A few weeks ago, the piece churned out for this column was: “Do you have a side hustle?” If wishes were horses, I would have rolled back time and packaged it with this newspaper to the then Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson, the former daughter-in-law of the late Queen Elizabeth II. It would have helped her at the beginning of 2010. Follow the drift.
If someone had told me that the embattled former Prince Andrew and his ex-wife, the former Duchess of York, lacked sufficient financial education, like many other subjects of His Majesty, King Charles III, yours truly would have described such as fake news.
Had it not been for the latest round of revealing documents that came to light during this running saga of Jeffrey Epstein, we wouldn’t have known that there were gaps in the financial literacy knowledge and skills of these members of the British Royal Family. Before going further to present the evidence, let me reiterate the title of a piece I once crafted for this newspaper and which also is today’s title, and that is to ensure you “learn from other people’s mistakes”.
Of course, in our context, that simply means to learn from the mistakes that others have made with their personal finance. As a wise saying goes, it’s only a fool that learns from his own mistakes alone. Smart people use the mistakes of others as lessons.
So, what was it in the Epstein’s files that suggested that our charming former Duke of York and the one-time Duchess of York were not up to par with their financial education?
Firstly is the report in the Mail on Sunday edition of February 15th. According to the story, “Make me your house assistant, desperate Fergie begged Epstein,”(p.6): “Sarah Ferguson repeatedly begged Jeffrey Epstein to employ her as his house assistant because she ‘desperately’ needed the money.”
The Mail went further, disclosing that: “In one email sent in May 2010, Ms Ferguson said: “but why I don’t understand, don’t you just get me to be your House Assistant. I am the most capable and desperately need the money. Please, Jeffrey, think about it.”
If it were in the biblical times of King Solomon, and he got wind of a duchess begging to be hired as a domestic staff, Solomon may have penned it as an evil under the sun.
Watch this. Two days before the Mail on Sunday made it out of the printing press, the Metro Newspaper of Friday, 13th had a report that caught my attention. “Andrew borrowed £12m from royals to pay off Guiffre and hasn’t paid a penny”(p.6). It revealed that “the late Queen, Prince Phillip and King Charles reportedly loaned Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor £12million to pay off his accuser, Virginia Giuffre.”
It turns out that: “the disgraced ex-Prince is yet to pay back a penny of the cash.” Folks, if only his former wife had a side hustle and both saved just one percent of their monthly incomes for even three years before 2010, Ferguson wouldn’t have been begging Epstein and saying she desperately “needed the money.”
The charming former Prince himself wouldn’t have needed borrowing from his parents and brother to get out of trouble. Perhaps, he could have borrowed just even a million pounds and shoved it into a deposit account at Guaranty Trust Bank. Please let’s all learn from the mistakes of these members of the Royal family. Give having a side hustle a second thought.
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Tunde Oyedoyin is a London-based personal finance coach and founder of Money Intelligence Coaching Academy, a specialist academy of personal finance. He can be reached as follows: +447846089587 (WhatsApp only); E-mail: tu5oyed@gmail.com
