Kirstie Allsopp has presented several TV property shows, most notably Location, Location, Location, which returned to Channel 4 last month. Alongside Phil Spencer she presents the spin-offs Relocation, Relocation and Kirstie and Phil’s Property Guide, and also runs a property search company.

Daughter of Charles Henry Allsopp, 6th Baron Hindlip, a former chairman of Christie’s, and the interior designer Fiona McGowan, she worked for Country Living magazine and her mother’s business, Hindlip & Prentice Interiors, before studying history of art at Christie’s.

Last year she became a policy adviser to the Conservatives on home-buying. Allsopp lives with property developer Ben Andersen, his two sons and their son Bay Atlas Andersen, two this month.

Are you a cash or a card person?

I am very much a debit card person. I did not have a credit card until I was 27. I have an HSBC Visa card and a British Airways Amex card, which gives me air miles. I tend to buy big-ticket items and pay for travel with this one.

Are you a saver or a spender?

I am a saver but a disorganised saver. As soon as I get paid, the tax and VAT immediately gets put into separate accounts which I never touch.

How much did you earn last year?

I earned a six-figure sum, as much as Phil Spencer! People say to me: “How do you know because men get paid more than women in lots of different industries?” I just laugh because everybody who works with me knows I wouldn’t let it happen!

How much was in your first pay packet?

My first job was portering at Christie’s where my father worked. I can’t remember how much I earned but I always did work experience from when I was 15. I am a great believer in sending my children out to work.

I didn’t go to university so my first proper pay packet was when I was 18 when I started working full-time. I worked for Nicky Haslam, the interior designer. Because I was living at home, I was able to take the opportunity and I got incredible experience. I would say you don’t get into television by going to university and doing media studies. You get in by getting a job as a researcher or a runner and doing a very junior job for a while and getting the experience under your belt. My next job was for Country Living and there I earned £9,500 a year.

Have you ever been really hard up?

When I bought my first flat I was 21. It would be silly to say I was really hard up, though, because if my boiler had blown up or something had happened to me I always had the support of my parents.

I bought in 1992, in Battersea, south-west London, and I paid £72,500. For the first three years I was in negative equity, and I was on a tight budget. I sold it for just under £100,000 five years later.

I had a mortgage with a rate of 14%, which then went up to 15%. I had a bit of help from my parents and on pay day it was pizza and lipstick, and that was it.

What property do you own?

After Battersea, there was a flat in Ladbroke Grove, west London, for which I paid about £80,000 in 1998. I never moved into it, I just developed it and sold it within three months for £115,000 because it didn’t have a garden and I got a dog. I bought another flat in W10 the same year for £189,000 and I would say that the flat is worth around £450,000. I rent it out.

I have another buy-to-let flat I bought for £325,000 and again it would be very difficult to say in today’s money what it’s worth. It is definitely a time to be buying things. I bought it a year ago and I am pretty confident that what I have done to it means that it’s worth more than I paid for it. That’s one that I will not be looking to sell in the foreseeable future.

What do you think about the current state of the property market?

The problem right now is the enormous decline in transactions. The worrying thing for the economy as a whole is people’s loss of confidence in the market. I think in the short term there may be a decline in prices that will affect those who bought in the past two years with 95% mortgages.

However, I think most people will have benefited from the property boom of the past 10 years. I think prices will bounce back in two years. We’re a small country, we are never going to have a huge building capability and people are always going to want to come to live and work here so there will always be a demand. I don’t think we’ll have negative equity like in the 1990s again.

What is the most lucrative work you have done?

When Phil and I started working for Channel 4 they were incredibly fair to us. We both had proper jobs before we started being presenters and needed to make sacrifices in terms of time we devoted to business. I was running Kirmir Property, a search company I founded. I didn’t initially give it up. The first two years of Location, Location, Location were filmed at the weekends so that I could continue working because television is an unknown quantity for long-term work.

Do you invest in shares?

No, never. I am a great believer in investing in the things you know best and for me that is property. That is what I have been brought up to do.

Property or pension?

Much to my bank manager’s horror I do not have a pension. I just have my property. Property is the thing that you have the greatest degree of control over. You find the property, you can do it up, you can choose the area, you can sell it quickly or you can have it to pay the rent. With shares, it is down to someone else.

Are you better off than your parents?

No, absolutely not. By the time my parents were my age they would certainly have had much less cash but they had better property investments than I did. Their investments were so wise and so good over the years that right now they are certainly better off than me.

Renovation is not for everybody but any property my parents ever bought, they added value to it. It is a very good way of ensuring that you are less likely to suffer or go into negative equity.

What has been your worst investment?

My first flat in Battersea. I just wasn't a south-of-the- river girl but it seemed safe at the time.

And your best?

My best investment was probably the decision to say yes to television. The properties that I bought in west London were also very good for me.

What aspect of the taxation system would you change?

Stamp duty is a pernicious tax made on already taxed earnings. It is ridiculous that to make a move to better your career, to better your family’s education, to be closer to family and friends costs you in tax. The level of stamp duty at the moment is causing enormous damage to the housing market.

What is your financial priority?

My financial priority is long-term security for my family. I would like to make sure that I have paid off all my mortgages and I would like to put something aside for my children. It has been a very nice life and I wouldn’t want to do anything to jeopardise that. I am never going to be a person who is going to make risky investments because — I don't know if there is such a thing as a feminine or masculine attitude to risk taking but — in my experience there was such a thing as men coming home and giving their pay packet to the wife because they knew that that was a safe place to keep it.

Do you have a money weakness?

My money weakness would definitely be children’s clothes. The family weakness is holidays. We probably are a bit silly when it comes to the children in that respect. But when my children are older I will be incredibly tough about making them work. It is set in stone.

What is the most extravagant thing you have bought?

It is difficult to define extravagance. I don’t think you can make an extravagant property purchase unless you know you cannot get a return on that money. But I certainly made purchases of clothes and coats that could be described as extravagant. I can’t think of one thing but if my mother was here she would probably reel off a list as long as your arm. I bought a pair of boots called the CNN boots and they came from Christian Louboutin and they were beautiful and I loved them but they were incredibly expensive — £500, although I didn’t pay as much as that as they were in the sales.

What is the most important lesson you have learnt about money?

Every time you make a purchase of any kind you think, I am spending this pound: how long will it take me to earn that pound and how much time am I going to be away from my child in order to earn that pound.