Before Debra Messing’s acting career took off, she was a broke grad student living in New York City. Still, she found small ways to treat herself, she tells CNBC Make It: “When I was a graduate student at NYU, I had no money. And my big splurge was a soy burger dinner at Dojos. It was $3.99.”
The meal came with “brown rice and salad,” she says. “I would do that once a week.”
Messing, who graduated from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in 1993, made a splash with the NBC sitcom “Will & Grace.” It first aired in 1998 and Messing’s role as Grace Adler earned her up to $600,000 per episode, The Richest estimates. Today, the star is worth an estimated $20 million. She’s still acting and recently partnered with T.J.Maxx to work on The Maxx You Project.
Once the big money started rolling in, Messing did splurge on something other than a $3.99 dinner. “I have always loved jewelry,” she tells CNBC Make It. “I would always walk around and look and sort of fantasize. And when I got my first paycheck, I went to a store and bought a gold ring with a garnet in it. It was $235.”
“I kind of gulped and couldn’t believe I was doing that,” she adds, “but I decided that I’d work really hard.”
Jewelry remains Messing’s guilty pleasure but, while the actress can afford pricier items, she still has that $235 ring, and “every time I look at it, I think about that.”
