- Some of the world's richest people are famously frugal.
- Warren Buffett lives in a modest home he bought in 1958 and eats McDonald's for breakfast every morning.
- Jeff Bezos, the world's richest person, drove a Honda Accord until 2013.
Frugality is a subjective term. To the average Joe it could mean eating meals at home or scouring the internet for cheap flights.
But to a billionaire it means showing up to work in a T-shirt and jeans, driving a Toyota or Volkswagen, and, in some instances, foregoing the purchase of a private jet or lavish vacation home.
Surprisingly, some of the richest people on earth are incredibly frugal, each one with their own penny-pinching habits.
From eating lunch in the office cafeteria with their employees to residing in homes worth a fraction of what they could afford, these nine self-made billionaires — many of whom are also generous philanthropists— know the secret to keeping their net worth high.
SEE ALSO: 7 mind-blowing facts about Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' $105 billion fortune
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Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO, was still driving a Honda Accord as a billionaire.
Net worth: $109 billion
Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos may be the richest person on earth, but as of 2013, he was still driving a Honda Accord, according to Brad Stone's book "The Everything Store."
From the driver's seat of his Accord, Bezos told Bob Simon during a 1999 "60 Minutes" interview that "this is a perfectly good car."
Before that, Bezos was driving a 1987 Chevy Blazer, which he used to deliver packages to the post office in the early days of Amazon.
Warren Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, still lives in the same home he bought for $31,500 in 1958.
Net worth:$91.7 billion
The "Oracle of Omaha" is one of the wisest and most frugal billionaires around. Despite his status as one of the richest people on earth, he still lives in the same modest home he bought for $31,500 in 1958, doesn't carry a cellphone or have a computer at his desk, and once had a vanity license plate that read "THRIFTY," according to his 2009 biography. And when his friend of 25 years Bill Gates visits Omaha, Buffett picks Gates up from the airport himself.
Buffett also has a decidedly low-brow palate, known not just for investing in junk-food purveyors like Burger King, Dairy Queen, and Coca-Cola, but also for filling up on them as well. The Buffett diet includes five Cokes a day, as well as Cheetos and potato chips.
At his annual shareholder's meeting in 2014, Buffett explained that his quality of life isn't affected by the amount of money he has:
"My life couldn't be happier. In fact, it'd be worse if I had six or eight houses. So, I have everything I need to have, and I don't need any more because it doesn't make a difference after a point."
Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, drives a manual-transmission Volkswagen hatchback.
Net worth:$74.2 billion
Despite his status as one of the richest tech moguls on earth, Mark Zuckerberg leads a low-key lifestyle with his wife Priscilla Chan and their young daughter. The founder of Facebook has been unabashed about his simple T-shirt, hoodie, and jeans uniform.
"I really want to clear my life to make it so that I have to make as few decisions as possible about anything except how to best serve this community," Zuckerberg said.
The trappings of wealth have never impressed the 33-year-old, who in December 2015 announced he would donate 99% of his Facebook shares during his lifetime.
Zuckerberg chowed down on McDonald's shortly after marrying Chan in 2012 in the backyard of their $7 million Palo Alto home — a modest sum for such an expensive housing market and pocket change for a man worth more than $70 billion. In 2014, he traded in his $30,000 Acura for a manual-transmission Volkswagen hatchback.
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