Money

Nina Dobrev didn’t come from money. The actress, who rose to fame on Degrassi: The Next Generation and The Vampire Diaries, learned early on that in order have expensive things, you need to work for them — or, failing that, you could just bend the truth.

“As a kid I remember not having new clothes,” she told InStyle earlier this summer. “We would shop at Value Village, which is kind of like Salvation Army. My mom nicknamed it Versace, so if anyone asked, we would say we went to Versace.”

Dobrev started working as soon as she was legally able to in Canada, where she lived, nabbing her first job at Hollister. “I got my first savings account when I was 14 or 15 — whatever the legal age is to work in Canada — because I got a job almost immediately,” she said. “I was always a go-getter. I was born in Eastern Europe, so I have this Eastern European/Bulgarian mentality. I didn’t really have much growing up, so everything was valued.”

Although the thesp admittedly spent most of her hard-earned Hollister money on the clothes there, she operates differently now. “I splurge more on trips and flights than purses and clothing,” she told InStyle at the Los Angeles debut of the 2nd Annual Maison St-Germain, hosted by Kate Young at Little Beach House Malibu in in California, celebrating the 1,000 elderflowers that go into St-Germain liqueur. “But every now and then I’ll splurge. Like, I bought a Chanel purse in Paris. It was a moment. Whenever there’s a moment to celebrate, I’ll treat myself.”

There’s another reason why she’d rather not overshop. “It takes a lot to impress myself — so I don’t do it often.” continue reading