Imagine being so rich that you could buy mansions and travel the world, but you choose instead to go around begging for leftover cakes to eat.
That is the story of Hetty Green, the stingiest woman in the history of the world. In Nigerian parlance, we’d call her ‘money miss road’.
No matter how much people complain about the stinginess of Nigerian women, we can not lace Hetty’s tattered shoes.
Her extreme frugality earned her a place in the Guiness Book of World Record as the most stingy person in the history of the world.
Henrietta “Hetty” Howland Robinson was born in 1835 in New Bedford, Massachusetts. She was the only daughter of a wealthy Quaker businessman and was raised with strong financial discipline. Hetty started reading financial newspapers and handling family accounts by the age of six.
When her father passed away, she inherited approximately $7.5 million (over $2.3 billion today), a vast sum at the time, and was determined to grow it. At 21, Hetty moved to New York City, where she entered the male-dominated world of Wall Street. Hetty was sharp, bold, and calculating, and she used those skills to build her fortune by investing in railroads, real estate, and government bonds.)
Despite her success, her gender and eccentric personality made her a subject of ridicule and fear. Her ruthless tactics earned her the nickname “The Wicked Witch of Wall Street,” and she became known not only for her wealth but also for her cold and calculated demeanour.
Hetty married Edward Green, a wealthy businessman from Vermont. However, she remained fiercely independent with her finances. The couple had two children—Ned and Sylvia. Though married to a millionaire and worth millions herself, Hetty lived as if she had nothing. She reportedly kept her children in second-hand clothes and raised them in modest conditions to instil her frugal values.
Hetty’s daily life was shockingly frugal, despite her immense wealth. She wore the same tattered black dress every day and refused to use hot water or heating. For meals, she ate cold pies that cost two cents. Her daily routine included visiting bakeries and grocery stores to ask for leftover cakes, broken biscuits, and even free bones for her dog. She sewed her own underwear at 16 and wore the same underpants until her death!
Hetty’s obsession with saving money extended into the realm of cruelty. When her son broke his leg, she allegedly refused to pay for proper medical treatment and spent so long looking for a free clinic that his leg eventually had to be amputated.
She avoided hospitals with bills and preferred to hunt for free care, even when she could afford the most elite medical institutions.
Despite her extreme stinginess, Hetty was a brilliant investor. She had an eye for undervalued assets and was one of the very few women of her time to command such power on Wall Street. However, all that financial savvy came at a personal cost. She lived a cold, lonely, and difficult life, one she chose, ironically, despite having the means to live lavishly.
Hetty was a public spectacle. Newspapers mocked her appearance and miserly habits, yet Wall Street professionals respected her investing genius. While others panicked during financial downturns, she bought up undervalued assets and strengthened her portfolio. Her ability to remain calm under pressure made her one of the richest women of her time, despite living as one of the poorest.
Hetty Green died in 1916 at the age of 81 in New York City. True to character, she reportedly suffered a fatal stroke during an argument with her maid, who had merely asked for a raise. At the time of her death, her fortune was estimated to be well over $100 million (equivalent to billions today). She was buried in Vermont alongside her husband.
But the legacy of her stinginess didn’t live on through her children. Her daughter, in stark contrast, used part of the inheritance to build a free hospital.
Hetty Green’s life is a study in extremes. While she broke barriers as a woman in finance and amassed unimaginable wealth, she also broke records for being the most miserly person in history. And honestly, for all the shade people throw at Nigerian women for being ‘stingy,’ at least we know how to spoil ourselves, and spend when it counts.
