Harry had little access to money

[babsanderson]

Harry was given Nottingham Cottage a 2 bedroom cottage presumably rent free. He was given security paid by the taxpayers. He was also given a clothing allowance from Charles to pay for clothes for formal public occasions.

But he obviously had little access to money. He bought his casual clothes cheap from TK Maxx and talks about drying shirts on radiators.

When he told Charles he was going to marry Meghan Charles said he could not afford to pay for Meghan and Harry as he was already paying for William and Catherine. Charles suggested Meghan continued working to pay for Garry and Meghan. Meghan paid for furniture from Ikea and sofa.com to improve the furnishings in Nottingham Cottage.

Charles paid for Harry and Meghan's wedding. Although Meghan paid for her own wedding dress. The taxpayers paid for the security.

Remember Harry and Meghan were working Royals.

The taxpayers paid for the renovation of Frogmore Cottage. A cost that Harry and Meghna paid back when they left the Royal Family.

The Civil List used to give a defined amount to each working Royal. But that was changed and all the money went to the heir to dole out.

The Queen and Charles appear to be remarkably stingy towards their own child and grandchild.

He didn’t really pay for the engagement ring or at least most of the components of it as he reworked a piece of jewellery that had belonged to his mother and added another diamond. He didn’t have to pay for the wedding ring either as it was made from a huge piece of welsh gold which had been previously gifted to the Queen. He didn’t pay for even the clothes he stood up in on his wedding day!

He had enough dosh to buy drugs, buy and keep a string of polo ponies and jet set around.

doesn’t quite fit with the pauper image you are projecting.

or his multi-million pound inheritances from his Mum and the Queen Mum. Whose death he couldn’t even remember properly.

poor little rich boy

Charles was paying an allowance to Harry and William (and then Kate, and then Meghan) to run their office and public duty expenses - so that paid for staff wages, their joint office expenses and all expenses connected to official engagements - that includes all the clothes etc used for those engagements. In 2019 - the last year that the Sussexes were officially working royals the Cambridges and the Sussexes were splitting about 5 million pounds between them for this.

At the time Harry had a full wardrobe of suits and clothes used for those. We rarely saw him photographed off duty so no idea if he was dressing down in on sale TJ Maxx grey polo shirts or not.

It's been assumed that William and Harry have been getting the interest from Diana's inheritance to use as their personal expenses. Who knows - it's possible they were doing that or were being also funded by Charles from his personal funds, or perhaps a bit of both.

Whatever the case it's clear Harry pre Meghan was never short of money to do any of the things he wanted to do. He would also have access to the best financial planners in the world. If you are getting a yearly income from the inheritance of $500,000 for years since 1997, you'd hope there would be the option of making some serious investments and growing their portfolios to fund their future lives.

On the issue of Charles telling Harry that they couldn't afford to pay for Meghan, I think Harry is mushing a few different memories and statements from Charles and the Queen together and either genuinely not understanding what was being said, or now being deliberately disingenuous to create a 'poor us' storyline. Charles had made it quite clear for years before Meghan that he was going to slim down the monarchy (going to make it cost the tax payers less) - but he'd also made it quite clear that his own sons were going to be part of the future of that slimmed-down version. The Queen is also have said to told Meghan that she was welcome to continue acting - I guess assuming that it was a wrench to give up something she'd spent so long working hard at.

Not sure if you are up to speed but Harry has abandoned the monarchy. Funny he still holds on to the idea of living off other people’s money. Plus please note Harry is yet to inherit the largest chunks coming to him from his da and his granny. What he has now is chicken feed compared to what is coming to him.

Harry has access to wealth the rest of us couldn't dream of in ten lifetimes so his bleating about money is a disgusting insult to ordinary families who are struggling. He is a nasty little hypocrite.

@Eyerollcentral You have no idea of Harry will inherit anything else from his family. His father may give him nothing.

It makes sense for them to control it when its wasted.

If Charles had treated him properly and brought him a beautiful stately home somewhere which brought him and Meghan some cachet and had conferred on him a couple of really decent appointments like Duke of Edinburgh, or Commonwealth Envoy or some serious honorary appointment in the military, then I reckon Harry would have opted to stay at home!

It wasn't in Charles' power to do any of those things till the Queen died, by which time Harry had buggered off, so that argument just doesn't work. Plus, as pointed out, he had been appointed Captain General of the Royal Marines, which apparently wasn't any incentive for him to stay.

Nah, methinks this could be Harry (maybe even Garry) himself.

We may be in the company of royalty, peasants. Start tugging on those forelocks.

If he does, the fact remains that he has around £37 million inherited from his mother and great grandmother, so he's hardly going to starve, is he?

Why don't you start a crowdfunder for him then, if you're so concerned?

Has anyone actually read the book to give context to stuff like this?

As in, is he saying he had not enough money? Or is it more, I lived differently than people would imagine?

Just wondering

You don't expect him to spend his own money do you?

I think it's a pretty normal course of action for wealthy parents. Harry hardly went without! Spare is peppered with references to his lack of privilege but then on the same page talks about holidays he takes to Brazil, the USA, Botswana, the Arctic, Antarctica, Australia...that's to say nothing of all the takeaways, drinking and drugs that are mentioned.

My DH works for his dad's company (his dad is very wealthy) and he just gets given a normal salary. We have a nice house given to us by his dad but no unfettered access to his dad's money! I didn't realise that this should be a grievance!

Well if he doesn't want to be part of the family anymore, why should he? Im sure he'd be just fine with his millions from trashing them.

I'm not invested enough to look it up but I feel like I've seen a lot of articles about Harry's dinner dates, jaunts out in town, etc over the years?? Maybe his (relatively) downsized budget just wasn't massive enough to include both his lavish lifestyle AND say couture clothing/furniture??? But would still have been huge

I don't believe for a second that Harry couldn't afford a mid-price sofa. He has inherited money from his mother and the Queen Mother, and he earned a salary when in the army.
I think the more likely scenario is that this is a man who lived with his father until he was 28 and then was given a furnished house to live in. He had never had to furnish a home or buy his own things. His family are not "flashy"- sure they have money and homes but I doubt they buy a lot of new things for their homes routinely and so I don't think it occurred to him to try to make Nott Cott nice. I think this is a capability gap rather than an issue with funds.
Happily, as an adult woman who had had a job and made a home for herself before, Meghan was able to purchase things to make their home more comfortable.

Regard to the comments that Meghan could continue to work independently, in acting, that wouldn't be to dissimilar to Princess Ann, I don't think either of her DHs were 'working' Royals both continued with their own careers.

I’ve a pretty good idea, ends in at least six zeros.

It's very hard to tell tbh. He mentions that they had to buy discount furniture for Nottingham Cottage (on Meghan's credit card) and he talks about having to shop in the sale at TK Maxx. He mentions that he takes issue with the phrase "that's the price you pay" (as in someone saying the press attention is the price you pay for the life you live) his response being "price for what?" Plus he maintains that two of the paparazzi who regularly follow him are more privileged than him due to them having nice cars and multiple houses. He is very clear that it's Granny who lives in the palaces, not him. There is a general sense that he feels he does not live a particularly privileged life.

But then at the same time he talks about all these holidays he takes, playing polo in Brazil, safari, Vegas, decadent parties, jetting here and there without a care in the world, Archie being delivered at the Portland hospital, going on shooting weekends, being attended to by staff, having a house in central London. All things that for most people are a sign of extraordinary privilege and wealth. He genuinely doesn't seem to recognise this though.

Tk Maxx on High St Ken is the closest clothing store to Kensington Palace, a couple of hundred meters away... could have just been convenient??

Re them having leases rather than ownership - the Anglesey house was rented as was the Cotswolds place. The timelines are a bit different but that's mostly because Kate and William had been together for years and were already living together in Anglesey/Nott Cott before the wedding. If memory serves me right Meghan only moved over to the UK around the time of their engagement

Most if not all of the Royal estate houses are actually leased rather than owned by the residents too - Frogmore wasn't unusual in that regard. I think Gatcombe and Sunninghill were outright purchases but the more recent gifts of places on the royal estates are generally on lease from the Crown estates, even if very long leases

Yes, I have. I made my comments after finishing the book and I stand by them.

It is scary how people are buying his cinderella-esque I had to sleep in the staff's quarters, buy faulty or oversized clothes from TK Maxx and patch up my shoes after they fell apart instead of buying new ones.

I thought his dad paid the rent on the country house, not H&M?