Overview
- The Changing Rooms presenter, 61, says advisers can only guarantee his current standard of living for two decades, joking he would need to die at 81 to avoid “Jane Austen penury.”
- He recounts once lavish spending on bespoke suits and designer gifts, and says he curbed the habit during lockdown.
- He credits a series of investments—from a southeast London bungalow that made over £270,000 to homes in Greenwich, the Cotswolds and Cornwall—with bolstering his wealth.
- He argues his generation was likely the last to enjoy outsized property windfalls, saying younger buyers will not see similar leaps.
- He recalls that TV fame did not translate into high earnings, saying presenters on hit BBC shows were paid little and that some design clients fell away.