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Billionaire investor Mark Cuban didn’t get rich by clipping coupons, but he sure knows the value of stretching a dollar.
In his 20s, he was broke, hustling to get his foot in the door—waiting tables, living paycheck to paycheck, and grinding through sales jobs before he sold his first company and never looked back. Now he’s a self-made billionaire with more money than most of us will ever see—but he still swears by one surprisingly simple habit: bulk shopping.
Speaking in a 2020 Men’s Health video clip, Cuban didn’t launch into stock picks or portfolio strategy. Instead, he got real about how the average person can come out ahead—even without a Wall Street broker or a finance degree.
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“It’s really hard to pick the right stock, or the right index fund, or the right mutual fund,” Cuban said. That’s not exactly what you’d expect from a guy who made his fortune betting on tech and selling to Yahoo at the height of the dot-com boom. But he wasn’t trying to impress anyone. He was making a point: sometimes the smartest money move isn’t flashy—it’s practical.
“If you, over the course of a year, typically spend $2,000 on all the consumables you use in your house, [like] your toothpaste, your toilet paper, shampoo, and you can save 40% on those by buying it [in bulk] and sticking it under your bed if you need to, that’s $800 in savings,” he said. That’s not a stock tip. That’s Cuban logic—rooted in what actually works, not what sounds good.
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Just make sure you don’t swipe your way into savings. Cuban has been crystal clear that one of the biggest financial mistakes people make is using credit cards for purchases they can’t pay off immediately. He’s been open in the past about how getting his own card cut up was one of the toughest lessons he ever learned. So while buying essentials in bulk can be a smart move, he’d argue it only counts as a good investment if you’re not racking up interest to do it. In other words, cash is king—and only buy what you actually need.
And he didn’t stop there. He called out the kind of shopping most people do without thinking—paying full price for everyday stuff—and flipped it on its head. “Take advantage of deals on Amazon and other places you can buy in bulk,” he said. “If it’s money you’re going to absolutely spend no matter what and you can save, that’s the best investment you can make… Sometimes the best investment you can make is being a smart shopper.”
