To think that Martine McCutcheon should have been more careful with all that money she earned?

[Southeastdweller]

www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/fameandfortune/9864485/Martine-McCutcheon-declared-bankrupt.html

Is it so hard to keep a third of your earnings for tax and not live beyond your means? Why did bankruptcy happen?

She's a very talented lady I think but never really capitalised on her big breaks, though her last big job, for Activa, must have earned her a tidy sum.

Still, I was an extra on a TV job she did years ago, post-Enders. Seemed nice enough and really gorgeous with no make-up.

Can happen to anyone in this current state.

Think it's a bit sick that the telegraph have a gallery of stars who have been declared bankrupt though.

I have little sympathy. They know they are going to pay tax at some point on their earnings, and you can damn well bet they are earning much more than most of us on here, even after their tax bill.

She will come up smelling of roses, just like Kerry Katona. Bankruptcy is the modern way to get rid of your debts without having to pay the bill.

Agree squeaky

How is how nice she is and how she looks without make up relevant to her financial affairs?

Well it isn't really, just a light hearted comment...it's not like I'm writing a column in the Observer or something

She could have had all kinds of unexpected costs. Most of us are just a few misfortunes away from bankruptcy. And if I recall correctly she first achieved success very young and may have been badly advised.

so will her assets be sold to pay her debts?
kerry katona seemed to have maintained a decent standard of living after filing for bankruptcy.

Can't stand the woman after hearing her on a chat show years ago saying that she had a guinea pig when she was young that she didn't like so basically she just left it to starve to death in it's hutch. To my mind, and I know I may sound extreme, bankruptcy is nothing compared to what I'd like to do to her!!!!

Maybe some yoghurt would cheer her up.

Sorry Squeaky, I disagree on the bankruptcy thing. And I know Katona did not come out of it smelling like roses at all.

It's not the easy option people like to make out.

Oh rubbish. Katona has not been out of the media spotlight at all, and I very much doubt she is doing it for free. Nor was she living in a nice Surrey mansion for free either...

I know plenty of people who have done it.. and it really is the easy option. I know people who have purposely gone bankrupt.

I'm sure she will have been advised to declare herself bankrupt. I agree with squeaky

I had no idea she wrote a novel!!

Did she? I know she 'wrote' her autobiography, but if I recall, it was ghost written by Matthew Wright!

It happens a lot with slebs - especially if they're not the brightest.

They make a lot of money and then start living the life without a thought for how much it costs. At the peak of her fame in the Spice Girls Mel B bought ridiculous OTT stately home with about 20 bedrooms - she didn't stop to think that the annual upkeep on a place like that is probably a million plus.

I also have to disagree with 'the very talented' claim. She wasn't really. She was a bit of a 'gor blimey' one trick pony.

If the story I heard last night is true MM was frugal...

And the story is that she bought a 'designer handbag' (think five-figures) then took it back the next day for a refund, with scuffs and beads missing.

She can't have been terribly sensible with her money and I don't get how bankruptcy happens 'officially' as don't people have accountants? Businesses do, and if you're an actor you're a business. must be a debt-dumping exercise, and (biiiitchy) I'm not sure how she'll make much money in the future. Does she present any programmes?

But she is married to jp McManus son, couldn't he have paid it so this wouldn't happen?

I can see how it would happen, but geeze the thought of blowing that much...

From my work, I know that some people do enter bankruptcy as an easy way out. It really isn't though.

Isn't the spokesperson insinuating a rogue accountant scam in the text?

That's happened quite a few times hasn't it? Putting all your trust into financial advisors/accountants who are diddling or playing the markets with cash that isn't theirs to risk.

A lot of these celebs didn't get where they are by having a sharp business mind, did they? It's amazing how much of the general public are hideously bad at managing money. They should teach financial planning on the curriculum.

Her teeth look very expensive

Her teeth look like my nan's dentures.

Oh, please, Kerry Katona, Anthea Turner, etc, they go bankrupt and are still living the life of Riley!

She owes a load of tax. I think the HMRC should be able to collect on that from her future earnings even after bankrupcy.

She went on about how she considered designer sheets an essential, not a luxury.

YANBU... everyone should be 'careful' with their money. But I expect, when you're in a business where you have agents and managers and accountants taking a cut of everything, and if you're not very finance-savvy in the first place, it's very easy to lose track of what you've actually got in the bank and equally easy to be taken for a ride. By contrast, I've heard Adele has her finger completely on the pulse of everything she earns and spends and acts as her own manager..... much cleverer attitude.

YANBU. She must be a piss poor manager of her money.

She liked nice things (don't we all), but she went ahead and bought them as she apparently simply felt she deserved them!

she is, I suspect, of very low intelligence