Music

Rick Ross is well-known for his luxury lifestyle raps and his big-money boasts, but as it turns out, he has a very responsible outlook toward spending and saving his money, sharing some of his cost-cutting, money-making hacks with Forbes magazine in a new interview. For one thing, all of his investments are in stable markets like real estate, thanks to some advice from his hard-working mom.

“When I became a young millionaire for the first time, I went to my mother because she had always been a registered nurse and worked two and three jobs,” he recalls. “She always bought real estate. She came from Clarksdale, where the real estate was a lot cheaper. She would just keep buying houses. And I would say, ‘Mom, what do you think about the stock market?’ And she would say, ‘Son, I don’t really rock with the stock market. I don’t know much about it, but I know about real estate . . . So when you buy something, make sure you can touch it.’”

However, some of his other tactics are a bit unexpected for a big-time rapper who’s appeared on Forbes’ Hip-Hop Cash Kings list. After buying his 235-acre estate in Georgia from boxing champion Evander Holyfield in 2008, he not only turned the acquisition into a money-maker by renting it out to movie productions like the one for Coming 2 America, but he also saved money by mowing the lawn himself.

“When I bought the Fayetteville estate, locals would see me walk out of a restaurant and scream, ‘You know Holyfield spent $1 million a year to cut the grass,’” he admits. So I decided that I was gonna cut my own grass… I went down to John Deere and asked to see the biggest tractor, the most efficient tractor. I told them I had 200-plus acres that I wanted to keep cut, and they pointed out the right tractor. I bought it right then and there. I bought the extended attachment on the back that would cut even wider. Once I got it back home, I filled it up with gas. I may have sat in the same spot for two hours before I got everything working, but once I got it going, I didn’t stop. I cut grass for about five hours.”

He further explains how he finds the process therapeutic, spending time “connecting with the estate and the animals and the birds and the wildlife.”

Ross also lets it slip that he’d rather buy antiques at swap meets than spend a lot decorating and that he flies commercial instead of owning a private jet. Even a boss keeps to a budget — that’s how he stays a boss.