Jeopardy! Millionaire Keeps It Real
Thanks to the $2.5 million he took home courtesy of his 74-game Jeopardy! winning streak last year, Ken Jennings is living on Easy Street. But that address looks a lot like his old one.
"I haven't even bought a new car," says Jennings, 30, who still drives his 11-year-old Saturn. Friends kid him about ordering water with his lunch. In fact, the biggest check he's written has been the six-figure payment he shipped to the IRS. (OK, he did remodel his kitchen, but that was more "because my wife wanted to.")
"Everybody is disappointed because I didn't blow all my money on 10 Jaguars," Jennings says with a laugh. "People want to live vicariously through you and then say how stupid you are for how you spent [your winnings]. But I've hardly changed my life at all."
The biggest difference? He's taken a leave from his computer software job in order to film TV commercials for Cingular and Allstate, design a board game and appear alongside Grover on S
Fri, May 13, 2005