An 80-year-old German man has been dubbed the world’s most frugal millionaire for living off food and stuff found in dumpsters despite owning several properties worth millions of euros.
Heinz B. looks like a homeless person with nothing to his name, but appearances can be deceiving. The German man may only have €15 euros ($16) in his bank account at the moment, but that’s only because he just withdrew 700,000 euros ($756,000) to buy a new home, his tenth. The 100,000 euros left over was transferred to a fixed-term deposit to generate interest. He might not look like much, but the octogenarian is worth several millions of dollars and knows how to increase his fortune. Besides, he claims to have been frugal his whole life, so he doesn’t really need money to get by. He is more than happy living on food found in dumpsters and hoarding all sorts of things other people throw away.
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“Maybe I’ll buy some oil for frying or something if it runs out, but I find most of the food in the trash,” Heinz recently told German tabloid Bild. “People are wasteful and throw away so much that you could feed a whole family! For example, people buy a pack of sausages, eat one, and then simply throw the rest in the trash.”
The pensioner from Darmstadt in southwest Germany first made news headlines in 2021, when it was reported that he owned 7 houses and 2 apartments, and had around 500,000 ($540,000) in his bank account. He’s been growing his fortune ever since, recently investing a whopping 700,000 euros into another house. Interestingly, he makes sure to buy properties in his area, so he can reach them by bike in case they need repairs. It’s not like he’s willing to pay someone to do it when he can do it himself.
“Craftsmen charge 55 euros per half an hour of repairs,” Heinz B. said, adding that most of his houses aren’t even leased because the rent wouldn’t cover the costs of maintaining the properties. Besides, it’s not like he needs the extra money anyway.
The retired electrical engineer has a monthly pension of €3,600 ($3,900), as well as another pension of €156 ($169), most of which goes into his bank account, because he doesn’t really have anything to spend it on. Apart from the 5 euros he might spend on food every month, his expenses only include an internet connection for his laptop. A cell phone is out of the question,as that would cost him an extra 10 euros.
Heinz spends most of his time hoarding stuff other people throw away, pedalling his bike around Daarmstadt in his neverending quest for new stuff. He hardly uses most of it, instead trading it to neighbors, usually in exchange for food they don’t need.
With no immediate family to share his sizeable fortune with, Heinz B. doesn’t really know who he’ll leave his wealth to when he passes away. he has some distant cousins, but he says they can’t afford to pay the inheritance tax, so he is considering leaving some of the properties to the tenants.
