Anyone who knows me personally knows that I look up to Sherry Lansing, previous CEO/President of Paramount Pictures and successful movie producer.

I recently reread this 1995 NY Times article that I had kept bookmarked in my browser for the past few years. It's an article where Sherry discusses her financial situation and her thoughts about money. The biggest surprise for me is how frugal and normal she still is after having such massive career and financial success. I think her attitude is admirable and something we should all keep in mind for our financial futures.

Some tidbits from the article worth repeating:

Even today, having accumulated an ostrich-sized nest egg of tens of millions of dollars from producing hits like "Fatal Attraction," "Black Rain," "Indecent Proposal," "The Accused" and "School Ties," Ms. Lansing is still leery about her financial future. Her film credits may reflect a passion for high-voltage drama, but when it comes to investing, the last thing she wants is a thriller.

She has nothing against investing; she just won't do it unless she knows all about what the money is being invested in, and she believes that is generally impossible. Film she knows. "If I take a risk with a film," she said, "I know every in and out." But outside the movie business, "I don't know enough," she said. "I worked hard for my money. The idea of turning it over to someone else to manage and putting my fate in their hands is inconceivable. I know my business, but I never thought I knew anyone else's business. And I am not a person who likes to abdicate control of my financial interests."

The only exception to her Treasury bills and CD's is a big wad of stock in Viacom Inc., the owner of Paramount, where she has been since 1992. "I want to sleep well at night," she said over breakfast at the St. Regis. Her Hollywood uniform hinted at both her success and her caution: a conservative brown Armani pants suit, with a black turtleneck and high heels. "I have enough money, and I don't want to worry about it."

What made Ms. Lansing such a wary investor? No trial and error was involved. She set her course when she made her first killing in Hollywood, back in 1980, when she was already president of production at 20th Century Fox. When the investor Marvin Davis bought the company in 1981, "We had stock options and he bought everybody out in one fell swoop," Ms. Lansing recalled. She won't say how much she made, but associates put the figure at several million dollars. "I remember thinking, 'What should I do with it?' " Ms. Lansing recalled. Soon afterward, she was at dinner at Elaine's restaurant, a New York favorite for media moguls, with Mo Rothman, a veteran film executive who owned the rights to Charlie Chaplin's film library. Mr. Rothman, a gruff, outspoken man who has known Ms. Lansing for years, told her: "Why don't you pretend you've made half of it, because the rest is what you pass on in taxes. Put it in CD's and you will sleep very well at night, knowing your money is safe." At that time Mr. Davis, who had made a fortune in the oil business, "was putting lots of people into oil deals," Ms. Lansing said. But she ignored such high-flying ideas, instead following the advice of Mr. Rothman and other friends. It was a seminal decision, she said. In a telephone interview from London last week, Mr. Rothman recalled: "She has always been worried about money. She was a girl alone, a single girl. She didn't know if she would be fired or get another deal -- all the preoccupations that women are worried about when they are alone in the world."

During a brief stint as an actress in the soap opera "Loving," she started offering suggestions on the script to Ray Wagner, the producer. That led to a job reading scripts for him for $5 a hour. From there she worked for a talent agency. She moved on to MGM, where she ultimately became president for creative affairs, and to Columbia, where she was senior vice president for production. But even as her salary soared, Ms. Lansing worried. "I had been in the business and I had watched the ups and downs," she said. "I had seen people who were big-salary people. They lived high on the hog, and they did not prepare for the future. And one day it stops for everybody. This is a very tough business, tough and cruel. When I was a reader and story editor, I watched what happened to people. I watched how cruel people were to them when they couldn't get jobs. "I can give you 20 examples of people who did not prepare for the future, and then one day the salary stops, the hit movies stop. They lose everything, including their self-esteem."

For Ms. Lansing, money was freedom. "From the time I started making money at Fox -- I was 35 -- I always wanted to save to have enough so that I didn't have to worry," Ms. Lansing said. "If you ever need a job, you will always do the safe thing because you will be scared. The only way you can perform in a job is if you don't need it. Then you can make pure decisions that are not based on fear."

Friends say that when Ms. Lansing turned 50, she began to believe that she ought to be able to live it up more. After all, she had the money. Because Hollywood is hardly the home of low-key living, she wondered whether she had a problem about spending. She even consulted a psychiatrist about becoming a chic shopper. He asked her what she liked to own and, presumably, was reassured when she told him she liked abstract art -- an expensive choice. He urged her to go out and buy something she liked so they could study her reaction. Ms. Lansing took herself to the Knoedler Gallery in New York. As one friend recalled it, "she zoomed through the gallery, said she wanted a particular painting by Helen Frankenthaler and bought it in 16 seconds. They had probably never seen anything like it." But Ms. Lansing soon discovered that she didn't care much about collecting expensive art. Looking at it in other people's homes was good enough. "All I could think was that the money would be better used if I gave it to charity," she said. Finally the therapist dismissed her. Regardless of whether she was normal by Hollywood standards, he concluded that she was happy nonetheless. To be sure, she does live well. "Don't get me wrong," she said. "I live in a house, not a garret. I'm not a bag lady. I am sitting in a beautiful hotel room. I have a beautiful suit on. Of course I like making money very much. But there is a limit to the things I think are worth buying. There is nothing that I want to buy that I don't have."

Ms. Lansing said she had already had an influence on her husband's (movie director William Friedkin) spending habits, if not his approach to investing. They do have his-and-hers business managers and do not discuss specific investments with each other, but their disparate life styles are coming together. When they married, Mr. Friedkin had five homes: a house in Aspen, an apartment in New York, a house in Big Bear, Calif., one in Los Angeles and a second that he was building.

"I said, 'What do you need an apartment in New York for? That is the stupidest thing. I don't want to live in that apartment that you lived in with your other wives, and I don't want to do it over. Wouldn't you rather have the money? We can stay at the St. Regis or the Peninsula.' "

He bought the life style script. They now own just one house, the one in Beverly Hills, which they bought together. "He was the exact opposite of me," Ms. Lansing explained, but now, she says, he is coming around to her way of thinking. "Billy's attitude toward money is much different from mine. He is an artist. He takes no responsibility. Because he takes no interest in money, he spends it. If you tell him not to spend it, he doesn't."

Who are you and how old are you?

I’m a female bootstrapping entrepreneur in my early forties.
 
Tell me about your background.

I have two advanced degrees (a PhD and MBA) from top ten schools and have spent the last ten years of my life working in four different companies (fortune 500 companies and startups) before deciding to venture out on my own.
 
What does your financial situation look like? If you don’t earn money through a “normal job”, how do you support yourself?

I have been self-funding my startup company for the last 18 months. I haven’t had stable income during this period of time and have instead been relying on my saving to fill in the gaps.
 
How do you define rich?

Money in both cash and assets is obviously a tangible indicator of wealth. However I also feel strongly that achieving your own interpretation of what the meaning of life is (money, family, or your religious/ personal beliefs) should also be an indicator of being “rich."
 
Did you grow up with money? How did your childhood conditions about money affect how you behave?

No, I didn't really grow up with money. I grew up in an intellectual family in China during the 1970s and 1980s. Nobody had money back then in China, not even the government. After living through that period of time and then through the 1990s and 2000s in the US, I now understand the importance and non-importance of money.

There are material desires that money can buy, and the spiritual/emotional desires that are not necessarily related to money. I personally feel that I have a balanced desire of money. If I am ever lucky enough to have a large fortune, I will do what Warren Buffett and Bill Gates are doing and give away most of my fortune during my life span.
 
Did your parents give you money when you were growing up? What about for school?

Yes and no. I didn’t have regular pocket money when I was a child. If I wanted anything, I always asked my parents to get it for me. Of course this means I didn’t get everything I wanted which turns out to be a good way to educate children. Although my parents would say no to my requests for toys, they rarely said no if I wanted to buy books or any educational products (paints and brushes for my artwork, piano lessons when I showed a slight interest in music, etc).

My parents also never cultivated a rule of paying me to do house chores like many other Chinese families did back then. They considered helping out in the house to be a duty of every member of the family. 
 
Do you still have school loans?

No , I do not.
 
Where did you learn about investing?

I learn about investing from reading about it. I don't invest regularly on my own or think too much about it.
 
What does your family situation look like?

I am a living in a single person household.
 
Do you feel like you are living paycheck to paycheck? If so, do you feel that way due to your lifestyle?

I am living off my savings right now and feel the financial pressure as many bootstrapping startup founders do.
 
What was your most regrettable purchase?

I actually don’t have many. If I do, they're on trivial purchases such as a piece of clothing that I bought because it was on sale but at the end of the day, realize that it doesn’t fit well or that I don’t actually like it.  But even those cases are rare.
 
What was your best purchase?
Probably my condo that I bought at almost the lowest end of the market. I live in an extremely expensive city and this condo has definitely increased in value substantially.
 
Do you feel like you have a financial habit that’s out of the norm (or at least something that others have commented on)?

Yes, I have much less fear than other people on spending money on things or experiences that I feel would be valuable for my own growth or career.  For example, when I was a graduate student with a $1000/month stipend, I would spend money traveling overseas whenever I got the chance. I have been doing adventure travel once a year for most of the last decade and spend $5000 on average for each trip. However, I have never had any desires to spend money on buying a fancy car or other material things as I get a lot more out of traveling and exploring the world .
 
Do you feel like your success now has anything to do with luck or being in the right place at the right time?

I am not sure if I can call myself "a success" but I have had several successes in my life. I don’t think that timing or luck necessarily played a key role in these successes. It was more about my own determination and effort to succeed. If there was any luck or being in the right place at the right time, that was all built up through my own hard work.  I think this is pretty much true for all successful people even if others may view them as only being successful because they were in the right place at the right time.
 
Do you actively contribute to a retirement account of any sort?

When I worked at a regular company, I would max out my 401k account each year no matter how big or small my paycheck was.
 
Do you feel like your lifestyle reflects your income bracket?

Yes and no. As mentioned earlier, I have a different spending mentality than most people.

For the day-to-day life, I think I am on par or probably even lower than the other people in my income bracket. For instance, I don’t mind eating out from time to time at fancy places, but I don’t own much furniture and I still use the same set of furniture that I bought from IKEA when I was in my graduate school.
 
Have you ever jumped income brackets (either going from low to high or vice versa) and how did your lifestyle change?

There have been no major jumps but continued progress over the years. However, I did downgrade to a much lower income bracket when I started my company.
 
Do you talk to your peers and family about money?

I don’t talk with people about money very often. It’s just not a topic of interest with me.
 
Do you splurge on anything? If so, what was the last splurge and how much was it?

I will usually treat myself something when I achieve a major goal or if it's for a special occasion. For example, I would go to a spa for my birthday.
 
Do you have a plan to make more money?

I guess I can call my startup a of plan for making more money but in reality, it’s not the only goal I have for my company. And yes, I am fully aware that working on my startup is an extremely risky way to make more money.
 
What would it take for you to feel like you are completely rich?

Achieving my goals and having enough money so that it’s no longer a daily life concern for me.
 
In terms of money, what was something you did in the past that you could do differently?

I actually don’t have many regrets on how I spent money in the past. But if I did have to say something, it's to not spend compulsively on trivial things I don't need.

What is your strategy for moving forward now in regards to your big goals in life?

Trying to make my startup a success!

Who are you and how old are you?

I am a 26 year old man living in the East Coast. I work at a university in one of their STEM research labs as a data manager.

Tell me about your background.

I grew up on the East Coast, went to a well-known university about an hour ago, got my masters degree in the field that I'm working in now, and have been doing what I've been doing since then. I grew up in a lower to middle class family with my mom and two brothers. My dad passed away when I was 7.5 years old from a car accident and my mom had to raise the three of us herself. She struggled because she had been working menial-type jobs before my dad passed away but then worked to get her nursing degree in order to earn more money. My dad's passing and subsequent upbringing had a huge impact on how I look at the world today. I'm a lot more aware of privilege and different class structures than perhaps most people my age.

What does your financial situation look like? If you don’t earn money through a “normal job”, how do you support yourself?

I work in the STEM field making a decent salary for the area I live in. I also blog extensively about the college I went to and because of it, was actually hired by a local newspaper to write articles for them. It was a complete surprise and not something I had been looking for. I write for them in my free time and am paid for every article I write.

How do you define rich?

Someone who makes three times the local median income every year and who has physical assets equal to five times the individual income level.

Did you grow up with money? How did your childhood conditions about money affect how you behave?

Money was always tight when I was a child. As a result, I am very pragmatic about spending and very uncomfortable with debt. As mentioned, my dad passed away when I was 7.5, and my mom subsequently got her nursing license to make money. Unfortunately, when my dad died, not only did my mom then become the sole breadwinner of the family, she also had to deal with the debt my dad left behind from the failing drugstore that he started and ran. She did her best given the situation she was put in.

Did your parents give you money when you were growing up? What about for school?

I never had an allowance. I got $500 when I graduated from high school and $1000 when I graduated from college. My mom always made it clear to my brothers and I that if we didn't get scholarships to go to college, we weren't going because she didn't have any money saved up for us to go to college.

Do you still have school loans?

I graduated from college in 2010 and didn't have any school loans from my masters program because I was on one of those "work-study" programs. I am proud to say that I paid off all of my college loans in May 2014. I actually only started paying my college loans after graduating from grad school so I paid them off pretty quickly.

The college I went to had a generous financial aid package for me, and I had some scholarships. I only owed $12,000 for my first two years and my last two years were completely free.

Where did you learn about investing?

I learned bits and pieces from college, talking with you (the editor of Money in my Life!) and another friend of mine, and reading the financial news on Bloomberg, Businessweek, and CNN Money.

What does your family situation look like?

My mom is still working as a nurse. She unfortunately  has nothing in her retirement funds. She always thought (and still thinks) she will drop dead at age 60 and so having retirement money isn't necessary. I think that she just doesn’t understand money and prefers to keep her money "under the mattress," a common thought process among blue collar workers. I also have two brothers - one owns and manages an electronics store while the other is a naval officer.

Do you and your partner have similar financial habits?

My girlfriend is also very frugal and pragmatic about expenses, just like me. Neither of us likes the idea of spending more money than we need to.

If/when you have children, will you put money away for their college tuition? If so, how much?

I will definitely put money away for them, but I think they should be responsible for some of their college tuition as well. I'm thinking that I'll cover maybe about half of their college expenses and they'll have to cover the rest. This will teach them to be smart with their money and realize that getting an art history degree is not the best idea.

Do you feel like you are living paycheck to paycheck? If so, do you feel that way due to your lifestyle?

I don't feel like I'm living paycheck to paycheck because I save a lot of money. However, I do feel a lot of discomfort when I see my bank account drop below a certain amount. I currently use the robo-advisor Betterment which withdraws money from my checking account twice a month, I maintain a 4-6 month emergency cushion in my bank account, and put money in my 401(k) at work.

What was your most regrettable purchase?

It's the little things that get to me like using the wrong credit card at the gas station - "If I had used card X instead of card Y, I would have gotten 5% cash back instead of 1% cash back!" I've never had a financial decision that I've regretted because I do a ton of research ahead of time on anything that I buy.

What was your best purchase?

Paying for my college degree

Do you feel like you have a financial habit that’s out of the norm (or at least something that others have commented on)?

I love clipping and using coupons, which is something that is not too normal for a 20-something male. My girlfriend teases me about this and will often give me the coupons she finds in those Lean Cuisine boxes - "Here's a $1 coupon for your next Lean Cuisine! I know how much you like these!"

Do you feel like your success now has anything to do with luck or being in the right place at the right time?

Yes, I definitely think I'm where I am due to luck. I happened to see the job posting for my current job even though it was only online for a week. I applied, interviewed, and got the job offer in less than 6 weeks . Everything happened very fast, and this job has been amazing so far. I keep telling myself how lucky I was to have found out about this opportunity during the very narrow time frame that it was being advertised.

How much investing do you do, if any?

I currently put away 14% of my salary toward Betterment. I also put money in my 401(k) at work.

Do you feel like your lifestyle reflects your income bracket?

I'm a bit more frugal than many folks in my income bracket so no, my lifestyle doesn't reflect how much I make.

Have you ever jumped income brackets (either going from low to high or vice versa) and how did your lifestyle change?

I went from being part of the working class to being part of the middle class once I began working. As a child, we never went on vacations. Air travel was such a foreign concept, and being able to fly to visit people or go to weddings was something we were not able to do. There’s more financial security in my life now but there’s nervousness about building up assets.

Do you talk to your peers and family about money?

I don’t like talking to my family about money because my mom can’t keep her mouth shut and will brag/talk to her friends about anything money-related. She always asks me how much I make but I never tell her exactly how much it is. I just tell her I make a comfortable living. I don’t talk about money with my siblings.

Do you splurge on anything? If so, what was the last splurge and how much was it?

I bought a new mid-size sedan recently. My old car had 134,000 miles on it and needed too many repairs. It was literally falling apart and was getting to a point where it just wasn't safe to drive anymore. When I was looking at cars to buy, I set my purchase price to be between $12,000 - $18,000. I paid 75% upfront for my sedan and will pay off the rest in monthly installments.

I also got a dog about a year ago and probably spend about $80/month it, not counting vet trips and other expenses that pop up. Getting a dog is definitely a terrible investment because it's not making money or anything, but I really love him!

Do you have a plan to make more money?

I have no active plans now. Getting hired to write freelance articles for the local newspaper was completely unexpected and a very nice surprise. I expect to increase my salary by 4% - 5% in the next year. If it's a 3% or less raise, I'm going to actively start looking for other jobs.

What would it take for you to feel like you are completely rich?

I would say getting paid about $110,000/year. That would put me in the upper middle class where I live.

In terms of money, what was something you did in the past that you could do differently?

I wished I had invested more when I was younger.

What is your strategy for moving forward now in regards to your big goals in life?

I'm not sure if I will be living where I'm living now in the next 1-2 years so I don't plan to buy a house at this point. I'm thinking about about possibly getting a masters degree in real estate because I blog about it so much. We'll see!