Pat’s cash
He was paid £180,000 for winning Wimbledon – but insists that after all his training that works out at about 20p an hour!
Q What did your parents teach you about money? A VERY little apart from to be generous. Even at a young age, I was making more money [from tennis match winnings] than my teachers at school. My mother always told me to buy my friends dinner because I had more money than them.
Father was a lawyer while mother stayed at home. Both worked hard – my dad in his office, my mother doing everything from gardening, cooking through to taxi driving. I had a comfortable existence. We lived in a house on the outskirts of Melbourne with its own tennis court. Money was not important. I never thought about it.
Q What was the first paid work you ever did? A IT was a paper round when I was 11. I spent the money on sweets.
Q Have you ever struggled to make ends meet? A YES, when I got divorced. I was in my early 40s. I had legal bills and financial commitments towards my family and ex-wife – and nowhere to live. There were times I had no money. I remember borrowing £200 from my manager to pay for the cost of getting to a tournament where I was playing.
It was a tricky time. I flew a million miles all over the world playing every event I could possibly play to get back on my feet.
Q How much did your divorce cost you? A EVERYTHING I had. I owned a nice house before the divorce that was worth a million pounds, but I had to sell it to pay my ex-wife and the lawyers.
I lived hand to mouth but I survived. I moped around for a while, but never really worried about money. I have this belief that God looks after me.
Whenever I need money, God sends some. Just enough to pay the bills. It happens all the time. I know it sounds crazy but I am not kidding. I did not believe it myself for the first ten times and then I started thinking: ‘This is crazy. How can I be this lucky?’
Whenever I am in trouble or stuck, I get a new deal, renew a contract or am offered another income stream. This has happened 20 times. It’s weird.
Q Did you ever talk to God about money? A YES. I remember one day looking up to the sky and going: ‘God, will you just please take over all my finances? I’m going insane.’ I was travelling everywhere killing myself. I said to God: ‘I cannot keep doing this. I am exhausted. I need to work less to make the same money. Can you please help?’
Within hours a friend of mine called and asked me to play a tennis event which paid good money: several thousand pounds and the highest fee I had ever earned for playing a set of doubles.
Q What’s the silliest amount of money you ever earned? A £180,000, when I won Wimbledon in 1987. Nowadays, the prize is £2.25 million. Still, it was the biggest cheque I ever received. Back then, £180,000 was the equivalent of winning £500,000 today.
It was a three-hour match. People go, ‘Wow, you made all that money in a few hours.’ No. That took my whole life to achieve. If I were to break that fee down to include every practice and training session, every match I won not only during that tournament but throughout my career, it would probably work out at about 20p per hour.
Q What was the best year of your financial life? A THE 12 months after I won Wimbledon. My sponsorship opportunities doubled and as a grand slam champion I got bonuses from my existing sponsors.
The week after Wimbledon, I was offered almost as much as I won to go to Japan and play a couple of matches in a tournament. But I was exhausted. I could not lift my head. In retrospect, I probably should have done it.
Q What is the most expensive thing you bought for fun? A IT was a Gibson Les Paul guitar. They call it a black beauty. It’s the sort of guitar Jimmy Page played for Led Zeppelin.
It cost about £8,000, 20 years ago. I would imagine it’s worth more now but I am not planning on selling it. I like playing hard rock on it: AC/DC, Black Sabbath and Van Halen. I am not a skilled player, but playing music is my number one hobby. I own nine guitars and some pretty good music equipment to go with them.
Q What is your biggest money mistake? A INVESTING in a boat business. My friend created these phenomenal designs for high-speed boats that are put on the back of superyachts. But the company never managed to make any money and I lost £200,000.
Q The best money decision you have made? A AT the turn of the century, buying a block of land on Sunshine Beach on the Sunshine Coast in Australia when it was worth nothing. I sold it for a big profit ten years later, doubling my money.
Q Do you save into a pension or the stock market? A YES, a little bit. But I do not have millions in my pension like the players of today. I dabble in shares and have some money in an emerging markets fund.
Q Do you own any property? A YES, a one-bedroom apartment in Fulham, West London, that I bought after my divorce for just over £200,000. I would imagine it is worth £400,000 to £500,000 now. My son is living there.
Q What is the one little luxury you treat yourself to? A IT is a new piece of music equipment once a year – a new set of headphones, an amp or speakers. I don’t spend much money on myself.
Q If you were Chancellor what would you do first? A I WOULD pay nurses more. We should pay the people who do really important jobs more than greedy executives.
Q What is your number one financial priority? A TO plan for my retirement. It is not that far away and I have not planned at all. So my focus is to save for the first time in my life. The problem is I am not good at that.