Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Hyde: Wilkins breaks stereotype
NFL millions won’t keep Christian Wilkins from pinching pennies — who needs lights or AC?
Here’s a friendly tip for anyone visiting Christian Wilkins’ apartment: Don’t turn on the lights.
“I never turn on the lights,” the Miami Dolphins rookie says. He uses flashlights. “Or the light on the [cell]phone,” he says.
All to minimize his electric bill. All to save as much money as possible. Most teams worry how rookies react to the sudden millions in their lives, but handling money frugally is as natural to Wilkins as putting on a helmet.
“I save as much money as I can,” he says. “You’d have to follow me around to see what I do. I’m so accustomed to it, I don’t even think about it.”
It’s not just the lights. It’s also the air conditioning. Wilkins often doesn’t use it. Well, he does turn it on if someone visits and complains of being uncomfortable. Typically, however, he just opens the door of his apartment to use the air-conditioned hallway.
“You let the cool air come in that way,” Wilkins said. “That cools things down enough for me.”
His normal electric bill since joining the Dolphins last spring: $40. His highest?
“It was $60,” he says. “But I had visitors who used the lights. My mom came. She kept turning on the lights.”
If this isn’t ordinary for an NFL player who just signed a four-year, $15.5 million contract, you’re getting the idea. It also goes full form against the stereotypical athlete who is careless with his millions.
In some ways, it sounds freeing: a pro athlete realizing how little he needs to be happy. In another way, you ask: Can he enjoy his money?
Wilkins did buy a Chevy Silverado truck upon being drafted.
“I needed something to drive,” he says. But he admits to putting gas in the tank only when it’s fully on empty. He’d rather have the money in his pocket. Sometimes, Wilkins admits, that means he’s run out of gas.
“Then you get someone friendly stopping and giving you a few gallons of gas,”
he says.
He’s done that in South Florida? He chuckles: “Maybe, maybe not.”
What’s clear is Wilkins has saving money down to a lifestyle. He does menial things such as showering and brushing his teeth at the Dolphins facility to save money. He stocks his home refrigerator with takeout boxes of food and bottles of water from the team dining room.
This kind of living served Wilkins well at Clemson, where he told The Wall Street Journal that with inducements such as the NCAA-allowed stipend, federal Pell Grant and even an $80-a-week student-teaching job as a senior, he saved $15,000 in his four years. He admits to looking at his bank account every day as a Dolphin — “just to make sure the money’s still there.”
Wilkins has four bank accounts, though, to budget his money. This was a system he used in college. One account is for everyday living expenses, with food being the largest cost.
“Food is more of an investment,” he said. “I don’t look at how much things cost; I look at how much they’re going to make me. So I’ll pass on the $1 hamburger at McDonalds to go for something [more nutritional and expensive] at Chipotle.”
His second account is for rent and larger purchases such as travel. The third account is savings. His fourth account is for emergencies that might arise.
“That’s just how I keep things,” he said.
Wilkins grew up with all the necessities as the youngest of nine children in Springfield, Mass., but they didn’t have much else. Football sent him to college, where he won two national championships at Clemson. But Wilkins also won the so-called “Academic Heisman,” the National Football Foundation’s Campbell Trophy, as the best scholar-athlete.
He’s learning the NFL ways as a Dolphins rookie. Coach Brian Flores repeatedly told him to lower his pad level in training camp. He’s played against some of the NFL’s best guards, such as Baltimore’s Marshall Yanda and Dallas’ Zack Martin, in his opening games.
Off the field, though, the Dolphins rookie is on top of his game. One of Wilkins’ go-to moves in college was to get free lemonade in a restaurant out of a glass of water, free lemon slices and a few packets of sugar.
“I still do that,’’ he says. “I haven’t changed.”
All that’s changed from college is the size of a savings account that sits safe and sound.