EXCLUSIVE: Billionaire Bill Gates’ Daughter Phoebe Reveals Money-Saving Hacks She’s Using To Decorate Her New Apartment

Billionaire Bill Gates’ youngest child, Phoebe, grew up in the lap of luxury at her father’s Washington compound, but since leaving the family nest, she’s developed some surprisingly humble shopping habits.

Being raised by one of the world’s richest men hasn’t stopped the 22-year-old Stanford graduate from picking up some impressive money-saving hacks over the years, beginning when she was a college student trying to breathe some life into a sterile dorm room.

Together with her roommate, Sophia Kianni, with whom she has now partnered on a new business project, Phoebe Gates found several very thrifty ways to inject personality into their shared space—from taping up “cool articles” on the walls to sourcing secondhand furniture.

Now, Gates and Kianni are sharing those tips with the world in their new role as Command Brand partners, revealing the easiest ways that others can decorate their spaces, from college rooms to New York City apartments, which they are both in the process of doing.

“Shop secondhand, I think, is a really big [budget-friendly hack] for us,” Gates tells Realtor.com. “We found all of our furniture [when] we first moved to New York.”

Indeed, recycling and reusing items is such a passion for the pair that it plays a major role in their new business venture, Phia, a price comparison app that helps bargain hunters everywhere find new or secondhand items at the best possible price across thousands of websites.

Gates and Kianni call their browsing tool the “Google Flights for Fashion,” and it’s just one of several budget-friendly shopping hacks they personally subscribe to and encourage others to adopt.

So it should come as no surprise that, when they set about opening their first office, thrifting and bargain shopping was a key part of the decorating process.

“[For] our first office here for Phia, we got everything secondhand, whether it was chairs or tables,” Gates explains. “We were always trying to find something at the best price we could. Obviously, that’s also why we created Phia, but that was a big focus for us as well.”

In addition to decorating their office, Gates recently embarked on a new interior design challenge inside her own New York City apartment, which she is trying to fill with an array of pre-loved pieces, she explains.

“I just moved into a new apartment, so for me, getting my room all set up—I still have some redecorating to do because I’m still using some of my stuff from college,” says Gates.

“The marble nightstand thing, that is something I’m hunting for secondhand if I can get it for the price I want, so I would say that’s my project over the summer.”

Kianni has a similar mission in mind—having already experienced some impressive secondhand shopping successes since moving into her own home.

“I also recently moved into a new apartment, and I had this, like, awkward space next to my kitchen that I wasn’t really sure what to do with,” adds Kianni. “I ended up finding a stunning secondhand, like, very apartment-friendly table that’s very high so that you can fit a lot of chairs around it.

“And then I also found a secondhand mirror that I found on Facebook Marketplace. I love Facebook Marketplace—I feel like it’s [furnished] 60% or 70% of my apartment now.”

Using competitive secondhand marketplaces to locate worthwhile buys, however, requires some resourcefulness—and Kianni admits she’s developed a couple of creative strategies, such as expanding the location search radius and combining services from different platforms.

“Because New York City is expensive, it’s like the best stuff was [being sold by] people in New Jersey or, like, places that [were] kind of far away,” explains Kianni. “And I was, like, ‘Well, I don’t have a car and I have no way of getting to this item.’ But I found that you can Uber Courier things.

“So there was this beautiful mirror that I really wanted—and it was small—so an Uber Courier was able to go and pick it up and drive it to my apartment,” she shares. “It was, like, a 20-mile drive or something, but it ended up only being $50. 

“So yeah, if you go on Facebook Marketplace, you should look for things that are [a] little bit farther out if you’re in a city because they’re way cheaper and nicer, and then you should use Uber Courier or Lugg if you want furniture. But Uber Courier is, like, super inexpensive.”

Nevertheless, Kianni says sometimes the best deals can be found in the building a buyer is already in—especially when it comes to residences with regular turnover.

“For people who are in dorms and in college, there’s so many opportunities [from] people who were [living there] the year before,” suggests Kianni.

“I don’t know if other schools do this, but there’s common rooms [at Stanford] where there’s, like, old decor and stuff that people have left for other students. So that’s always, like, an awesome opportunity.” 

In addition to those savvy tips, Gates and Kianni have road-tested even more tricks for younger people to shop affordably that they’re detailing in a new podcast episode made in collaboration with Command, called “Sticking With Style.”

“Using tape strips, you can press on a hook by the door to just, like, get your keys,” says Gates. The specialty tape can also be used to hang a small shelf to display hand-me-down decor.

“Especially, like, the ornaments you’re going to be putting on those shelves,” she adds. “All of it for us was really about, ‘OK, what can we find that’s affordable and secondhand?’”

The stylish pair, who also co-host their own podcast, “The Burnouts,” make it clear that rotating recycled home accessories helps keep a space feeling fresh.

“What’s nice is that you can also constantly swap out [decor] if you get bored and put in something new in its place,” adds Kianni. “That’s really easy, and we definitely did a lot of that in college where it’s like, you have some winter and some holiday stuff hung up during the winter months, and then when it’s warmer, maybe you put up some flowers or something like that.”

Gates confirms she and Kianni are “definitely” working to expand Phia’s product comparison capabilities to cover home decor as they continue their quest to prove that something secondhand is anything but second-rate.