“I like my money where I can see it — hanging in my closet,” Carrie Bradshaw famously declares in “Sex and the City.”
Sarah Jessica Parker, the actor who’s portrayed the fashionista columnist in six seasons of the TV show as well as two movies, shares her character’s love for designer clothes and luxury accessories. Her teenage daughters have different ideas, Parker revealed on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast this week.
Marion and Tabitha, 15, like clothes and will ask Parker a couple of times a month to buy something, she said, adding: “But they mostly buy their clothes used, almost entirely.”
Unlike Bradshaw, the twins don’t spend like crazy or rush to join the latest trend, Parker said. One reason is they can’t afford to: they “don’t have a budget” and “don’t have money with the exception of what they’ve earned,” she said.
Both girls had jobs last summer that allowed them to earn and save money, Parker said. She noted that she gives them “stuff of mine all the time,” and she’d be “happy to loan them anything out of my closet.”
Echoing a certain stiletto-loving writer, she added: “My shoes don’t fit them — it’s really a tragedy. I’m actually not kidding, I find it really tragic.”
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Money lessons
Parker recalled during the podcast episode that she was frugal as a young actor. “I knew exactly how much money I had in the bank and I took it out very judiciously,” she said. “I tried to get by on $40 for three days.”
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The TV-and-movie star has said she wants her children to have everything they need, but not everything they want, so they still have things to strive for.
The sentiment echoes Warren Buffett’s iconic advice that “hugely wealthy parents should leave their children enough so they can do anything but not enough that they can do nothing.”
Like Parker, other celebrities are working to teach their kids value for money and not spoil them despite their fabulous wealth.
“Captain America: Brave New World” star Anthony Mackie said in an interview earlier this year that he keeps his four sons “humble” and they’ve “never had a pair of Jordans.”
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Ben Affleck, the “Gone Girl” and “Argo” actor, has said he rejects his son’s occasional requests for $1,000 sneakers by saying: “I have the money — you’re broke.”
Sports star Shaquille O’Neal and comedians Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Tucker have all reported using variations of that line with their children to help stave off entitlement.
Despite their fame and fortune, these stars want their kids to know that spending smart never goes out of style.
