Why Warren Buffett with net worth of $147 billion stopped giving $10,000 to his children as Christmas gifts

Warren Buffett, who once had a tradition of gifting $10,000 in hundred-dollar bills to his children at Christmas, changed his approach to ensure his wealth wasn’t just a holiday gift, but a lifelong legacy.

Buffett’s former daughter-in-law Mary Buffett recounted that she was initially gifted $10,000 in hundred-dollar bills. “As soon as we got home, we’d spend it, whoo!” Mary said in an interview with ThinkAdvisor in 2019.

“Then, one Christmas, there was an envelope with a letter from him. Instead of cash, he’d given us $10,000 worth of shares in a company he’d recently bought, a trust Coca-Cola had. He said to either cash them in or keep them. I thought: ‘Well, [the stock] is worth more than $10,000.’ So I kept it, and it kept going up,” Mary added.


From that year onward, Buffett kept gifting his family stocks, including shares in Wells Fargo.

Mary mentioned that she would continue buying shares in any company her former father-in-law had gifted her, knowing they would appreciate in value.

But what do you give to a man who can buy nearly anything he desires yet prefers the products he trusts and enjoys?

Despite his immense wealth, Buffett is famously known for driving a 10-year-old Cadillac with hail damage and still living in the same house he purchased in the late 1950s.

Speaking to Business Insider in 2017, Buffett’s daughter, Susie, said that just because her father isn’t leaving his vast sums to her directly, it doesn’t mean he is not a kind and giving parent.

“I actually agree with his philosophy of not dumping a bunch of money on your kids. And, by the way, my dad gets a bad rap for that,” she said. “He has been much more generous than people are aware. I feel extremely grateful to have the parents I had and for what they’ve given us.

“But certainly, he’s not going to leave us $50 billion and shouldn’t. It would be crazy to do anything like that.”

Indeed, even at Christmas, it seems the Oracle of Omaha’s family is never far from discussing sensible money management.

As Mary put it, when the family were together at Buffett’s Laguna Beach property for the festive season, “all the titans of industry would be there.”

She added: “We’d have lunches and dinners, and they’d all talk about companies. Investing was the only thing Warren ever talked about.”