How Millionaires Live: The Stories of Bill Holland and Warren Buffett

Bill Holland is a businessman who was able to retire at the age of 32, but 30 years later, the 67-year-old is still working. The former CEO of CI Financial, one of Canada's largest investment management firms, didn't take a conventional path to the top. Before entering the finance sector, he worked in various 'crappy jobs' and at the age of 27, he landed a customer service representative position at Mackenzie Financial Corp., a demanding job that required fielding around 120 customer calls a day. Within five years, he had capitalized on the booming mutual fund industry and had accumulated enough wealth to retire - a success he attributed to timing as much as talent. However, instead of walking away, Holland doubled down. He joined a small investment firm with about $50 million in assets under management. That company would eventually become CI Financial, where he rose to CEO in 1999 and later executive chair in 2010. Last year, the company was taken private by the United Arab Emirates sovereign wealth fund and had about $140 billion in assets under management. Although Holland's exact net worth is unknown, he accumulated significant wealth through his decades at CI Financial. In 2011, his stake was estimated at $260 million, and he divested fully last year. However, his daily routine has remained remarkably unchanged - rather than retiring to a life of luxury, he still commutes to his Toronto office five days a week by public transit. Warren Buffett, who has a fortune of over $150 billion, has long embraced frugality. He still lives in the same Omaha, Nebraska, house he purchased in 1958 for $31,500. The five-bedroom house is now worth about $1.3 million - a tiny fraction of what he could afford - but Buffett has said he wouldn't trade it because it's where he and his late wife raised their three children. Elon Musk, the world's richest person, has taken a different approach to wealth. For much of his career, Musk lived a lifestyle more typical of a billionaire, owning multiple luxury homes, including several California properties. But in 2020, he announced he was selling most of his physical possessions and began shedding his real estate portfolio. He ultimately sold seven California homes for nearly $130 million after saying he wanted to 'own no house.' The shift coincided with Musk's move to Texas and his efforts to spend more time near SpaceX's launch operations. He later said his primary residence was a roughly $50,000 home near Boca Chica, Texas, that he rented from SpaceX. Bill Holland, Warren Buffett, and Elon Musk, despite accumulating wealth, have not lived lavishly. Instead, each has, in different ways, maintained habits that predate their fortunes - a reminder that becoming rich doesn't require living extravagantly.

'Wealth and Frugality: The Stories of Millionaires'