkie. The documentary The True Cost really changed me. The one area I’ve had a hard time with is pants, but I buy used T-shirts and sweaters for him. Track pants are hard — boys rip them; I don’t know how to get around that.”
16.
When Tiffany Haddish was shopping for a dress for her Girls Trip premiere in 2017, she bought a $4,000 Alexander McQueen dress, which she’s famously reworn to multiple events. In 2021, she told People, “I [was] like, ‘Oh, hell no. This is my mortgage. I can’t wear this dress…I was just devastated [I couldn’t return it]. I was very upset that I spent that much money on a dress, period. Then I was like, ‘Well, I’m going to wear this dress everywhere I go. I’m going to get my money’s worth.’ …The dress has made me the money that it cost, plus, at this point”.”
She wore the dress to the 2018 MTV Movie & TV Awards. She’s also worn it on Saturday Night Live, My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, and People’s Most Beautiful Issue.
17.
As of 2018, Chow Yun-fat reportedly lives on $800 HKD (about $102 USD) a month, takes public transportation, shops at discount stores, and uses the same Nokia cellphone he’s had for 17 years. He also plans to donate most of his wealth to charity. He told Jayne Stars, “The money’s not mine. I’m only keeping it safe for the time being…My dream is to be a happy and normal person. The hardest thing in life is not about how much money you earn, but how to keep a peaceful mindset and live the rest of your life in a simple and carefree manner.”
18.
In 2016, Mila Kunis told Conan, “So, my husband [Ashton Kutcher] and I got married, and he got me a beautiful engagement ring. Like, stunning, stunning, stunning. But for our wedding bands for when we got married, I decided to just get them off of Etsy. And so, our wedding bands are from Etsy…’Cause I wanted a very, very, like the thinnest possible platinum band…I went and looked at, like, how much Tiffany [charges], and I was like, ‘They’re how much? Like, this is astronomical.’ And so I went on Etsy, and it was like $90. I was like, ‘Buy now!’ …But my husband, Ashton, Ashton’s is $100. So technically, his wedding band was a little bit more expensive than mine.”
19.
In 2019, Mila Kunis told the Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast, “Because I am an immigrant, I think that creates a different perspective on what the value of a dollar is and what hard work is … I’m a big supporter of Groupon. I have walked into restaurants with a Groupon; I use it all the time.”
Mila also said that she had a lot of financial anxiety before marrying Ashton Kutcher, who helped her manage those feelings. She said, “I was such an extreme, ‘I’m gonna be broke tomorrow; I’m not gonna have a job’ — I was always living my life … so cautiously that it took me the longest time … I was like, ‘But we can’t buy this house.’ He was like, ‘What are you talking about? … I promise you, we can do this.'”
20.
In 2018, Tyra Banks told Money, “Even before my career, I was a saver. My brother was a spender; I was a saver. I would hold onto it forever and dole it out slowly. My mom explained to me the importance of real estate and that typically, in Los Angeles, it’s going to appreciate. While a lot of models were partying it up and going shopping and buying a closet of designer clothes or staying at the top hotels during fashion week, I was at the Doubletree or Embassy Suites, saving my money, and bought a house at 20 years old. She explained to me investing is super important.”
“Also, when I was 19 years old, I was a new star on the rise. My mom said, ‘You’re starting to make some money. It’s not a lot, but I’ve read about this investment banker, and I want to meet with him and tell him that he should start managing your portfolio. So she went to meet with him, and he was like, ‘Look, I don’t take anything below a million dollars to start.’ And my mom’s like, ‘Look, here’s $10,000. They say my daughter is going to be a star and that she’s going to make a LOT of money. And you will not regret this.’ And he said yes. And to this day, he’s still my money manager.”
21.
In 2014, Ludacris told The Ellen Show, “I still have my ’93 Acura Legend. And I had this car before the record deal, before all the fame. I still have it. It has over 250,000 miles on this car…It says a lot about my personality. But, you know, I’m just a humble individual. I used to write music in this Acura, and I still do to this day. So it’s just one of those things I could never get rid of. I will never get rid of, ever.” In 2015, the car was badly damaged in an accident, but the Acura Design studio fully restored it for him.
In 2025, he told the Drink Champs podcast, “My 1993 Acura Legend. I absolutely still have that shit…I have had this car from the beginning of time, before I became commercially successful, before I signed my Def Jam deal. That was the tour bus, and it was the Acura Legend, right in Augusta, everywhere in Georgia…”
22.
In 2010, Hilary Swank told Live with Regis and Kelly, “I am [a coupon clipper]. You know, when you open up the paper and you see those coupons, it looks like dollar bills staring you in the face…People [who see me shopping with coupons] just go, ‘Wow! You do it, too? Cool!'”
23.
In 2018, Cardi B told Sway’s Universe, “I’m very cheap, I don’t care. Sometimes ya might see me with the jewelry, but I’m always looking at my account. I’m not the one that wanna take jets everywhere. I don’t care. I’m really cool in Delta first class. That’s $30,000, $20,000, on what? My ears still pop.”
She also told Elle, “Let me tell you something, right now. I am the type of person that if I’m not flying with more than three people, I’m not taking no fucking jet. Like, a lot of people be believing that like, I use to take a jet everywhere. You know like, let’s say if I’m going to Atlanta, right? A regular Atlanta trip is about $500. Maybe $1,000 if you buy the flight the same day. Why would I take a $15,000 jet flight? Just to go to Atlanta? Let’s say I’m going to LA, right? Why would I pay two, three, why would I pay $65,000? To just go to LA? I may pay $30,000 to go to LA on a jet when it’s just a security guard and me when I could pay literally less than $6,000 for seats. That’s something I budget a lot.”
“And you know, what? I budget everything now that I’m in a certain tax bracket. I gotta pay a lot of taxes, so it’s like everything I budget myself. I’m tryna make sure that everything is getting written. I’m making sure that everything is balanced out with the money I spend. It’s enough money for me to spend and enough to pay my taxes,” she said.
24.
In 2012, Jessica Chastain reportedly told Marie Claire, “I used to have a lot of anxiety about how I was going to stay afloat, because as soon as I graduated, I never asked my parents for money. I always supported myself through acting and would make money last a long time. I understand the value of money, and I’m not an impulsive buyer. I bought a new laptop three years ago, and before I bought it, I spent a month thinking about buying it. So my lifestyle hasn’t changed [since becoming famous], except my anxiety about paying the rent is gone.”
25.
In 2012, Carrie Underwood reportedly told Oprah’s Next Chapter, “It makes tour life a little difficult because those are things that I really don’t have time to do. So that’s what I do on my days off. We go to the laundromat. I get my quarters. We go to the laundromat and go do our laundry. I just don’t like other people doing my laundry. It freaks me out.”
26.
In 2018, Dave Grohl reportedly told The Red Bulletin that all his money “goes straight into [his] bank account, where it turns all moldy and smelly.” He said, “I drive a family car — not a monster SUV, but a family car that fits five people. I’ve got a house that is just big enough, too.”
27.
In 2012, Kiera Knightley reportedly gave herself a “salary” of about $50,000 from her overall earnings. Confirming it to Glamour two years later, she said, “Yes, it’s something around that. I mean, if I want or need something that goes over that, I get it, but, yes, around that…I think living an [expensive] lifestyle means you can’t hang out with people who don’t live that lifestyle. It alienates you. Some of my best, most hilarious times have been in the least luxurious places.”
28.
In 2010, the New York Times asked Eminem what he does with “all [his] money.” The rapper, who’s been sober since 2008, answered, “Save it. I save a lot of money by not buying drugs anymore. I invest. I always try to be smart.”
29.
And finally, in 2023, Julia Fox gave a tour of her modest apartment on TikTok. In the video, she said, “I believe in maximum transparency, so I’m going to give you an apartment tour! I know I’m going to get roasted. Maybe someone can watch this and be like, ‘Okay, I’m not doing so bad.’ …For me personally, I just — I don’t like excessive displays of wealth. They make me feel icky. Especially people that have really big houses. It’s just really wasteful when there’s so many homeless people in this country. I’m just not really like that.”
In a follow-up TikTok, she responded to criticism (and speculation she had a net worth of $30 million). She said, “I just want you guys to know that like, first of all, I’m not worth $30 million, not even close. And second of all, I don’t give a fuck. I don’t need $30 million. What does one person need $30 million for? I’ve survived on a lot less, and I’m doing just fine. This just happens to be the apartment where I took my son home from the hospital to, so it’s his home. It really is [her son] Valentino’s apartment. It’s like a sentimental thing. That’s kind of why I’m like, even though I could probably afford a bigger place — probably, because I am in New York, after all — it’s about having that sense of normalcy for Valentino.”
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