Vince Reed recounts a brief anecdote about meeting a wealthy but extremely frugal friend. The friend suggests splitting a 70-ounce porterhouse steak to save $40 despite being very wealthy (Vince guesses ~ $50M); he compares his frugality to Warren Buffett (noting Buffett still lives in his longtime house) and explains he reinvests earnings into his business rather than spending. The story highlights an unexpected contrast between wealth and personal spending habits.
So right when I touch down, I'm excited because everyone's in town. And I knew that I was gonna be able to connect with my buddy from the VIP party. So he says, all right, let's go grab some lunch. And, you know, there's a good steakhouse, you know, in the hotel. Let's go, let's go grab. Grab a steak. He says, yeah, man, they have this 70 ounce porterhouse steak. He's like, we should get it and we can split it. We can save $40. And I remember looking at this guy, I'm like, dude, aren't you worth, like, you know, 50 million or something like that? Like? He's like, yeah. I'm like, so why the heck are we gonna split a steak? He's like, man, every dollar counts. And at that point, I knew there was something different about this guy. I'd never seen anybody make so much money, but was so damn cheap. He said, you know who else is really cheap? And I'm like, who? He said, warren Buffett. He says, you know, Warren Buffett lives in the same exact house, you know, that he had before he made all of his money. He's like, that's what I'm about. I'm about, you know, seeing it grow. I like to see it grow. It was the complete opposite in terms of how he was building his business and his lifestyle compared to everything that I had seen. He's making money, he's putting it back into his business. So I was learning a lot from him, watching what was going on.
