The year my life REALLY took off!
Eddie the Eagle tells how the Winter Olympics launched him into a high-earning league and inspired a Hollywood film
Q What did your parents teach you about money? A TO save for anything I wanted. As a result, I have always been a saver, not a spender. Both parents were hard-working and made me work for my pocket money by doing household chores. That taught me the value of money and gave me a strong work ethic.
We were not rich by any means. My dad was a plasterer and worked long hours – I hardly ever saw him when I was growing up. He had always gone to work before I woke up and usually I would be in bed before he came home.
My mother looked after me fulltime when I was young, but as soon as I started school, she got a job in an office. I was a latchkey kid. Every afternoon, I would walk home from school, let myself in, make myself a banana buttie and watch telly until Mum came home. Q What was the first paid work you ever did? A IT was a paper round, once a week, from age 12. I had to deliver to 300 houses and I only got paid £6 a month. Q How could you afford to take up skiing? A MY parents saved up over the years so that my brother, sister and I were able to go on one school trip each. I chose to go on the ski trip – it cost £63 for a week in the Italian Dolomites which my parents paid for in instalments. That was it for me – I decided skiing was my sport. I was hooked. When I got back home, I began skiing at the local dry slope every weekend and evening. By the time I was 15, I was good enough that people started paying me to teach them. Q Have you ever struggled to make ends meet? A NEARLY all the time. I have never had much money. The worst time was when I was in my late teens and early 20s. I had an international licence to race for Britain so I spent the summers working with Dad and the winters skiing in Europe and America.
I would take any job I could to make ends meet or to get a free ski pass. I lived off bread and cheese for weeks on end to save money on food. I remember going hungry quite a few times and feeling weak during my training. Sometimes I would sleep in a cowshed or a barn. But I had a whale of a time. Q Have you ever been paid silly money for a job? A YES, twice I have earned £65,000 for a day of my time. The first was when I sold my life story to a national newspaper at the Winter Olympics, Calgary, in 1988. Then about a month later, in a single day, I opened a ride at Alton Towers, filmed a commercial and did other promotional work. I had to be flown about by helicopter to fit it all in. In 1988, I earned nearly half a million pounds, the equivalent of around £1.2million today. Q What was the best year of your life, in terms of the money you made? A IT was 1988, closely followed by 2016, due to the money I received from the Hollywood movie about my life. I got 3 per cent of the profits and the film grossed about $45million (£32million) at the box office. I am still not sure how much I have made because I am waiting for the final royalty payment. They are paying me in instalments – one payment I received was for £300,000. That was quite a pay day. Q What is the most expensive thing you have ever bought yourself just for fun? A IT was a sporty Ford Probe for £7,000. But I only had it for three weeks before the engine blew up so swapped it for a Mondeo. Q What is the biggest money mistake you have ever made? A MY divorce. Most of the money I have made from the movie has gone on that. It was horrendously expensive. It was not exactly a financial mistake though, it was thrust upon me. Q What is the best money decision you have made? A BUYING a flat in Bedford for £50,000 in 1989. I sold it recently for £180,000 to help pay for my divorce. Q Do you save into a pension or invest in the stock market? A I HAVE got a small amount of money – less than £15,000 – in a stocks and shares Individual Savings Account. I have never dabbled in the stock market much.
I would much rather invest in bricks and mortar. I avoid a pension because I worry the Chancellor of the Exchequer will stick his nose in the trough and take it all out. Q Do you own any property? A YES, the four-bedroom house I live in. I bought it ten years ago and have been renovating it for years. Thanks to the skills I learnt from my dad, I can do most of the work. I have got planning permission to build two new four-bedroom houses in the garden. All the money I earn for the next decade will be invested in building these properties and then I will rent them out. That will be my pension. Q What is the one little luxury you like to treat yourself to? A I LIKE a coffee and pastie at Greggs. It costs £2.20 and I go there most days. Usually I will buy the sausage, bean and cheese melt because it is like a breakfast in a pastie. Q If you were Chancellor of the Exchequer, what is the first thing you would do? A I WOULD simplify the tax system and introduce a flat rate of income tax – say 12 or 13 per cent – that everybody would have to pay, no matter how much they earn. I think it would end tax avoidance. Also, I hate paying higher rate tax. Q Do you think it is important to give to charity? A THAT is a difficult one. I think some charities are more worthy than others. I worry about how much money that I donate goes to the people I am trying to help.
In my opinion, it is not right for charity bosses to earn hundreds of thousands of pounds and I am now reluctant to give to big charities like Oxfam following the recent scandal. Q What is your number one financial priority? A TO pay off my mortgage in less than two years. I do not like wasting money paying interest. I am looking forward to being better off, thanks to Brexit. I voted to leave and I am optimistic about the future for Britain. We have always been a trading nation and I think we will trade better with the rest of the world when we are not shackled to the European Union. I reckon our economy will thrive. Q How do you think Team GB has done in South Korea? A SOUTH Korea has done a great job hosting the Winter Olympics. Team GB has done fantastically well. The fact that we have even won a few medals is great.