Our lifestyle guru Dr Michael Mosley is too scared to look at how much money he’s lost due to the coronavirus outbreak.
The doctor and TV presenter popularised the 5:2 diet and says writing his most famous book, The Fast Diet, was the smartest financial decision he ever made. But he invested most of the money he’s made from his books into the stock market and is now facing heavy losses.
He is currently self-isolating with wife Clare in Buckinghamshire, from where he spoke via phone to DONNA FERGUSON. His latest book, Fast Asleep, is now out in paperback.
‘Making memories’: Michael Mosley tries to treat his whole family – including the partners of his grown-up children – to a holiday once a year
How have you been affected by coronavirus?
We’re self-isolating. I’m fortunate that a lot of the work I do is writing, but I did recently have to do some voice-work for a BBC series I filmed last year. Normally I’d go into London and record in a studio.
Instead, I did it with an iPhone in a walk-in clothes cupboard. You need lots of padding to stop your voice from sounding too echoey and fortunately Clare’s clothes did the trick.
I think my son Dan came down with Covid19 a few weeks ago. He got it from his flatmates who are doctors. He was moderately ill for a couple of days with a fever and cough. He’s fine now, apart from his sense of taste which is slowly coming back.
I can only guess that my wife and I may have had it. We were reasonably careful around him, but not that careful, yet neither of us came down with anything alarming. Another of my sons, Jack, has just started working in an intensive care unit as a junior doctor. I’m obviously anxious about him.
But he’s 27 and I think he may also have had the virus, so I’m optimistic he’s protected. This is a once in a generation challenge for those in the NHS and it’s lovely how the country has come out to support what they are doing.
What did your parents teach you about money?
That you need a certain amount of money in order to be happy, but it shouldn’t be a priority in life.
My dad was a banker and my mum came from a long line of missionaries, so they had different approaches to life. For example, my dad encouraged me to work for my money while my mum was keen to point out, rightly, that there were a lot of people around the world worse off than we were. She was focused on the moral message.
What was the first job you ever had?
Working as a dishwasher in a cafe in Bournemouth after I left school – I earned £30 a week. I wanted to go travelling before university and when I was 17 I was a big fan of George Orwell.
He wrote a funny book, Down And Out In Paris And London, where he describes working in a restaurant in Paris. So I thought: why not?
I could have got the money off my dad, but I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to earn it myself. I wanted to see what a job like that would be like. I learnt a lot.
Have you ever struggled to make ends meet?
Not really, but I did feel financially constrained when I was in my 30s. I had four kids and was working for the BBC, which was notoriously not a good payer. My wife, a GP, was only working part-time. But it wasn’t really a problem.
Have you ever been paid silly money?
Yes, when Mimi Spencer and I wrote the Fast Diet. That’s been by far my most lucrative work. I probably spent less than a month writing my half of it. We sold millions of copies and the payback was crazy. I was genuinely astonished by how well it sold.
I haven’t a clue how much I have made from it in total, but I would imagine it’s a six-figure sum at least.
What was the best year of your financial life?
It was 2013 when Fast Diet came out. Saying yes to Mimi’s suggestion that we write that book together was one of the smartest things I’ve ever done.
What is your biggest money mistake?
Most of the money I’ve made from my books has gone into shares – and shares are currently taking a stupendous pounding. I’m not sure it was a mistake, or just one of those things that happens when you invest in shares.
But in terms of the amount of money I’ve lost, I suspect that would be right up there at the top. I haven’t even dared look at the numbers because I think it would be way too depressing. I did take the advice of a financial adviser and spread my investments over lots of different areas to minimise the risk, but the reality is that all sectors got wiped out.
I’m planning to just hold on and hope the stock markets recover. But, blimey, it’s not looking good at the moment.
The best money decision you have made?
Buying my first property in West Hampstead, North London, when I was 23. I bought a small two-bedroom basement flat there for £25,000. It went up in value many times over, enabling me to buy a family home in London later on.
Do you save into a pension?
I don’t any more because I’m 63 and have maxed out my permitted lifetime allowance, but I used to. I started when I was about 24. My dad advised me to do it. I think it is a brilliant way to save for retirement. There are a lot of tax advantages.
Do you own any property?
Yes, my home for the past 20 years, a semi-detached four-bedroom house in Buckinghamshire. We have a nice garden and are near a wood and some fields, so we feel very lucky that we can self-isolate here.
What is the one little luxury you treat yourself to?
Going on holiday with my kids who are all now in their 20s. Usually, we take them somewhere once a year. They bring their partners and we generally pay for most of it. I’d rather spend money making memories with them than on a new sofa.
If you were Chancellor what is the first thing you would do?
It would be terrifying to be Chancellor right now. But I’d take a serious look at trying to ensure that large tech companies pay their fair share of taxes. When companies get away with paying extraordinarily low rates of tax, that seems unreasonable to me.
Do you donate money to charity?
Yes, to Oxfam and more recently I made a reasonably generous donation to Diabetes UK. That charity helped fund the original research that revealed that Type 2 diabetes is reversible.
At the time, funding that research was a massive shot in the dark, it might not have come off. Without that sort of science, you could never change doctors’ and people’s attitudes. So I’m a huge fan of that charity and what it has achieved.
What is your number one financial priority?
To ensure we have enough money to have a comfortable old age and help our kids and grand-kids. Assuming the stock market recovers, that should be possible.
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