So much so, that he's shunned $1 million-plus salary offers in favor of his $89,500-a-year paycheck as the Fed chairman. The result: a penny-pinching lifestyle that shows in his tiny, cramped Washington, D.C., apartment, where he uses milk crates for end tables; in the New York apartment he has long shared with his wife, where the oak furniture is ``tastefully inexpensive;'' in the need for his wife to work as a bookkeeper until just recently; even in the 30-cent, Antonio y Cleopatra cigars he smoked until two months ago, when he quit after constant pestering by his daughter, Janice.

Taking care of his family has been a necessary priority. Not only is his wife afflicted with severe arthritis and diabetes, keeping her in New York close to her doctors, but his son, James, has cerebral palsy. One news account tells of how Volcker once built a device to hold his son upright so he could pitch baseballs to him over and over again. James now works as a banker, and Volcker's still playing - now with his daughter's 2-year-old son.