Image Courtesy Seattle Children’s Hospital
Washington State Man Living Rich With Coupons Leaves $188 Million to Charities
Are you Living Rich With Coupons? A Washington State man certainly was. After years of living and shopping frugally and clipping coupons, Jack MacDonald, who died at the age of 98, had collected a fortune worth $187.6 million. Through his frugal lifestyle and his ability to manage his money, he was able to take an inheritance from his parents and grow it into this incredible fortune. At the time of his death in September of this year, he left his fortune to a Seattle Childrens Hospital, The University of Washington School of Law and the Salvation Army.
According to Yahoo News, very few people outside his immediate family knew he was wealthy and for over 40 years his family kept his secret. MacDonald lived modestly taking the bus, visiting multiple grocery stores to take take advantage of deals and clipping coupons. My kind of guy!
I was so intrigued by this story as it’s how we should all strive to live. There is so much in life we do not need but rather we have so many wants. Trust me, I had a want list a mile long but after years of giving into those wants all too often only to realize that they are lost, broken or used up before they can even be paid for, my want list is significantly smaller…significantly.
So, can you really live rich with coupons? The answer is yes you can! Not only does using coupons save you money on your groceries, but the kind of frugal mentality that goes along with couponing and frugal shopping continues on to many other things in your life including reducing that want list and learning how to invest your money. It’s truly amazing how many things you CAN live without and how many ways you can save.
Challenge yourself this coming year to not impulse buying. If there is something that you want, even the smallest thing, give it a couple of weeks and see if you can live without it. Most likely you can. Better yet, take the money you were planning on spending on that item and place it in savings account. It will be fun to see how much money you “saved” by the end of the year.
For Mr. MacDonald, his goal was to leave his fortune at the time of his death, which to me is the most unselfish thing someone could do. No fame, no glory, just simply and quietly helping those charities that touched his heart. What a way to leave a legacy.