- Actress Keke Palmer made her first million at 12 years old, but still lives by a frugal mindset her parents instilled in her as a kid. Palmer said even with $1 million in the bank, she’d only pay $1,500 on rent, and would drive a Lexus over a Bentley. Other successful billionaires like Warren Buffett, Mitzi Perdue, and Mark Cuban espouse living under their means.
It’s natural to want to splash out when success finally rolls in, ushering a new era of buying mansions and leaving behind the days of shoebox apartments. But actress Keke Palmer—gracing the screens of movie theaters and streaming sites—is still pinching her pennies.
“I live under my means. I think it’s incredibly important,” Palmer told CNBC in a recent interview.
“If I have $1 million in my pocket, my rent is going to be $1,500—that’s how underneath my means I’m talking. My car note is going to be $340. I don’t need a [Bentley] Bentayga, I’ll ride in a Lexus.”
The 31-year-old actress’ thriftiness may come as a surprise—one might expect the star of hits like Nope; Hustlers; True Jackson, VP; and One of Them Days to be living a high-flying lifestyle. She even became a millionaire as a preteen for her child acting gigs, but that didn’t set her on a path of luxury and excess.
“I learned from my parents very early on because they knew their limitations with money and finances,” Palmer said. “I believe in saving and frugality… I don’t play around with that.”
Becoming a millionaire at 12—and her advice for young people
Before she was even old enough to understand money, Palmer was already seeing seven figures flashing before her eyes. She quickly rose to millionaire status for starring in hit projects like Akeelah and the Bee, Barbershop 2: Back in Business, and Madea’s Family Reunion as a kid.
“I became a millionaire at 12,” Palmer said in an interview with NFL star Shannon Sharpe this year on podcast Club Shay Shay. “I started working 10, 15 years before most of my generation had [their] first job.”
At the time, Palmer said her parents were making around $40,000 annually—so her income was a huge lift. Luckily, her family understood how to make their money stretch, and the actress has carried that lesson into adulthood. Palmer advised other young people, especially women, to “learn up” on economics. It could mean the difference between living paycheck to paycheck or thriving with stacked savings.
“Be curious about that kind of stuff, because you don’t want to do things based off of survival,” Palmer told CNBC. “You want to do them out of choice. That’s something that my mom and my dad taught me very early on.”
Other successful people living frugally
Just because you have a million—or even a billion—in the bank, doesn’t mean it’s the wisest decision to live a life of glitz and glamour. Some of the world’s most successful people espouse skimping where they can.
Billionaire hedge fund mogul Warren Buffett doesn’t live in a posh mansion, surrounded by sports cars. The Berkshire Hathaway legend purchased a home in Omaha for just $31,000 in 1958—and hasn’t left since. He has also famously driven a 20-year-old car because it felt safer than luxe BMWs or Ferraris.
“I do not think that standard of living equates with cost of living beyond a certain point,” Buffett said at a Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting. “My life would not be happier…it’d be worse if I had six or eight houses or a whole bunch of different things I could have. It just doesn’t correlate.”
Mitzi Perdue is also living well below her means. The prolific writer is the heiress of the billion-dollar Perdue chicken empire and Sheraton hotel group, yet still rents her apartment as a self-proclaimed “low-maintenance badass.” Billionaire and former Shark Tank host Mark Cuban is on the same wavelength, too; by selling his software company MicroSolutions for $6 million in 1990, securing $2 million for himself, he had come into newfound money. It signaled a change that Cuban may no longer have to slum it with five roommates—but he was still cautious about spending.
“By the time I sold [MicroSolutions], I had just bought the worst house in the best neighborhood, but I wasn’t big into that,” Cuban said in a 2024 interview with Jules Terpak. “I wasn’t big into cars. I wanted to live like a student and just have fun.”