Huge stars who live like normal people

It’s generally assumed that, once you hit the big time and start making serious money, your life changes completely. Certain people covet this lifestyle, while others shy away from it. But what if those megastar celebrities’ fame and fortune, while welcome, didn’t alter their lives in any considerable way? What about the super-famous guys and gals who still shop in Whole Foods, don’t bother with personal assistants, and happily clip coupons in order to ensure they always get the best deals?

These are ten of the biggest and most well-known names in the business who, in spite of their massive Hollywood careers, and considerable wealth, have managed to stay down to earth.

She’ll always be Carrie to most of us, a character who, in spite of submitting maybe 1,000 words of copy a week, managed to live in a $700-a-month apartment in NYC while purchasing copious amounts of designer shoes and heading out for cocktails practically every night. According to The Richest, Sarah Jessica Parker, the actress otherwise known as Carrie, is worth an estimated $90 million, so if she wanted to buy a new pair of Louboutins every week, she could.

However, in a 2008 interview with Parade, Parker extolled the virtues of working hard for your money, revealing how she dressed her son, James Wilkie, in hand-me-down clothing throughout his younger years. This was thanks to Parker’s “older nephews” and the fact that her mother saved all of her brother’s childhood clothing, which meant she had no real reason to buy her son anything new, noting at the time that she didn’t think she had “ever bought him any clothes.”

The actress grew up on welfare and inherited a frugal outlook, living in a modest brownstone in NYC with her husband, Matthew Broderick, and their three kids. As for dressing herself in the latest threads, Parker supposedly had her choice of Carrie’s clothes once Sex And The City wrapped, so she probably doesn’t need to fork over for new stuff for herself too often either.

It’s difficult to imagine the self-styled multi-hyphenate business mogul, supermodel, Harvard Business School grad, and creator of “smizing” as a simple-living, regular person. In reality, Banks learned a lot from her mother, who travelled with her and assisted in Banks’ early career as a model, instilling in her life lessons about making money last as long as possible.

In a 2008 interview with The New York Times, the model-turned-businesswoman openly described herself as “frugal.” As a kid, Banks confessed to saving a little bit from her weekly allowance and admitted that her only real indulgences these days are food (notably, trips to The Cheesecake Factory) and luxury toiletries (she’s been known to stock-pile fancy hotel soaps). Banks even admitted to Forbes that she often asks her accountant whether she can afford to buy something, which seems crazy for a woman worth an estimated $90 million.

She stars on a hugely successful TV show, but New Girl star Zooey Deschanel hasn’t let her considerable success get to her head. Deschanel may currently be raking in a massive $125,000 per episode but she is anything but flashy. Court documents, revealed to tabloids in the midst of her 2012 divorce from Death Cab For Cutie’s Ben Gibbard, showcased a frugal, careful spender with eyes firmly set on securing her future.

The financial report showed that, although the actor was bringing in almost a hundred grand per month at the time, her expense sheet totalled just $22,500 (around 25 percent of her monthly income), including less than $1,000 in utility bills, with another two grand dedicated to charitable donations. On top of this, nearly half of her total assets were safely held in bank accounts, with the rest spread out across stocks, bonds and real estate. Meanwhile, her three credit cards each boasted a zero balance — not bad for someone who could easily afford to max them all out each month without feeling the slightest pinch.

J-Law is one of the most famous and highly paid actors on the planet, scoring an Oscar for her role in Silver Linings Playbook and spearheading the hugely lucrative Hunger Games franchise, among a multitude of other projects. Now reportedly worth $75 million, Lawrence would be completely justified in splashing the cash whenever and wherever she sees fit. That’s not the case, however, as she herself attests that not much has changed in her life since her massive career explosion — with the Oscar winner even continuing to live in the same apartment as before she was famous up until just last year.

She told Fabulous magazine in 2013: “I was raised to have value for money, to have respect for money, even though you have a lot of it”. Lawrence also does not have a personal assistant, and shops for herself, always looking for bargains in the process. As for flashy cars, the actor drives an affordable Chevy Volt. Perhaps she’s taking a page out of DiCaprio’s book.

She played Veronica Mars for years before graduating to massive movie mega-hits like Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Frozen. And now she’s married to Punk’d hunk Dax Shepard, with two kids, to top it all off. But, much like her frugal TV buddies SJP and Sarah Michelle Gellar, Kristen Bell hasn’t let fame alter her spending habits.

According to Bell herself, their wedding cost $142 altogether, including gas, in spite of the couple’s combined net worth of over $20 million. She even joked with Flaunt magazine about how she and Shepard are “hillbillies at heart”. In an interview with Conan O’Brien, Bell went into hilarious detail about how frugal she is, helpfully advising the talk show host that the best coupon “possibly in the world” is for Bed Bath & Beyond. So now you know. Bell is not just a master detective on TV, but in real life too.

He’s in one of the biggest rock and roll bands of all time, but, like fellow frugal musicians Dave Grohl and Paul Mc Cartney, Rolling Stone’s Mick Jagger finds no shame in pinching the pennies. During their 1999 divorce proceedings, Jagger’s ex Jerry Hall accused him of never paying for anything to do with their shared home and kids, describing the legendary musician as being “pretty tight with day-to-day stuff.” Likewise, Marianne Faithfull, another ex of the rock star, described him in her memoir as “pretty tight.”

In an interview with The Guardian, Jagger openly described himself as “frugal”, detailing how his generation was raised to fix things rather than throw them out. “We’re not brought up like Puff Daddy to be taking 30 free-loading friends to the south of France and spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on Cristal” he said at the time.

Facebook founder and billionaire Mark Zuckerberg is more often seen out and about in a low-key shorts and T-shirt ensemble, so the revelation that he’s not a particularly lavish person shouldn’t be too shocking. Zuckerberg famously married his now-wife Priscilla Chan in the modest surroundings of the back garden of their Palo Alto home, before whisking her away to Rome where the two were spotted scoffing McDonald’s just like two normal people on vacation.

It doesn’t end there, however, as Business Insider UK reports that Zuckerberg aims to “clear” his life of material possessions and is wholly unimpressed with the trappings of wealth, noting his recent announcement to donate 99% of his Facebook shares during his lifetime. They also noted how, back in 2014, “the business mogul traded in his $30,000 Acura for a manual-transmission Volkswagen hatchback.” Not exactly a flash car, even by the standards of us norms, but it goes with the shorts-and-tee look for sure.

She may be worth an estimated $9 million, thanks to fronting one of the biggest young adult sci-fi franchises of all time, but Shailene Woodley is a famously frugal and down-to-earth celebrity. She claims the Earth is her religion, routinely hugs unsuspecting reporters, and “exclusively” buys used clothes, according to an interview with The Hollywood Reporter conducted in March 2014. Woodley noted at the time that she tries to be as environmentally friendly as possible, even using a Mason jar instead of a plastic water bottle. In a that same THR profile, the writer claims that “the most popular descriptor used for her [by her cast mates and directors] is ‘grounded’ (followed closely by ‘old soul’ and ‘authentic’).”

Similarly, in an interview with The Telegraph, the young actor admitted she’d hasn’t really “splurged on anything” since hitting the big time and further espoused the benefits of her “very simple lifestyle.” Woodley is pretty well-known for living off the land and making her own beauty products and medicines out of whatever she can forage for. Chances are she won’t feel the need to dip into that multi-million dollar fortune any time soon.

Mariska Hargitay has been on the seemingly unstoppable police procedural show Law & Order: SVU for what feels like forever. She reportedly picks up $400k per episode (Forbes had her listed as the second-highest paid actress in the world back in 2014) so, if the actor wanted to splash the cash without worrying too much about the consequences, she easily could.

Funnily enough, although her job is fairly secure, judging by the continuing popularity of Law & Order and its many offshoots, Hargitay is realistic about the future and her place in Hollywood. She revealed to More magazine (via People) how she “constantly” worries about money, in spite of her sizeable TV star paycheck, because Hargitay struggled with it for years. Smartly, the actor is “saving for the future” and is always aware that there aren’t as many roles available for women, particularly as they get older.

The three-time Spider-Man is most well-known these days for having a plethora of unflattering memes, but it’s worth remembering that Tobey Maguire made a significant stack of money playing the friendly neighborhood crime-fighter. After Director Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man in 2002 soared to more than $800 million worldwide (making it the highest grossing Spidey film to date), Maguire saw his pay-check increase significantly too, earning a reported $36.5 million total for the trilogy of movies.

However, the actor doesn’t see the point in blowing through all his cash in one go, telling Parade magazine in 2007 that he credits a difficult upbringing with teaching him how to be “conservative” with his finances. “You know those Lotto winners who win big and then blow through all the money? That would never happen to me” he told the magazine at the time. He explained that material possessions are meaningless and he’d rather have little to nothing than be put in a position where he’s forced to make “movie after movie” to facilitate an ostentatious lifestyle. Nobody would judge him for spending a little money on dancing lessons, however, (judging by his infamous moves as Spidey).