Mail Online

‘For the first time in my life, I make more money than I spend’

As the voice of a generation, writer JULIE BURCHILL was worth millions, but her hedonistic lifestyle left her broke. She reveals how she frittered away a fortune and what it took to finally get her finances under control

My nearest and dearest would confirm that I am many things – punctual, spiteful, fun – but none of them would ever say I was sensible. Especially when it comes to money. I have racketed around in the red for much of my adult life, practising the easy-come, easy-go theory of fiscal attraction; this has made my financial journey to the age of 63 something of a rollercoaster. But as the fast ride slows to a serene ending, I can look back and marvel at how lucky I’ve been. Why did I never go bankrupt? Why aren’t I living on the streets? It could so easily have happened.

I wasn’t born into money: my parents were factory workers, but they were very generous. A study at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem discovered that there is a ‘generosity gene’ after an experiment in which more than 200 ‘players’ could choose to keep the money they were allocated, or to give all or part of it to another, anonymous, player. After DNA testing, it was found that those who had variants of a gene called AVPR1A gave on average nearly 50 per cent more money. The sensation that we feel after giving time and/or money for the benefit of others is known by scientists as ‘givers’ glow’, triggered when part of the brain becomes flooded with dopamine, oxytocin and endorphins.

Whoever said it was better to give than to receive was right; many studies have found that people are happier when spending money on others rather than on themselves, enhancing a sense of purpose and improving physical health to the point of increasing lifespan. An only child, I am proof that the jibes about us Not Sharing are false; there was so much to go around – relatively – that

I never felt the need to grasp at anything.

Thus the paradox began of me being the most selfish yet most generous person I’ve ever known. A note to my haters: you’ll be smirking, ‘Trying to buy friends now!’, but it may be something far worse than that. ‘You pay people to go away,’ an ex sex-worker friend once told me after I failed to show up for lunch with her (I was having more fun elsewhere), but thoughtfully rang the restaurant to ask them to give her anything she wanted – plus a bottle of their second-best champagne. ‘You’re like the men who used to pay me to have sex with them – they were paying me to leave, too.’

It does sound a bit bad when you put it that way – but then, I never wanted to be a Nice Person, I wanted to be a famous writer. I took for granted that that would make me rich too; my teenage heroes were, predictably, Dorothy Parker and Oscar Wilde, and obviously those dry martinis and

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