Comedian Simon Day was once homeless, but now he can earn £10,000 for seven minutes of work

Simon Day charges significantly less than fellow comedians David Mitchell and Harry Hill for corporate gigs, but he can still charge up to £10,000 for seven minutes of work.

The 60-year-old, who is best known for his work on The Fast Show, tells Donna Ferguson that he simply turned down the chance to have his own BBC TV series.

He also reveals that he was briefly homeless in London as a teenager, before starting to earn a living through comedy. He now lives in Willesden, North West London, with his wife Ruth and their two children.

What did your parents teach you about money?

They tried to teach me the value of money, but it didn’t work. I’ve never really been good with money. It flowed through my hands – as soon as I got something, I spent it.

My father was an architect and my mother a teacher. I suppose I was middle class, even though my father was working class and my mother had grown up without much money. Both were frugal and often told me that I was lucky and that money doesn’t grow on trees.

After my parents divorced when I was 15, my father was often in the red and money became very tight for my mother.

How did that affect your finances?

I was homeless for about a year when my parents separated. I started sleeping on friends’ floors and couches. Every now and then a friend would say, “You can’t stay here tonight,” and I would sleep rough in a park or in a car. And the next night everything would be fine. I had a lot of friends, so I wasn’t really a wanderer.

I kept getting and losing jobs at the employment office: I did everything from packing and working to toilet cleaning and sewing. I ended up getting work as a landscaper, which is the best job in the world in the summer and the worst in the winter. I moved into a council flat but things didn’t go well until I started doing comedy at the age of 29.

Have you ever been given stupid money?

I was once paid £10,000 for a seven-minute business appearance. I laughed a few times – and it was over in no time. I once had a conversation about corporate gigs with Harry Hill and David Mitchell, whose prices are considerably higher than mine. They both said they ask for so much that they either don’t get offered the job or it’s worth doing.

When Harry and David found out how much I charge for these gigs, they told me I was underselling myself. I said, ‘It’s okay for you two, you’re never off TV. If I went back to my wife and told her I turned down this gig for so much money, she would go completely crazy.”

What was the best year of your financial life?

Around 2003, when I wrote and starred in my own BBC TV programme, Grass. I also created an ad for Powergen. I made a six-figure sum that year.

What is the most expensive thing you bought for fun?

A Grayson Perry print for a few thousand pounds in 2003. It’s called Print For A Politician and I think its value has increased. There are only six in red, like mine, and apparently Ronnie Wood (the Rolling Stone) has one. If I wasn’t a comedian, I’d like to have a job buying art for hotels.

What is your biggest money mistake?

In the 1990s I won Hackney Empire New Act of the Year with my character Tommy Cockles. I met with Janet Street-Porter (then director of BBC TV) who offered me my own series, with a series of Tommy Cockles stories. Someone else, very famous, told me not to do it. They said they would get me a sitcom. So I turned Janet down. Of course, this very famous person couldn’t get me a sitcom and I lost my own series. That was pretty stupid. It’s not often you’re offered your own BBC comedy show and turn it down. Not many comedians have achieved that.

The best money decision you’ve made?

Get married. Because once you get married and have kids, you start to grow up. Until I met my wife, I had a lot of followers around me. A good woman fillets those people because she cares about you. My finances improved because I spent my money on my wife, instead of everyone else.

Save up a pension?

I have been saving for a pension since I was thirty. Sometimes I look at it and think: it’s very little. But it’s something I’m waiting for when I’m older. In my job you work as long as you are fit to work.

Do you invest directly in the stock market?

No, I’ve never been interested in stocks.

Own you any property?

My house in North West London. Nothing special: a three-bedroom detached house in Willesden, near a park. When my wife and I bought it in 2009 it cost over £1 million. I think it has gone up in value since then.

If you were Chancellor, what would you do?

I would tax billionaires and large global corporations properly. I’d spend the money on refurbishing Strangeways Prison. It has reached the point where an Albanian prisoner cannot be extradited here because our prisons are in such a bad state.

Do you give money to charity?

Firstly to Shelter, because I know from my own experience with homelessness how easy it is to slip through the cracks. And once you get to the point where you have nowhere to live, it’s very hard to get back.

What is your number one financial priority?

To provide for my family. I have a 14-year-old daughter and a 16-year-old son and I don’t want to be too frugal, like my parents were with me.

But I also don’t want to go too far in the other direction and spoil them. So it is a challenge. It must be very difficult for millionaires.

• Simon Day is on tour with his comedy character show (West Hampstead Arts Club on September 21-22; Barnfield Theater Exeter on September 23; and The Old Market Brighton on September 28). Tickets are available at simondaycomedian.com