Billionaire Warren Buffett's Daughter Asked Him For A $41,000 Loan To Remodel Her Tiny Kitchen — His Response: 'Why Not Go To The Bank?'

When your dad is one of the richest people on the planet, you might assume you'd never have to worry about scraping together money for home repairs—especially not for something as practical as a kitchen remodel. But for Warren Buffett's daughter, Susie Buffett., the rules were different. She wasn't looking for a handout. She was asking for a loan—and still got a hard no.

The story was first shared publicly in a 2006 interview on "Good Morning America," where Susie appeared with her siblings. She mentioned asking her father for a loan to remodel her kitchen after having a baby.

A few years later, Toronto's Globe and Mail followed up with a 2011 feature reporting that Susie had requested $41,000—and that her father told her to "go to the bank like everyone else."

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That moment became somewhat legendary, especially for those familiar with Buffett's tough-love approach to money. In the 2017 HBO documentary, ‘Becoming Warren Buffett," Susie revisited the story, saying, "There's the famous story about the kitchen with me. I had some trouble with that one just because I thought I was asking for a loan. I was not asking him to give me the money. I thought, oh come on, can't you do this?" 

She joked to her mother that she'd end up "on the cover of People magazine someday homeless, because my dad will be like this super rich guy and… we'll all be wandering around."

The most detailed version of the story comes from Alice Schroeder's 2008 authorized biography, "The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life." According to Schroeder, Susie and her husband Allen were living in a cramped Washington, D.C., home with "a kitchen the size of a baby blanket." They planned a modest renovation to make room for a kitchen table and access to their garden.

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When she asked her billionaire father for a loan, Buffett replied, "Why not go to the bank?" He went on to explain that just as a quarterback shouldn't start for Nebraska just because his dad played the position, children shouldn't be handed advantages they haven't earned. "He won't give it to us on principle," Susie said. "All my life, my father has been teaching us. Well, I feel I've learned the lesson. At a certain point, you can stop" .

From an investment perspective, the lesson is crystal clear. Buffett has never viewed capital as something to be given freely—even to those closest to him. He believed in value, in proving your case, and in capital allocation with discipline, whether you're a Fortune 500 CEO or his own daughter asking for a modest loan.

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In a way, this story isn't just about a kitchen. It's about Buffett's guiding principle: money isn't about love—it's about responsibility. 

Buffett had no problem giving billions to global health, education, and poverty initiatives. But when it came to his children, he drew a firm line between charity and family support. For him, financial self-sufficiency was a non-negotiable—no matter your last name.

And while the anecdote reads like a parenting parable, it's also a page straight from the Buffett investing ethos: discipline trumps emotion, even when it's close to home. 

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