How would you manage your earnings if you were making an NFL player’s average income of $1.9 million?

Not even some of the players know what to do with it, which is why 15 percent of them end up penniless down the road. There are a few, however, who live lifestyles more frugal than the average middle-class American.

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Saquon Barkley entered the NFL this year with a financially proactive mindset. The New York Giants running back and former Penn State standout told ESPN last week that he plans to follow the ways of Marshawn Lynch by only spending his endorsement money, saving his game checks for investing and saving.

“Once I realized when I declared for the NFL draft and kind of realized where I was going to be drafted, that was something I was like, ‘You know what? Kind of want to follow the Marshawn Lynch method. I don’t want to touch that. I want to invest it, put it in the right peoples’ hands and learn as I continue to make investments. And just live off the endorsement deals,'” Barkley said.

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In addition to Marshawn Lynch, Barkley looks at the New England Patriots' Rob Gronkowski, who also only uses his endorsement money, as a role model too.

“To this day, I still haven’t touched one dime of my signing bonus or NFL contract money. I live off my marketing money and haven’t blown it on any big-money expensive cars, expensive jewelry or tattoos and still wear my favorite pair of jeans from high school … I don’t hurt anyone.” Gronkowski said in a 2015 interview with Forbes.

Plenty of other players in the league take the cheaper route, too.

Despite having a four-year, $39 million contract and an $11.9 million signing bonus when he was with the Green Bay Packers, Jordy Nelson kept it simple.

 “I’m extremely cheap, absolutely,” Nelson said. “Even now in the NFL we get per diems on road trips to go out and have dinner with everyone — like with the receivers or whatnot. Some guys, their wives and families will be in town and they’ll go eat with them. I’ll just stay in the hotel room until snack at 9:00 to eat dinner and not pay for food.”

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Debatably the highest paid quarterback in the NFL, Kirk Cousins drives a 15-year-old GMC Savanna passenger van he bought from his grandmother for $5,000.

People like to give me a hard time, but it still runs well... pic.twitter.com/9giAGYHlor

— Kirk Cousins (@KirkCousins8) June 24, 2018

Although he earned $23.9 million last season, Cousins emphasizes that the future is uncertain, so you might as well save up.

"You don't know how long you're going to play," Cousins said. "You've got to save every dollar even though you are making a good salary. You never know what's going to happen, so I try to put as much money away as I can."