Coupons, hand-me-downs, discount stores and more... Check out all the celebrity parents who are (or say they are) thrifty.
Photo: Billy Bennight/PR Photos
"I use a lot of coupons," Kristen Bell tells Conan O'Brien. "I almost exclusively shop with coupons. The best coupon you can get, possibly in the world, is the Bed Bath & Beyond coupon."
She insists you can save up to $80 with the coupons—and that she "may or may have grabbed some more than once" from her neighbour's mailbox... Ha!
For her baby girl Lincoln's first Christmas, moreover, Kristen came up with this thrifty gift strategy: "I'm going to wrap up a bunch of stuff from the house . . . like tissue boxes, and she'll be thrilled," she tells E! News. "But I got us all matching pyjamas, and that's all that really matters—for the holiday picture." Love it!
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Photo: @kristenbell via InstagramKristen's hubby, Dax Shepard, is proud of their frugality, too.
"We went to the Beverly Hills Court House and all in, with fuel to get there, $142 out the door," he tells Jimmy Kimmel of their recent wedding. "Friends of ours came to the courthouse, and it was just Kristen and I at this lonely Court House, so they brought us this cake afterwards [which] 'World's Worst Wedding.' How many people can say they threw 'The World's Worst Wedding?'"
Read more: Hollywood's funniest parents>
Photo: Parisa/FameFlynet“Kids definitely grow out of their clothes really quickly, so I’m all about mixing and matching,” Kourtney Kardashian says, adding that H&M is her choice “really affordable” brand.
As for those designer clothes we often see her kids, Penelope and Mason, wearing? “Let the grandmas buy the expensive stuff,” she hints. YES!
Read more: Scandalous? Celebrity parents who are causing a stir>
Photo: FameFlynet"We shop at Whole Foods, but we ask which fish is on sale,” Sarah Michelle Gellar tells Self Magazine. “And I clip coupons all the time. Why should you pay for something that someone else is paying less for?”
Read more: Sarah Michelle Gellar: Mom guilt, work and marriage>
Photo: Pablo/Goodwin/FameFlynetBritney Spears famously loooves her some discount stores. She's frequently snapped shopping at Target and 99 Cents Only stores (a US chain) with her boys, for instance. "Usually I have glasses on and no one recognizes me," she tells talk show host Alan Carr. "I just go in and I’m really into what I’m doing, and it’s really fun.”
Read more: Britney and her sister take the boys to Target>
Photo: FameFlynet"I'm nothing like Kelly Taylor," Jennie Garth writes in a blog post for The Real Deal by RetailMeNot. "In fact, Beverly Hills is not my scene at all. Yes, I live in L.A. but I don't live in a mansion with a cook and a butler."
"My upbringing certainly influenced my relationship with money, as everyone’s does," she explains. "We grew much of our own food, and I can still remember flipping through the tattered pages of my mom’s favorite cookbook, about feeding a family on $12 a week. Every minute is precious, and now more than ever, every dollar I bring home, or manage to save, means more safety and security for my family and our future."
"When you’re a single parent," she adds, "finding a bargain becomes less of a nicety and more of a necessity. That’s why, whether I’m ordering books on Amazon, clothes for my girls at Forever 21 or just random stuff at CVS, I try to shop smart."
Read more: Single parents: Celebrities we love>
Photo: Premiere/CPR/FameFlynetWonder where James Wilkie gets his clothes? Hand-me-downs! “[My son] only wears hand-me-downs because I’ve got all these older nephews," Sarah Jessica Parker shares in an interview with Parade Magazine. "Plus, my mother saved all my brothers’ clothes. I am not kidding. I don’t think I’ve ever bought him any clothes. Maybe a new winter coat. I do buy him shoes, because everybody’s feet are different.”
And all those cute clothes twins Tabitha and Loretta, 4.5, are spotted in? Also hand-me-downs. "I just provide the clothing," she says, "and a lot of those dresses they wear are from my childhood or my niece’s young childhood."
Read more: Hollywood's most fashionable kids>
Photo: AAR/FameFynetAngelina Jolie is also a fan of the hand-me-downs. Indeed, with six kids, it's inevitable, no?
"She likes to dress like a boy," Angelina has said of daughter Shiloh, 7. "She wants to be a boy. So we had to cut her hair. She likes to wear boys' everything. She thinks she's one of the brothers."
Shiloh's often snapped wearing tees her brothers have worn in the past. Check out some of Shiloh's hand-me-downs here!
Read more: Celebrity parents who have lots of kids>
Photo: FameFlynet"I'm not someone who has to have 10 cars and lots of diamonds," Halle Berry has said. "I am pretty frugal. I save a lot because I'm always worried about when this trip is going to stop. So I'm saving for that day, so I can have a life that is secure and comfortable."
Read more: Pregnant over 40: Celebrities we love>
Photo: Bruce/Javiles/FameFlynet"Stella was telling Hattie the other day, 'That dress you're wearing? That was my dress first,'" Tori Spelling tells People Magazine. "And Hattie's like, 'Yeah!' It made me so happy. I love that they know we hand things down."
"We're all about repurposing," she adds. "It's a really good value to have."
"I haven't bought a purse in three years, and it's fine," she continues, reflecting on how family is her priority now. "I look back at that girl who shopped at Gucci in my 20s, and I can't even relate. I can't believe I thought it was important."
Read more: Tori Spelling almost died during pregnancy>
Photo: Parisa/FameFlynet“Honestly, I’m very frugal," Beyonce insists in a 2009 (pre-baby) interview. "I haven’t bought a car since I was 16 or any diamonds since I was 17. I have a lot of property. I’ve invested my money and I don’t have to make any more, thank God, because I’m set. I’m now able really to be free and just do things that make me happy. It’s an effort to stay grounded.”
Hmmm, not sure if this has changed, though, since the birth of Blue Ivy...!
Photo: Gtres/FameFlynetGrowing up with little taught dad of two Tobey Maguire to work hard and hang on to his money.
"When I first started being successful at this, financially speaking, I was very conservative with my money," Tobey says in an interview with Parade Magazine. "That was definitely a product of where I came from. You know those Lotto winners who win big and then blow through all the money? That would never happen to me. I just never wanted to put myself in the position where my spending was so huge that I had to keep making movie after movie."
"My mentality about that has changed a bit," he admits, "[but] I feel like you could drop me anywhere in the world, anonymously, and I'd figure out how to survive. If you stripped away everything I've got—the money, the fame, the possessions, everything—I know that I'd find a way to get along, because, basically, that's what I've had to do all my life."
Photo: Pablo/FameFlynet"I'm a big vintage shopper and I love thrift stores," mom of two Nicole has said. "The beauty of anything vintage is that you're not going to see lots of other people in the same thing. I like to be different."
Photo: FameFlynet12 celebrity parents who get crafty with their kids> From bento boxes and painting to pottery and fairy-house making, these celebrities love to get creative and crafty with their kids.
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Haley Overland is a writer/editor at Today's Parent. Our resident celebrity queen, she dishes out all the sweetest scoop on celebrity families at our Celebrity Candy blog. She has interviewed celeb moms like Jennifer Garner, Jessica Alba and Jillian Michaels, and has shared her expertise on CTV’s ETalk. Haley also has an award-winning personal blog, CheatyMonkey.com, where she writes about everything from motherhood to yoga, her dog “Betty White” and what it's like to be Clive Owen's girlfriend. Haley has two kids, whom she fondly refers to online as “The Monkey” and “The Rascal.”