I Lived Like Warren Buffet For A Day — Here’s What Happened

A day in the life of Warren Buffet

Warren Buffet is the greatest investor of all time and currently the 5th richest person in the world. However, he’s certainly not your average run of the mill billionaire, his average day to day life may come a bit of a surprise to you.

His average day looks something like this:

• Wake up at 6:45am

Buffet wakes up at 6:45am sharp after a solid 8 hours sleep.

• Drink a can of Coca-Cola

Instead of drinking tea or coffee, he drinks a cherry or diet Coca-Cola, the first of five or six for the day.

• Eat McDonalds for breakfast

What he orders is dictated by the stock market. If the market is down he’ll spend $2.61 on his breakfast and if it’s up, he’ll be adventurous and spend a whopping $3.17. He’ll wash this down with another Coca-Cola.

• Arrive at the office at around 9:30am as soon as the market opens

A lot of billionaires like to arrive at the office in the early hours of the morning before the sun rises, Buffet doesn’t work that way!

• Read for a few hours

Buffet has gone on record saying that 80% of his workday is made up of reading. He reads companies financial reports, six newspapers and lots of books. When asked about his secret to success by some students, he held up a stack of paper and said “read 500 pages a day… that’s how knowledge works. It’s like compound interest. All of you can do it, but I guarantee not many of you will do it”

• Lunch Time

Lunch normally consists of either more McDonalds, hot dogs, steak, ice cream and of course, another Coca-Cola. Buffet doesn’t exactly live the healthiest of lifestyles that’s for sure. He defends his eating habits though, he once said “I checked the actuarial tables, and the lowest death rate is among six-year-olds, so I decided to eat like a six-year-old.” Bizarre!

• Read for a few more hours

The reading continues.

• Arrives home from work around 5–6pm

On the way home he sometimes swings by McDonalds AGAIN for another meal.

• Play bridge

He plays bridge for around 8 hours a week, it keeps his brain active. He said “It’s a game you can enjoy when you are in your 90s, and you are seeing a different intellectual challenge every seven minutes.” He regularly plays bridge with one of his best friends and founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates.

• Read some more before bed

Buffet retires to bed around 10pm and reads for another half an hour or so.

• 10:45pm: Go to sleep

Buffet always prioritises his sleep.

Rinse and repeat day after day!

So, as you can see, The Oracle of Omaha certainly lives an unusual, interesting lifestyle to say the least, so I thought why not give it a try! Hell, it might even make me a billionaire!

So…

Here’s how my day went…

• 4:45am: Wake up

Not exactly a Buffet-esque time to wake up, but I gave Jennie a lift to work since she was on an early shift. Needless to say, I was pretty tired!

• 6:15am: McDonalds breakfast

In classic Buffet style, I grabbed myself a McDonalds breakfast (for the very first time). I bought a double sausage and egg McMuffin since the market has been performing well in recent weeks. Needless to say I was eating breakfast way before the markets even opened. I washed breakfast down with my first Diet Coca-Cola of the day, the first of six for the day. I’m not going to lie, I actually really enjoyed breakfast and the early morning Coca-Cola!

• 7am: Arrived at work

Unfortunately, I don’t have the luxury of arriving to work at 9:30am, my workdays start a lot earlier than that. I wasn’t able to get into the days reading straight away since I had some other work to get through.

• 8:30am: The reading commences!

The first reading session of the day commenced around 8:30am, about an hour before Buffet even gets to his office. I started off by reading multiple newspaper articles, something I very rarely do. I also started reading my book too. At the moment I’m currently re-reading the 48 Laws Of Power by Robert Greene (it’s amazing!). Coca Cola count: two.

• 11am: Strange belly grumbles

After Coca-Cola number three at 11am, my belly started going a bit crazy! My poor body was probably wondering what the hell was going on, it’s not used to consuming so much Coca-Cola!

• 12pm: Lunch time

The first few hours of the day flew by, much quicker than I thought they would. For lunch I headed back to McDonalds and grabbed myself a medium double quarter pounder with cheese, a portion of fries, a small Mcflurry and Coca-Cola number four. I didn’t exactly enjoy this meal, one McDonalds a day is more than enough for me, never mind two!

• 1pm: Back to reading

After lunch, the second reading session of the day commenced. I read some stock market reports and some more of my book.

• 2pm: Major Crash!

As expected, I had a major mental and physical crash around 2pm. How could I not after consuming two McDonalds meals and four Coca-Cola’s? But I managed to plough through it and carry on reading.

• 4–4:45pm: Meeting

Buffet notoriously keeps his day’s meeting free, but unfortunately for me I had a meeting to attend for 45 minutes or so.

• 5pm: Finish work

I finished work at around 5pm after a long ol’ day of reading and learning. By the time I finished work I’d drunk six Coca-Colas.

• 6–7pm: Dinner and time spent with the family

No swinging by McDonalds on the way home for me, no thank you! Instead, I headed straight home and spent some time with my family where we ate dinner together.

• 7:15pm: Playing Chess

I didn’t play any bridge like Buffet does of an evening time. I didn’t fancy trying to learn a new game I’d never played before, so I played some chess instead for around 45 minutes.

• 8pm: Even more reading

Yes, the reading didn’t finish there! I spent an hour reading in bed. I started reading A Time To Kill by John Grisham on my Kindle. I’m not sure if Buffet reads much fiction but it was more reading nonetheless.

• 9pm: Sleep

I went to sleep around 9pm, nearly 2 hours before Buffet does. As you can imagine by the end of the day my brain was totally exhausted.

Conclusion

The day definitely wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I loved the reading and peace and quiet throughout the day, but I certainly didn’t enjoy the two McDonalds and six Coca-Colas!

I can see why he structures his days in this manner though. Reading makes you into a better, more intelligent person, and most importantly, from an investing standpoint: a better decision maker. Buffet says “I insist on a lot of time being spent, almost every day, to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business. I read and think. So I do more reading and thinking, and make less impulse decisions than most people in business.”

I find it inspiring how Buffet, despite being 93 years old, still has such an insatiable appetite for learning, constantly striving to become better at what he does. It’s an attitude I will try to replicate throughout my life.

I wouldn’t want to live every day like Warren Buffet, I don’t have the mental capacity to do so! He’s been living like this for decades and what works for Warren Buffet doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll work for me or you.

Overall though, I thoroughly enjoyed the day and have taken away some valuable insights for the future.

See you next time,

Yours sincerely,

Tom

P.S. I’m still not a billionaire!