- Millionaire actress Keke Palmer didn’t take a vacation for the first 15 years of her Hollywood career, which started when she was just nine years old. In building her brand and being the breadwinner of her family, she’s skipped on getaways and life’s luxuries as a proud penny-pincher. It’s something her parents taught her, as she came into seven-figure wealth at the age of 12.
Not all the stars you see on screen are chartering private yachts and splurging on L.A. mansions. Keke Palmer has been a Hollywood star since she was just a child—achieving millionaire status at just 12 years old—but she’s only recently started enjoying the fruits of her labor.
“I think for the first 15 years of my career, all my travel was business. All of it. I never took a break. I never had a vacation, none of that,” Palmer said in a recent interview on CNBC’s Make It. “The last three, four years, my family and I have made it a point to vacation at least [one to two] times a year.”
Kicking off 2024, Palmer and her entire family took a trip to Antigua—the “first time in a long time” they had done something together, she told Travel + Leisure. Her younger sister set them up with a dream vacation, taking helicopter rides and swimming with stingrays. Aside from big, jet-setting trips, Palmer told CNBC that she also takes her 2-year-old son on the occasional weekend trip.
But despite her continued success, she hasn’t changed her spending habits—and her savings mindset goes beyond just vacations.
“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 sticking with a frugal lifestyle
Palmer started acting when she was just nine. Her parents sacrificed their jobs to support her budding career, and she quickly became the breadwinner once she started landing roles.
Her big-screen debut was acting alongside Queen Latifah in Barbershop 2: Back in Business when she was just 10 years old. But many of Palmer’s fans first saw her star power in Disney and Nickelodeon projects, with hit movies like Jump In! and Akeelah and the Bee. She was also the star of her own TV show, True Jackson, VP, at just 15.
Acting in Tyler Perry movies and these other projects launched her to millionaire status at an early age. “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.”
Yet, even after two decades of fame, you won’t find her cashing out on life’s luxuries.
“I live under my means. I think it’s incredibly important,” Palmer told CNBC in an interview last month. “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.”
High-net-worth people penny-pinching
There are many horror stories out there of people blowing all their money after getting a taste of success. The high-net-worth individuals driving beat-up cars and living in humble houses should serve as an example of how to make the millions stretch for decades.
The late Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad founded his billion-dollar success at just the age of 17. Despite achieving massive wealth, the retail entrepreneur was known for driving an old Volvo, reusing his tea bags, and taking home packets of salt and pepper from restaurants to be used at home. People who lived in his town in Switzerland called him “Uncle Scrooge” and “the miser”—but it’s that exact frugal ethos that made his business vision a success with its simple, low-cost products flying off the shelves.
Walmart heir Jim Walton not only bequeathed billions—he also inherited a penny-pinching mindset from his father, Sam Walton, founder of the $703 billion retail giant. The scion liked to drive practical cars—reportedly including a 15-year-old rusted Dodge Dakota pickup truck—as opposed to flashy sports cars.
And one of America’s richest and most alluring figures in business, Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett, embodies the same money philosophy. The Oracle of Omaha purchased his home in Nebraska for just $31,000 in 1958—and hasn’t upgraded to a posh pad since. Just like Walton, Buffett has also famously driven a 20-year-old car, because it felt safer than luxury vehicles.
“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.”
