Forget records, bananas and pixie haircuts are the REAL money-spinners!
If you want a promising financial future, don’t aspire to be a rock star – but do cut your hair, invest in fruit and bomb-damaged toys and/ or get married to a top jockey! These were among the tips and responses in A Question of Money during the year.
This may not work for everyone but Chanelle McCoy, one of Ireland’s most successful businesswomen and a judge on RTÉ’s business show Dragon’s Den, has a great way to boost your business prospects – marry a sporting legend such as AP McCoy.
‘Living with a top sportsman has its challenges but also has great advantages. His incredible dedication, drive and will to win rubbed off on me, and definitely was part of my success story,’ she told us.
‘I got so many knockbacks, I would come home in the evenings and tell AP he would be quick to tell me why it was failing. He would often finish his advice with, “Never accept No and never accept you are defeated…”’
Derryman Peter Cunnah was lead singer of D:Ream. Peter’s 1994 smash hit was called Things Can Only Get Better …and, for him, they did. He made more than £2m in royalties, which keep rolling in. Cunnah, 54, lives in a Donegal home worth millions and rents out holiday apartments overlooking Lough Swilly. This is a long way from his boyhood growing up in The Troubles playing with bomb-damaged toys.
‘I remember saving up my pocket money so I could buy half-price Action Man toys from Woolworths after there had been a bomb in the vicinity. The shop reduced them in price because they would often be bomb damaged and smell of smoke but I could put up with that. I figured Action Man had been through a war and I quite liked that,’ he said.
‘Never give up’ is the motto tattooed on Sinéad Donovan’s back. And she never did. Accountant and Ironman competitor Sinéad is the new chair of Grant Thornton – the first woman in that role. She told us about her formidable financial upbringing. ‘My dad was a chartered accountant and my mum a Scottish Presbyterian, so between them they knew a lot about eking out the last bit from money,’ she said.
‘Invest in bananas,’ was what Ralph Benson’s parents taught him about money. The bananas in question were imported by Fyffes, whose shares ripened rather quickly for Ralph. The co-founder of Moneycube.ie had a telling insight into how much increasing the pension age would cost us in real terms too. ‘The loss of three years of the State pension is worth around €39,000,’ he said. Ouch!
Hot Press deputy editor Stuart Clark told us how much musicians really make – even before Covid destroyed their income. ‘I knew a band with several top 30 albums who were on big festival bills… but only taking home €12,000 to €13,000 a year. People think that if you’re jetting out to Japan, you must be making millions but you’re still living at your mum’s,’ he said.
The weirdest ‘best money decision’ response came from actor Victoria Summer who simply said ‘cutting off my hair’. Summer, became a star of Saving Mr Banks and Transformers: Age Of Extinction, after she got a pixie cut in 2012.
‘When I first came to Hollywood, I got a tan, grew my hair long and dyed it blonde. Eventually I realised I wanted to look more like myself and cut my hair shorter. It turned my career around: I started making really good money playing classic movie stars such as Elizabeth Taylor, Julie Andrews and Audrey Hepburn.’ It just goes to show you never know what life has in store. Happy New Year!