IKEA's Kamprad, the Frugal Billionaire

The way the man dresses himself makes it quite impossible to place him as a billionaire. Ingvar Kamprad, founder of IKEA and worth billions in pound sterling, looks like a scrappy elderly living life on a tight budget. The seventh richest man in the world, Kamprad prefers to live the simple life, cook his own food, and haggle in the marketplace.

Frugality is one of the Kamprad's secret ideologies that has given him a successful business venture. Kamprad has lived off his virtue that he still drives his 15-year old Volvo when he needs to go places and always flies economy class whenever he needs to go to other countries.

Asked why frugality is such a successful method in any business plan particularly his furniture franchise, Kamprad pointed out that he leads by example. If he starts to get himself all the luxuries in the world and starts living life like most rich people do, others will follow suit. In addition, frugality is one of the attributes that keeps IKEA alive. Kamprad maintains operations at low costs but produces pieces of high quality furniture.

Kamprad's IKEA is one of the world's most profitable furniture retail stores, with 278 retail stores in 35 countries.

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