MONEY
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moneybulletin. The bulletin is
exclusive to digital subscribersThe amount
borrowed on
equity release
loans in the first
nine months
of this yearPoppy Bond rate Bank of England base rate2.5%00.11.22014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021
Source: Coventry Building Society/Bank of EnglandThe rate on this year’s
Poppy Bond from
Coventry Building
Society is up from the
all-time low of 0.85 per
cent last year, but is
still its second-lowest
rate for eight years, at
1.2 per cent. The
Coventry makes a
donation worth 0.2 per
cent of your savings to
the Royal British
Legion. This year’s
four-year bond pays
half the rate of the first
bond that was
launched in 2014.CHART OF THE WEEK REMEMBRANCE DAY RETURNS
£2.9bn
Fixed rates of 1.75% are better than nothing
Savers looking for the best
deals are realising they have
to lock their money away to
benefit from higher rates.
Raisin, a savings platform
that lets savers open accounts
with multiple banks in one
go, said that 18-month and
two-year fixed-rate bonds
had been popular in August
and September.
The Savings Guru, a
consultancy and comparisonsite, found that more savers
looked at one-year fixed-rate
bonds, which pay up to
1.45 per cent, than any other
type of account last month.
Next in terms of popularity
were notice accounts, two-
year and 18-month fixed
accounts, and and easy-
access accounts.
Most savings are, however,
in easy-access accounts, some
of which pay as little as
0.01 per cent. In June the
highest rate on an easy-accessaccount was 0.5 per cent, but
it is now 0.67 per cent. Over
the same period the highest
rate on a one-year fixed bond
has gone from 0.86 per cent
to 1.45 per cent — more than
60 per cent better — while the
best two-year fixed rate went
from 1 per cent to 1.76 per cent.
Although all these rates are
below inflation, many savers
seem to be prepared to lock
away funds for the sake of a
return that is, essentially,
better than nothing.George NixonTaxman ditches the Post Office card
The 24,000 people who get
payments from the taxman
on their Post Office cards
have three weeks to provide
alternative bank details or
their cash will be held back.
HMRC will stop making
child benefit, guardian’s
allowance and tax credit
payments to Post Office cards
next month and payments
would be paused until it istold where to send the cash.
Those without a bank
account use the cards to
withdraw government
payments over the counter at
their local Post Office. The
Department for Work and
Pensions also makes benefit
payments, including
universal credit, jobseeker’s
allowance and state pension
to the cards. It was due to
stop using them this month,
but has extended thedeadline for another year.
Some 382,000 people get
DWP payments on the card
and 24,000 of those also use
them to get tax payments
from HMRC.
You can move to a new
payment exception service to
get DWP money sent through
digital vouchers. You will get
a new plastic card for
withdrawing money either
through PayPoint in a shop or
over a Post Office counter.George NixonDarren Day in I’m a Celebrity, as
Captain Hook in Peter Pan and
in Joseph and the Amazing
Technicolor Dreamcoat‘I spent £900k on
drugs and it cost
me my home’
The singer and TV star has been a snooker player,
a millionaire, a drug addict and a bankrupt, and
is now on his fifth fiancée, he tells Nick McGrath
FAME AND FORTUNE DARREN DAY
N
ot many musical theatre
stars started out as
professional snooker
players, but Darren Day did.
He then worked as a Butlin’s
redcoat until he came
fourth on the talent show
Opportunity Knocks in 1987
and took the title role in
Joseph and the Amazing
Technicolor Dreamcoat. He presented
the ITV quiz show You Bet! in 1996 and
appeared in the first series of I’m a
Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! in 2002.
Despite continuing to work on stage
and in television Day, 53, was declared
bankrupt in 2006 after a decade of
cocaine abuse took its toll. In 2007 he
married Stephanie Dooley, with whom
he has two children, Maddison, 12, and
Dalton, 9. He has a son, Corey, 16, with
his former fiancée Suzanne Shaw. He
now lives in Brentwood, Essex, with his
fifth fiancée, Sophie Ladds.How much is in your wallet?
£20, which I might use to get my hair cut
at the Turkish barbers. As a teenager I
had loads of cash on me as I bunked
school and hustled in snooker clubs.
I’d get a table near the bar with a mate,
purposely miss shots then rake in a load
of pound coins from other punters. I
used to go back to school with about
20 pound coins I’d won and buy all my
mates fish and chips. When I became
famous I was a big fan of £50 notes, but
they were generally rolled up.Which credit cards do you use?
My favourite card to use to accompany
the rolled-up fifties would be a Platinum
Amex. But trust me, those days are gone.Now I have two debit cards and an
Amex, but I haven’t used it for more
than a year, and I paid it all off before the
pandemic.Are you a saver or a spender?
There’s no question that back in the day
I was a spender. I had that hustling
mentality from a young age, but no bank
account. I spent it straight away.
When I got the part in Joseph, within
six weeks my earnings had gone through
the roof. Newspaper headlines said:
“From council estate to a cool £10,
a week.” It made me lose perspective of
the value of money. I was earning ten
grand a week, then I was offered a deal
by Nigel Lythgoe at London Weekend
Television and I signed my first record
deal with Simon Cowell at RCA Records,
so I was earning a fortune.
When I was doing Summer Holiday
I walked past a shop and saw this
beautiful vintage jukebox that cost two
and a half grand. I called my accountant
and asked him if I could afford it. He
said: “Darren, you can pretty much
afford anything.” That was the beginning
of my financial troubles. He’s not my
accountant any more.How much did you earn last year?
I’ve had an interesting financial journey.
I’ve been a millionaire and I’ve been
bankrupt, so now I understand the value
of money so much more.
The reversal in my attitude to
spending has been as radical as my
sobriety, but the past 18 months have
been incredibly tough. I’ve literally not
earned a penny since February 2020,
when all the theatres closed four days
before I was due to start rehearsals forFootloose. Literally nothing. I had to
liquidate my limited company after a
decade of being a director and I wasn’t
entitled to universal credit, which after
paying more than 40 per cent tax for so
many years I feel a bit resentful about.
It has genuinely been hard to support
my kids, and it’s made me feel like a bit
of a failure. I’ve had enough savings to
see me through, but it has been really,
really tough. I’ve got two tours coming
up — first Chicago and then Footloose —
so things are looking more positive now.Have you ever been really hard-up?
Before I was declared bankrupt in 2006
I had a thing about cars and watches.
And drugs. There was a long period
where I would be on five grams a day at
£60 a gram, so that’s £300 a day on
cocaine. That’s £2,100 a week from
the beginning of 1997 until 2005,
which comes to more than £900,000.
In 2005 I was homeless. I was doing
Joseph at the New London Theatre in
February and then I disappeared on
everybody. Then in June I played
Alfie for about six weeks, but from July
I slept in a friend’s car in north London.
I would park up in this car park in
Hampstead until about November,
when it started to get too cold. I had no
sleeping bag. I just slept under some
coats. All my possessions were in that
car and I was still using drugs. I’d
separated from my fiancée, Suzanne
Shaw, and our newborn baby, Corey,
and it was really, really grim.
I’m not expecting any sympathy, but
I used to cry myself to sleep and then the
second I opened my eyes I would cry
again. I just couldn’t believe where my
life had got to. Once I discovered theAnd the worst?
I used to be managed by James Grant
management and I invested £120,
in 1997. Nothing really shifted in the next
three years, so I took it back out. Then
a few years later it floated on the stock
market for more than £20 million.
So that wasn’t too clever.What’s the most extravagant thing
you’ve bought?
Probably the pimped-up 4.6 Sports
Range Rover Overfinch I bought with
cash in 1997. The car was £100,000,
then I spent another £100,000 souping
it up. It was brand new, and I think I lost
£30,000 on it the second I drove it out
of the showroom.
I’ve probably spent half a million on
cars and sold them for half that amount.
People ask how much I’ve spent on
engagement rings because I’ve been
engaged five times, and let’s just say the
rings have gradually come down in
price. The first one, for Tracy Shaw,
cost £30,000, from Mappin & Webb on
Oxford Street, as was the second one,
for Isla Fisher, but as I’ve got older I’ve
realised it’s about the intention, not the
cost. Hopefully I’m not as superficial as
I was. I’m not telling you how much I
paid for Sophie’s, but over the years I’ve
become mates with a few jewellers, so
I did get an incredibly good deal.What’s your money weakness?
Watches. I still love them, but I don’t
buy them any more. Since I’ve had kids
I tend to just buy stuff for them, not for
myself. I’ve still got a lovely car, an Audi
A5, but ironically I bought it — and a
diary — two weeks before Covid and
I’ve not needed either of them.What is your financial priority?
My kids. And my lady. I just want to buy
my kids nice things. And I want to buy
Sophie flowers and stuff. Not just on
special occasions. I’m not really
interested in buying myself anything.What would you do if
you won the lottery?
A lot of it would go to my children and
my fiancée and if I didn’t buy a
Lamborghini, my youngest son would
kill me. If there was any left over one of
my lifelong ambitions has been to own a
full-sized 12ft by 6ft snooker table.Do you support any charities?
The one I’m most hands-on with is
called It’s OK Not to Be OK, which at the
moment is still a campaign, not a
charity. The other charity I got involved
with last year was Rethink. They’re both
mental health charities.What is the most important lesson
you’ve learnt about money?
To talk about it. My dad was an alcoholic
and we never sat down and talked about
money. As someone who has been
through the ups and the downs, I try
my hardest to talk about money with
my children so I can tell them about the
pitfalls from someone who knows.Darren Day tours with Footloose from
February. footloose-musical.comheart does sink when I look at what
the properties I used to own are
worth now. The house in Grove
Park in Chiswick I bought
from Anthea Turner in
1995 cost me £290,
and is now worth
£2.7 million.
The mark-up on the
flat in Brighton would
have been the same,
and on the flat in
Belsize Park, but
they all went. This
house is the first
place I’ve managed
to buy since 2005,
and I realise I’m in my
last chance saloon
now.Are you better off than
your parents?
My dad was a sales manager
and my mum was a hairdresser.
We lived on a council estate in
Colchester. My dad died when he
was 58 and Mum is retired now. Despite
all the ups and downs, I’m in a better
position than my parents.Do you invest in shares?
That’s not my bag. I haven’t got a clue.What’s better for retirement –
property or pension?
If you buy at the right time property is
the way to go, and if I’d held on to the
properties I bought I think I’d have about
£6 million. As for pensions, I’m trying to
track mine down. I paid a lot of money
into a Sun Life policy but so far I’ve not
been able to find it.What has been your best investment?
In 1996 when Summer Holiday started
I invested in the touring company. I was
one of the backers and we took
£3.8 million at the box office in six
months, so I did OK with that. I probably
made a couple of hundred grand.demon powder everything
unravelled, and within a decade I had
nothing — and I mean absolutely
nothing. I didn’t even have a bank
account. I barely ate or drank, and I
didn’t even need money for the drugs I
was still using because I’d spent so much
with my dealer over the years he was
giving me freebies. I suppose that was in
the hope I would get myself on my feet
and spend more in the future. It was a
nightmare, but it’s made me think about
homeless people whenever I see them.
There was a time, in about 1997, that
I had a flat in Belsize Park, a four-storey
townhouse on the Thames, a house in
Brighton, three cars, and by 2006 I was
bankrupt. I lost the house I was living in
with Suzanne, all my cars were driven
away. I just didn’t realise how much
trouble I was getting in. I thought it was
a bottomless jar. Because I was never
straight, I just didn’t see it coming and
I went under for about £600,000.Do you own a property?
I own a two-bedroom house in
Brentwood with my fiancée, but myMIKE MARSLAND/GETTY IMAGES