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Celebrities often live lavish lifestyles, but that doesn’t mean they’re about to spend every hard-earned penny on their offspring. There are stars who are all about being frugal when it comes to raising their children. Whether they are clipping coupons or promising not to leave their kids a cushy inheritance, these parents have made it perfectly clear that their children will learn to appreciate what they have — and work for what they’ll get in the future.
Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis’ children won’t be able to leave their toys scattered about for the paid help to pick up. This couple doesn’t invest in nannies for their two kids. “We want to be the people that know what to do when the baby’s crying to make the baby not cry anymore,” Kutcher shared on “Ellen” when his children, Wyatt and Dimitri, were newborns. When he and Kunis do need a little assistance, they call on their kids’ grandparents and siblings or hire a babysitter for their non-negotiable date nights.
Tyra Banks traveled the world as a supermodel, but she doesn’t want her son York to follow in her footsteps. “I’m going to support what he wants ... [I] just hope it’s not modeling,” she declared in an interview. York, who was born in 2016, isn’t likely to be overindulged by his famous mother. Banks told Money magazine, “Things didn't make me happy. I saved, saved, saved.”
Her on-screen alter ego Carrie Bradshaw wears expensive designer fashion on “And Just Like That ...” But when it comes to dressing her own children, Sarah Jessica Parker is all about recycling wardrobes. It started when she got clothes from the nephews of her eldest child, James, whom she shares with husband Matthew Broderick. The tradition continued with the couple’s twin daughters, Tabitha and Marion, who have actually worn their mother’s hand-me-downs.
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Gordan Ramsay (“Hell’s Kitchen”) has a multimillion-dollar empire from running restaurants and hosting TV series that regularly take him from L.A. to London. While he and his wife enjoy the luxury of traveling in first class, he has made his children fly economy class. “They haven’t worked anywhere near hard enough to afford that,” he explained to London’s The Mirror.
“I Know What You Did Last Summer” co-stars Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze. Jr. have been working in Hollywood since their teens, but neither is above saving a dollar. Gellar admits that she and Prinze love buying fresh fish at Whole Foods, but they always pick the seafood that’s on sale to take home. Gellar has also charged her daughter Charlotte a quarter for every cup of milk the young girl didn’t drink. “Someone has to pay for that milk,” Gellar said on “Today.”
Soccer star David Beckham and his fashion designer/former Spice Girl wife Victoria have always wanted their kids to have a strong work ethic so they could sustain themselves as adults. So their four children Brooklyn, Romeo, Cruz, and Harper have done household chores for pocket change, whether it’s putting plates in the dishwasher, making their own beds, or picking up after themselves. Once old enough to earn a paycheck outside the house, eldest son Brooklyn got a part-time job at a coffee shop.
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Being a single mom can be challenging, even when you’re a celebrity. Jennie Garth has kept costs down by buying her three daughters, Luca, Lola, and Fiona just a few back-to-school pieces each year that they could easily mix into their existing wardrobes. The “Beverly Hills, 90210” alum also made her eldest daughter a gown for Lola's prom in 2021. “Sewing isn’t my thing,” Garth admitted on Instagram, “but somehow I pulled it off.”
Kristen Bell didn’t have to do a lot of research to understand her character’s love for clipping coupons in the movie “Queenpins.” The actress revealed on “Conan” that she uses them herself to save money for her family, husband Dax Shepard, and daughters Lincoln and Delta. Bell loves Bed Bath & Beyond coupons, so much so that she's been known to swipe them from her neighbors’ mailboxes.
You would think that Jerry Seinfeld’s three children, Sascha, Julian, and Shepherd, could just roll into cushy well-paid jobs in the entertainment industry without paying any sort of dues, thanks to their famous last name, but that’s not the case. Seinfeld and his wife, Jessica, are making sure their children have put in the work to make a name for themselves. That’s why eldest daughter Sascha spent most of 2018 interning on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” and at TED-Ed.
Sure, Terri Hatcher could have hired the best chefs to whip up treats for her daughter Emerson’s school bake sales, but the “Desperate Housewives” star whipped them up herself. “I think when you have a fortune, one of the most important things to do as a parent is to not raise a brat,” Hatcher explained to People.
Sting has amassed a fortune hovering around $300 million, but that money won’t be going to his six grown children when he’s gone. In 2014, the musician told a British newspaper that he and wife Trudie Styler didn’t want to leave them trust funds that would become “albatrosses round their necks.” Son Joseph and non-gendered Eliot are musicians, son Jake is a model and filmmaker, and daughters Fuchsia and Brigitte are actresses and producers. Their youngest son, Giacomo, studied criminal justice at California Lutheran University.
Anderson Cooper’s son, Wyatt, won’t be receiving his family’s generational wealth. Famous fashion designer mom Gloria Vanderbilt of the Vanderbilt empire left Cooper only $1.5 million when she died in 2019. “I don’t intend to have some sort of pot of gold for my son,” the CNN anchor shared on the “Morning Meeting” podcast in 2021. “I’ll go with what my parents said: ‘College will be paid for, and then you gotta get on it.’”
“It’s better to give than receive” seems to be celebrity chef Nigella Lawson’s motto. When her daughter Cosima and son Bruno were teens, she made them donate nearly all their gifts to sick children at the Great Ormond Street hospital in London. “I don’t want to turn Christmas into a thing about shopping,” she has explained. “Once they have finished university or training, whatever education they choose, they have to support themselves through work, as I did.”
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Simon Cowell isn’t going to just hand over his $400 million fortune to his son, Eric, who was born in 2014. “I don't believe in that, passing on from one generation to another,” Cowell told Esquire. So what will “The X-Factor” alum, who got engaged to Eric’s mom, Lauren Silverman, in January, do with all that cash? “I'm going to leave my money to somebody. A charity, probably — kids and dogs.”
They live on a sprawling ranch in New Mexico, but Julia Roberts and Daniel Moder made sure that their children never felt entitled. Instead, son Henry and twins Phinneas and Hazel did their share of chores. That included making their beds, doing laundry, and learning to cook a meal, which Roberts insists are important life skills.
Dave Grohl carts his wife, Jordyn Blum, and kids Violet, Harper, and Olivia around in a pretty ordinary vehicle. “I drive a family car — not a monster SUV, but a family car that fits five people,” the Foo Fighters frontman told The Red Bulletin. It’s no surprise that he also has a house that’s “just big enough,” and deposits all his paychecks right into a bank where his money can grow “moldy and smelly.”
He’s worth $463 million, but Elton John and his husband, David Furnish, have their children, Elijah and Zachary, earn their weekly allowance by helping out in the kitchen and garden. Of the 3 pounds they each receive, one-third goes to charity and one-third into savings; the last part they can spend as they please.
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She grew up with tremendous wealth, but Tori Spelling has lived a rather modest life with her husband, Dean McDermott, and their five kids. There are no nannies or business managers on hand. Spelling’s eldest daughter, Stella, had to teach her mom how to do laundry while the “Beverly Hills, 90210” alum was filming a project in Vancouver.
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Zooey Deschanel has always been thrifty. Now she’s found a way to get her two children, Charlie and Elsie, to eat their vegetables and save money. Instead of buying produce at the store, the “New Girl” star grows greens at home. “I do not have a green thumb,” she’s confessed. That may be part of the reason why Deschanel and ex-husband Jacob Pechenik co-founded The Farm Project as well as the hydroponic Lettuce Grow system.
