Anna Richardson: I earn six figures, but still sell my old stuff at car boot sales

Times

a day ago

Anna Richardson got her television break in the 1990s on Channel 4's The Big Breakfast and was nominated for a Royal Television Society (RTS) award at 26 for Love Bites, a sex and relationships show for teens. Richardson, 55, has since presented series including Supersize vs Superskinny, You Are What You Eat and How Not to Get Old, but is perhaps best known for hosting the controversial Naked Attraction — a dating show in which the contestants are nude. Born in Shropshire, Richardson has written two books about food and dieting and, after training as a cognitive hypnotherapist, co-founded Mindbox, a 24-hour online therapy centre for stress and anxiety. She lives between London and a country cottage in the Staffordshire Moorlands.
I don't use a wallet or purse. I have a bumbag in my study where I keep £100 in cash for an emergency or the window cleaner, but other than that I just keep cards in a pouch in my mobile phone case.
I used to rage against the move to a cashless society, but now I feel liberated by it. There's something very freeing about not having to carry around a clunky purse with all my change and cards in.
Naturally I'm a spender. I'm prolific; I like to use my cards and go and splurge a bit. But when I met Sue Perkins [the pair previously dated], she was amazing at guiding me to be more savvy with money and introduced me to a financial adviser, and that was when I really got a grip on my finances.
That adviser made me think about how much I want to live on in retirement and how I wasn't going to be able to do that unless I started saving into a pension. He told me: put away as much as you can while you're earning and getting to the top of your career so you'll be able to retire with something other than a state pension. That really hit home. But because I started saving late, I had a panic situation. So I started maxing out my pension contributions a few years ago and I've now built up a reasonable pot — it's not massive, but I really tried to max it out while I could.
My friend ChatGPT tells me that building up your pension pot is better than having property, but I'm gambling a bit by having both. I really like the cumulative effect of a pension and seeing it build.
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I earned a six-figure salary and, even though I count myself to be very lucky, it was way down on what I've been earning for the past decade, so I'm definitely feeling the pinch.
I've been selling surplus things on Vinted and eBay so I have a bit of spare cash floating around. But, typical me, saving and spending at the same time, I've also been buying on Vinted. I've got some amazing things: bikinis, sandals, a second-hand Yves Saint Laurent tote bag for about £400 — they usually go for at least a grand so I felt very pleased with myself. I love that it's sustainable fashion, and if I want the latest fashions I can do that in a second-hand way.
Three times a year I'll do a car boot — I love them. I'm the first in the queue at 6am with my boot open at Chiswick car boot, it's a really good one.
When I was 16, my Saturday job was as an auxiliary nurse in a local care home. I was changing stoma bags, helping people on and off the toilet, all those things that come down to human dignity and connection. I loved working with older people and took my responsibilities very seriously. I don't remember how much I got paid — it wasn't much at all, but at that age you're just thrilled to be earning it. The minute I graduated, I was laser focused about getting into broadcasting. I worked free for two years to get my foot on the ladder. People today might say that was exploitation, but in the Nineties it was the only way in.
My first paid gig was on The Big Breakfast — 2,000 people applied and I got it. I'd accrued a lot of debt doing a postgrad in magazine journalism, so it felt like that investment in my education had paid off. The pay was absolutely shocking, something like £360 a week. They were long days, with insanely early starts, and I must have ended up with at least £20,000 of debt, but it was to get into the industry I love.
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I came to property late — I feel like I was Gen Z before Gen Z came along. Me and my boyfriend didn't buy our first flat until we were 35 and that was only because his grandmother left him some money. It was frustrating; we were both earning good money but it was hard to get a mortgage as a freelancer.
Now I have two heavily mortgaged properties. A flat in London and a little cottage in the Staffordshire Moorlands, where my family are. It's in a row of miners' cottages — my mum and her partner, when I was ten, bought two of them side-by-side and knocked through to make one big cottage. They later split up and the cottages got blocked up again. But when I was 40, I bought one of them back, so my mum still lives next door and I own the other one that was our home when I was growing up. I've come full circle.
Yes! My dad's a vicar and Mum was an RE teacher so, growing up, we were in a subsidised house that belonged to a church. I had hand-me-down clothes, second-hand from people in the congregation, and I really felt the bite of not having enough and not being like a lot of the other kids who were going on skiing trips or flying abroad on their summer holidays.
We would go on vicarage swaps around the UK. It was the original house swap but with vicarages. We went everywhere from Scotland, Northumberland, Dorset, Devon. And that was our summer holiday. I think my dad had to do a couple of church services while we were there.
Without question. Both my parents had very healthy, secure pensions but in terms of my earning ability, without question I am better off than them.
I don't think I've ever felt wealthy, but I absolutely understand and accept the fact that I'm extremely fortunate. I'm not wealthy by a lot of people's standards, but I do OK and, compared to the majority, I'm absolutely fine, and I have to remind myself of that.
The first time I felt like I had taken a step up was when I started doing Naked Attraction. In television you have tariffs for the different shows and once you start moving into factual entertainment there is a healthy budget and, for the first time in my life, I got paid a reasonable amount for doing my job. That felt like a real turning point. I felt valued and was having a really good time doing it.
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I've never been paid silly money or been in a situation where I've got £100,000 for an advert, but there are moments where I pinch myself, like if you get paid five grand for hosting an awards do. You have to say to yourself: you are incredibly lucky to be using your skills in an environment like this and be getting paid more than other people would get in a month.
Clothes. I love, love, love fashion. This goes back to my childhood of having second-hand clothes I think. So the one thing that is a problem — in inverted commas — is the need to buy new clothes and the latest trends because I have this hangover fear of being in someone else's clothes.
I've spent way too much time in Liberty, Harvey Nicks, Selfridges, Harrods, you name it. One of my most extravagant expenditures was a Cartier bracelet for about £8,000. That is just sheer madness, but at the time I probably felt wealthy enough to do it.
I have been putting money into an Isa and pension, but I've put a pause on that because I'm feeling the pinch. The biggest mistake I've made is buying gold a few years ago off the back of some really shonky advice from someone I should've known better than to listen to.
I bought gold at the height of the market and then sold right at the bottom, literally the day before Brexit or some world event where gold prices then went through the roof. Gold is not my friend.
I went on holiday to Croatia with some girlfriends a couple of years ago and was introduced to the miracle app Splitwise. You just put in everything you've spent and it tots it up so you can see who owes what rather than squabbling over the restaurant bill — that was a revelation to me. And the other one is to make sure your mobile phone firm gives you data roaming; I've been hit with a big bill when I've got home before, after not realising that roaming wasn't included in my contract.
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Generosity. There is nothing more unpleasant than being around someone who is mean, and particularly someone who is mean that has money. You can have nothing at all and still want to be generous.
I asked my dad, who has dementia, a few months ago what the most important thing he'd learnt in life was. This is a man who came from nothing in south London, went into the clergy and never earned anything, and he said: be a generous person, whether that is materially or in spirit. And I live by that. There's nothing more unattractive to me than someone who's got money and is never the first person up to the bar.
Anna Richardson is working with the network iD Mobile, sharing holiday romance tips as part of its campaign about roaming data charges