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The king of living frugally while being super rich is legendary investor Warren Buffett.

Living in the same home he purchased in Omaha for $31,500 in 1958 and notoriously driving a 20-year-old car because he felt safe in it, Buffet adopted the philosophy that more stuff doesn’t necessarily equate to more happiness.

The man – reportedly worth $116 billion – famously said at a Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting that he does not think that “standard of living equates with the cost of living beyond a certain point”:

“There’s a point, if anything, you start getting inverse correlation. 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.”

In an effort to find data to back this way of life, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania went on a mission this year to find the answer to the question of whether money can truly buy happiness.

Working with two datasets from previous studies, the researchers found that larger incomes do correlate with increasing happiness. However, only to a point: $100,000 (call it R2 million) to be exact.

But what happens when you go above that threshold, and realise the full extent of what you can do with your wealth? Fortune outlines the philosophies of three uber-rich women who have chosen to take a page from Buffett’s book to live their lives not lavishly, but fairly and frugally.

Mitzi Perdue is an 82-year-old heiress worth billions, both through the Perdue chicken empire and the Sheraton hotel group. But as a self-professed “low maintenance badass,” her wealth is an institution of which she is a steward as opposed to a keeper.

Besides Perdue’s parents teaching her early on that a person’s identity was formed through their service, not their spending, her late husband Frank Perdue also believed in saving wherever possible:

“We were married for 17 years until his passing,” Perdue told Fortune in a video interview. “During that time, I believe that I had the highest cobbler bill in Maryland, because rather than buy new shoes, we would simply get them repaired.

“He had his name on the paycheck of 20,000 people but we would always fly economy.”

The billionaire Perdues are keen but quiet philanthropists. Alongside Mitzi’s aid to Ukraine has been the purchase of police vehicles and the donation of a $1.2 million ring, the proceeds of which enabled a women’s shelter to open.

Similarly, tech entrepreneur Brenda Christensen prefers to avoid coffee chains, the cinema and meals out as much as possible.

After moving from journalism to communications in the tech sector, she has propelled herself to the status of self-made millionaire 10 times over but still prefers to cut on any extra costs.

Now the CEO of a public relations firm, Christensen managed to cut her living expenses by 20% overnight by moving her family out of Malibu to Florida. Thanks to her Danish father, who taught his children to recognize their privilege, Christensen got a taste for living simply and well.

“My father grew up in Puerto Rico,” Christensen told Fortune. “He made us very aware at an early age how privileged we were. He took us through the slums of Puerto Rico and said: ‘I want you to know that not everybody lives in a suburban area in the United States. This is how most of the world lives.’

“He was just instilling in me that it’s not about stuff, it’s about helping others and being of service.”

Abiding by these values now, Christensen says “I don’t go to restaurants. I don’t go to movies. I don’t go to concerts. I cut my own hair, adding that she was pre-med at university so “rarely go to the doctor because I understand how to take care of myself very well—diet, exercise all of that. I don’t go to Starbucks, I avoid it like the plague. It just feels comfortable too because I’ve always been frugal.”

Likewise, cutting back on expenditure has meant that Elena Nuñez Cooper can donate sizable aid contributions to international crises whenever she wishes.

The 32-year-old founder of Chicago-based Ascend PR, a firm that also acts as an advisor to family offices, used to enjoy a lavish life, but she and her husband – who share a wealth of more than $4 million – soon realised that if they lived not just within, but well under, their means they could “give more and do more for people.”

“I don’t know that I was any happier,” Nuñez Cooper said in an interview with Fortune, adding when she made the decision to no longer have a car many peers asked if she was broke.

“I like living a more simply but still living well. My quality of life has not decreased at all.”

These women may have fortunes that run into the multi-millions, but they choose to rein in their finances and live a low-key life and it seems, they’re far more satisfied for it.

[source:fortune]