Crimewriter Mark Billingham talks to ME & MY MONEY

Bestselling author Mark Billingham would raise taxes paid by those who benefit from the cost of living crisis if he becomes chancellor.

The 61-year-old crime writer, who along with Tony Robinson played the dumb Gary alongside Tony Robinson on the 1990s children’s show Maid Marian And Her Merry Men, is said to raise taxes on energy companies, private equity firms, and anyone who has benefited from it. depreciation of the pound in recent weeks.

He told Donna Ferguson that writing his first work of fiction about Inspector Tom Thorne was the best financial move he ever made. His latest novel, The Murder Book, is published by Little Brown.

What did your parents teach you about money?

My mother taught me to work hard for it, while my father showed me that money is as easy to lose as it is to earn. He was a businessman who made and lost a lot of money. They divorced when I was six and my mother raised me and my brother alone. She traveled through pubs and cleared jukeboxes and slot machines for the company that made them. My father was not there, he moved abroad. Money never felt like it was tight because my mom was extremely careful and worked hard. We didn’t want anything.

Have you ever struggled to make ends meet?

Yes – when I was in my early twenties, although it didn’t feel like a struggle at the time. After graduating from university, where I studied drama, I helped set up a small-scale, ‘socialist’ touring theater company. We toured schools and art centers and performed plays we conceived about the campaign for nuclear disarmament or sexism in the workplace.

We didn’t make any money at all. So I signed a benefit for about five years to pay my rent in a flatshare. The food I ate was not particularly tasty. I remember buying eight beef burgers for £1, or if I couldn’t afford that, I cooked spaghetti in water flavored with an Oxo cube. But I’m sure there were people who struggled a lot more than I did.

Have you ever been given ridiculous money?

Yes. In the late 1980s and 1990s, I worked as an actor and made an insane amount of money appearing in commercials. At that time, you could comfortably live on two or three commercials a year.

The stupidest money I made was for a series of ads for a beer company. For each day of filming, I ended up being paid £10,000, including repeat costs. All

The only thing to do was have a pint and say, ‘It’s a seriously good pint.’ From an acting perspective, it wasn’t even remotely satisfying, but it paid the bills.

What was the best year of your financial life?

Last year. I deliver a book every year. In 2021, I was making a good six-figure sum because I signed a contract for three new books and got payments for each of them upon signing.

The most expensive thing you bought for fun?

It was a limited edition Elvis Costello Fender Jazzmaster guitar for £3,500. I have way too many guitars than my limited talent warrants.

I have three or four that I play quite regularly. The rest are collectible guitars that I take out and pat. I play an electro-acoustic guitar for the band I’m in – the Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers. It consists of a bunch of crime writers including Chris Brookmyre and Val McDermid. We play songs about murder like Folsom Prison Blues and Psycho Killer. We played at Glastonbury in 2019 and tour all over the world. The fees aren’t enough to keep me into guitars, but I’m having a blast.

What is your biggest money mistake?

Buy a moped. The day I got it, I was driving in the pouring rain, terrified, thinking I could be in a car. I took it back to the dealer the next day and sold it to them for £1,000 less than I paid for it.

The best money decision you’ve made?

Deciding to write a crime novel. It only took me a month to write the first 30,000 words of my first book, Sleepyhead. That turned out to be a smart move. To date, more than 800,000 copies have been sold and published all over the world.

Are you saving for retirement?

Yes, but not for my retirement. I’m 61, so I pay in one go, and in three or four years I plan to withdraw the money and pay off my mortgage. My accountant advised me to do that. My backlist of books will be my retirement. By the time I stop writing, I should have at least 30 books, hopefully generating enough royalties each year to get by.

Do you invest directly on the stock exchange?

No. I’d rather stick needles in my eyes. I am risk averse and I am not interested.

Do you own real estate?

Yes. My wife Claire and I live with our children, Katie, 27, and Jack, 24, in a five-bedroom house in north London that has probably doubled in value since we bought it in 2003. We also have two vacation homes: a two bedroom blast hole in Kent and a three bedroom house right on the waters of the Gulf Coast of Florida, which has virtually survived the recent hurricane.

I am paid in dollars by my US publisher, so I used that income ten years ago to buy the property, rather than getting a slap every time I transferred the money in pounds. It was one of my best financial decisions.

What is the only luxury you treat yourself to?

Travel first class. I tell myself it’s because I’m tall and have a bad back. Both things are true, but really it’s just because I like the luxury.

What would you do if you were chancellor?

I would immediately increase the taxes paid by those who benefit from the cost of living crisis. That anyone should shamelessly make a profit while so many see their standard of living falling is disgusting.

So that’s everyone from the energy bosses to the hedge fund investors and anyone insider who made overnight fortune shorting the pound. No one should get rich from this crisis, it’s that simple.

What is your top financial priority?

To have enough money in the bank so I don’t have to worry about my mom being in her 80s. I want to be able to take care of her when she needs it, without it turning into a financial nightmare.