Thriller writer Lee Child has just released the 12th instalment of the
adventures of Jack Reacher, a former American military policeman. Entitled
Nothing to Lose, it is currently No 2 on The Sunday Times hardback fiction
bestseller list.
The novelist was born in Coventry but grew up in Birmingham. He wrote his
first book, Killing Floor, after he was laid off as a presentation director
from Granada TV in 1995. It was published in 1997.
Child, 54, lives with his wife, Jane, in New York.
How much money do you have in your wallet?
When I was flying home to New York, I took out £410 and replaced it with $480
(£241) in the plane on the way back.
Are you a cash or a card person?
I’m pretty much a card person – I don’t use a lot of cash except for taxis and
in low-end diners. It was very interesting to observe the chip and pin card
system in London over the past three weeks. It seems to be very fast and
easy. In a funny way I would say that the UK has more of a card economy than
the US.
Do you have any credit cards?
I have two Amex cards, one for business and one is for my family. Mostly I use
the Visa card that is tied to British Airways because I get Air Miles for
every dollar I spend.
Are you a saver or a spender?
By nature, I’m a spender but now I’m almost a saver by default because
whenever I spend there’s always money in the bank. I’m completely
undisciplined. It’s just good fortune that, once I’ve bought what I want,
there’s still some left over.
How much did you earn last year?
A comfortable seven-figure sum – almost all of it was from book royalties
although some was from movie work that I was commissioned to do.
I’m not looking to get more involved in that side of things. It is something
that people ask me to do and I’ve done it once or twice now. In general, the
book world is a lot saner than the movie world.
How much was in your first pay packet?
About £7 when I was an evening shelf-stacker at Sainsbury’s in Birmingham
while I was still at school. I got the job to pay off a speeding ticket I
received a week after gaining my driving licence. I was only there a couple
of weeks.
Have you ever been really hard up?
I have been hard up in the middle-class way – struggling on a student grant or
being strapped for a couple of years after buying a new house with a big
mortgage. I’d hesitate to call that poverty because that is an insult to
really poor people.
What is the most lucrative work you have ever done? Did you use the fee for
something special?
I did story doctoring for a film that is yet to be made – The Silence of Six.
They had a screenplay that wasn’t really working so they asked me to redo
it. It was 11 days’ work and it paid a fortune – about $250,000 (£126,000).
I used the money to buy a painting by Renoir. It’s a small still-life of
roses in a vase.
What property do you own?
My wife and I have two apartments on 22nd street in Manhattan – one where I
live and one where I work – and two houses inland from Saint-Tropez, again
one to live in and one to work in. I’ve had the properties for around 10
years or so. The apartments cost about $950,000 each; they are in the same
building so I have an 18-floor commute on the elevator.
The big house in France was €500,000 (£404,000) and the smaller one was
€300,000. They are only a couple of miles apart. Our home is in the
countryside just outside a little market town and the office building –
originally a 14th-century house – is right in the centre of the town.
Each of the New York apartments is worth about $2m. The big house in France is
probably worth €600,000 and the smaller one €350,000.
Do you invest in shares?
No, I don’t. I figure that if you seek advice, the adviser is thinking of
himself first. I have a standard question for advisers who say “this is
great” or “that is great”, which is: “Will you send me a copy of your tax
return? If this is so easy and so great then you must be making a fortune.”
They never do.
What’s better – property or pension?
I think that over the very long term, pensions probably perform better. People
love property but I think over a lifetime real-estate performs a little less
well. Of course, it is a question of when you retire and what is the
situation that day. It is very hard to pick a favourite.
I have half a pension left from when I worked at Granada. I do the maximum
pension contributions for a self-employed person here. That’s partly because
it’s insane not to, tax-wise, and partially because it’s building up a fund
that I’ll be able to use when I retire. I will sell the “separated offices”
and liquidating those assets will provide me with another pension.
Are you financially better off than your parents?
In the sense of income and money in the bank, absolutely. But they are very
content. It’s almost a Zen question: they’ve got everything they need and I
have everything I need so, in a sense, we would be equal.
What has been your worst investment?
Cars, I’m sure. I change cars quite frequently and of course you lose a
fortune on them. I have a Jaguar S-Type R – the supercharged Jaguar – and
that’s a ridiculous thing to have in New York because I almost never use it.
It’s actually three years old now and it’s only turned over 6,000 miles.
And your best?
I spent £3.99 on paper and pencils to write my first book, which came out 11
years ago and is earning me a fortune all over the world.
Did you always want to be a writer?
I knew I always wanted to be involved in entertainment but not writing
specifically. I was first of all interested in theatre and then I worked in
television. To me, writing is really part of the entertainment business,
certainly the sort of books I write. They are an alternative to somebody
renting a DVD or downloading a CD. It’s all the same thing at very much the
same price.
What aspect of our taxation system would you change?
I’m not sure there’s anything I would change because there’s the same amount
of logic – or illogic – in practically all of it. What’s interesting to me
is that America is considered to be a low-tax country, but it isn’t.
I pay federal income tax, what people in Britain would think of as income tax,
and that’s probably about 5% lower than the British rate. On top of that I
pay income tax to New York State, income tax to New York City and what they
call unincorporated business tax to New York City. I also pay self-employed
social security, which is the equivalent of National Insurance. By the time
you add up all those layers, I would guess that it is actually coming out a
little above the plain income tax that I would pay in Britain.
What is your financial priority?
Knowing that I can carry on living in a modest fashion even if, for some
reason, public taste changes and my books stop selling tomorrow.
Do you have a money weakness?
Mechanical watches. I like the French company Breguet, but my favourite
designer at the moment is Fabergé, the old Russian jeweller that made
Fabergé eggs.
I also love paintings. I’m not rich enough to be a serious buyer of art but I
have a weakness in the area. I love the Impressionists and I like to invest
in the work of living artists too.
What is the most extravagant thing you have ever bought?
Probably my Fabergé watch. It runs a couple of minutes fast every day and it
cost more than my Jaguar.
What is the most important lesson you have learnt about money?
When you have plenty it is really liberating but you reach a point where you
realise, “Wow. I can have anything I want.” This just prompts the question,
“Well, what is it that you want?” and I have found that actually I don’t
want very much.
You can be surprised, once you have acquired the money, by feeling that you
never really needed it. We tend to always assume that we want more and more
and that we have to move ahead, but when you actually get there, maybe you
don’t need so much after all.
