"The homeless man" who collects food and clothing from the trash turned out to be a millionaire
An 80-year-old German man has been dubbed the world's most frugal millionaire for surviving on food and items scavenged from garbage bins, despite owning several properties worth millions of euros.
This was reported by SSPDaily, which published a photo of the resident of Darmstadt.
Heinz may resemble a homeless man, but his appearance is highly deceptive. The German may have only 15 euros in his bank account, but that's solely because he withdrew 700,000 euros to purchase a new house, his tenth. The remaining 100,000 euros were deposited into a term deposit account to earn interest.
The man claims to have lived frugally all his life, so he doesn't actually need money to get by. He is content to subsist on discarded food and gather items discarded by others.
"Maybe I'll buy some cooking oil or something if I run out, but most of the food I find is in the trash," he said. "People are wasteful and throw away enough to feed an entire family! For example, people buy a pack of sausages, eat one, and just throw the rest in the trash."
The pensioner first made headlines in 2021 when it was revealed that he owned 7 houses and 2 apartments, and had about 500,000 euros in his bank account. Since then, he has been growing his wealth, recently investing a whopping 700,000 euros in another house. Interestingly, he ensures that he purchases properties in his own neighborhood so that he can reach them by bike if he needs to perform repairs. He is unwilling to pay someone if he can do it himself.
"The craftsmen charge 55 euros for half an hour of repair," Heinz said, adding that most of his houses are not even rented out, as the rent does not cover the cost of maintaining the property. Besides, he doesn't need the extra money anyway.
The electrical engineer receives a monthly pension of 3,600 euros and another pension of 156 euros, most of which is deposited into his bank account because he really has nothing to spend it on. Apart from the 5 euros he allocates for food each month, his expenses only include an internet connection for his laptop. A cell phone is out of the question, as it would cost him an additional 10 euros.
Heinz spends most of his time salvaging items that others discard. Most of it he hardly uses but sells to neighbors, typically in exchange for food they don't need.
With no immediate family to inherit his vast fortune, Heinz isn't sure who will inherit his wealth when he passes away. He does have distant relatives, but he says they cannot afford to pay the inheritance tax, so he is considering leaving some of the real estate to tenants.
