Kevin O’Leary Walmart shopping trips have become a habit for the Canadian businessman and Shark Tank investor, despite an estimated net worth of $400 million.
O’Leary, 72, posted a video to Instagram showing himself browsing the retailer’s aisles, declaring: ‘I’m always looking for a great deal, that’s why I’m in Walmart. You know those fantastic black jeans I’m always wearing? That’s right, Walmart special, 29 smackaroos. That’s how you save dough.’
His wife had sent him to pick up essentials, including batteries, butter, paper towels and OxiClean laundry spray. He did not leave without a bargain on Bounty paper towels either, opting for the larger multi-roll pack.
Kevin O’Leary’s Walmart shopping and what it says about his money habits
O’Leary owns multimillion-dollar homes in Florida, Massachusetts, and Toronto, yet has consistently made the case for buying everyday goods at the lowest available price. ‘I hate wasting money,’ he told CNBC in 2021, after an earlier Walmart visit attracted wide attention online. ‘I just don’t get why you would do that. It’s so hard to make it in the first place.’
He has long argued there is no reason to pay more for essentials when a cheaper option exists, and that money spent today is not guaranteed to be there when it is needed.
Billionaire frugality: O’Leary in company
O’Leary is far from alone among the very wealthy in keeping spending tight.
Warren Buffett, whose net worth sits at about $144 billion, still lives in the five-bedroom Omaha, Nebraska home he bought in 1958 for $31,500, a property now valued at over $1.3 million. On his way to the Berkshire Hathaway office, he used to let the stock market decide his McDonald’s order: $2.61 for two sausage patties on a down day, $3.17 for a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit when markets rose, according to a 2017 HBO documentary.
The late Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad, who at one point had an estimated fortune of $58.7 billion, bought second-hand clothes and drove an old Volvo. ‘I don’t think I’m wearing anything that wasn’t bought at a flea market,’ he said in a 2016 documentary on Sweden’s TV4. ‘I want to set a good example.’ Kamprad continued working at Ikea until he was 87 and died in 2018 aged 91.
Scale AI cofounder Lucy Guo, 31, has embraced the FIRE (financially independent, retire early) movement, buying discounted clothing and booking flights she planned to cancel in order to access free food in American Express airport lounges. ‘Everything I wear is free or from Shein,’ she previously told Fortune. ‘I still literally buy buy-one, get-one-free on Uber Eats.’
O’Leary has made his Walmart runs a recurring theme, repeating the same message each time: keeping costs low is not a habit the wealthy grow out of, it is often how they got there.
