Fame & Fortune: Rob Thomas Matchbox Twenty star is still rocking
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Bankrate: What's the coolest thing you've bought?

Rob Thomas: Maybe my house. It's not a rock-star pad, but it's comfortable. I've got some land. I don't mind spending money, but I don't like spending on tangible things. I like to spend money on quality-of-life things. Like, we spend so much money on travel because for my wife to travel with me, that's our personal expense. We like to stay in hotels, or have a nice dinner, or buy a nice bottle of wine, or help our friends out. But it's never about the things we can buy, it's about how we can make our life better and have more fun.

Bankrate: What do you think is the smartest thing you've done with your money?

Rob Thomas: I have a great accountant that I listen to. Coming from no money and always having this phantom blue-collar guilt that sits on your shoulder -- that makes you scared to spend large amounts of money. So having that sensibility, you go on the road, and you have your socks and stuff in those gallon Zip-lock bags, and when you're done packing, you feel bad about throwing out those Zip-lock bags. You just spent $60,000, $70,000 on a car, but you don't want to throw away that bag because you can use it again. I've just never been a big spender. I never feel bad about spending money, I just never really felt the need to own things.

Bankrate: Can you pinpoint the dumbest thing you spent your money on?

Rob Thomas: Yeah. I went out once and spent, like, $1,500 on this bottle of wine. It was from the Camus Winery, this one year that was hard to find, but we did it the night of "Live 8" and it came out in (the newspaper) in Philly that on the night of poverty we spent all this money on wine. We thought it was the most ridiculous thing, because Mariah Carey spent more money than that on the fuel for her jet to get over there, and Will Smith threw a party where everybody was drinking Cristal, and I just had a bottle of wine. But when I see it in the paper, it makes me look like Public Enemy No. 1, and I was like, that was so stupid. I feel so bad.

Bankrate: How does the fact that money is no object in your life influence how you think about and plan your future?

Rob Thomas: First off, let's not say "no object," because I know some really rich people, and I'm not one of them. But pertaining to my lifestyle, it definitely makes decisions, because if you're in a position where there are certain things you have to do to get your record off the ground, or to make a little extra money because you need that, sometimes your music or what you do with it has to suffer. Like, I felt so bad for 3 Doors Down, because they put out their record, and they had a deal with Wal-Mart where if they got the record out by the fourth quarter, they got, like, a million dollars extra. So they rushed the record to get it out in time. It's great to not have that. When we put this record out, they wanted it out in February. I was like, "Well, it's not going to be done," and they were like, "Well, we're not going to have the support." And I said, "Fine. Then I'll wait until you do." That's a good feeling, man. And the best part is to look the guy from your label in the eye and go, "Well, then we'll just sell less records," and watch him sweat. They hate that.

Larry Getlen is a freelance writer based in New York.