Fatima Whitbread: My biggest investment turned £300,000 into £1.7m

In our How I Manage My Money series, we aim to find out how people are spending, saving and investing money to meet their costs and achieve their goals. This week, in our celebrity edition, we speak to former world champion javelin thrower Fatima Whitbread, 65, who talks about growing up in care, earning her own dinner money at 11, becoming one of the highest-paid women in sport and turning a £300,000 property into £1.7m. What was money like when you were growing up? It was tough times back then, and we struggled a lot to survive. Even in the care system [where Whitbread spent much of her childhood] there wasn’t a lot to be had. Most things were hand-me-downs or communal. Shorts I used to do ‘bob-a-job’ the whole year round and that would be a small way of how I’d make a bit of an income. I’d go around to neighbours and ask if they needed any jobs done. That was my first understanding of finance. The other way was playing ‘penny up the wall’, which was a really good way of earning money. Behind the bike shed at school, there used to be half a dozen kids that lined up in a line and tossed a coin about five feet ahead against a wall, and the closest to the wall would scoop the money up. That’s how I’d earn my dinner money – I never wanted to stand in the free school dinners queue because we got bullied mercilessly by other kids for being the kids in the care system. So, I would turn my hand to earning my own money in lots of different ways like playing ‘holies’ with marbles and also selling the marbles when I got some unique ones. That’s what you call survival, and I would call that quite entrepreneurial, really. What was your first proper pay cheque? I was 19, and I applied to my local authority in Grays, Essex, to do popmobility fitness classes for elderly women in the community, and I got the job. I did that for a few years, and I didn’t get a huge amount it, especially after the tax man had taken his share. But I understood the importance and the value of earning through doing it. What did you do with your first pay cheque? I used to save up and give it to my foster mum because she was my coach, and I saw that as a part of my earning my keep. When I was fostered, I had two younger brothers who were four and two, Greg and Kirk, and I used to do a lot with them as well. There are lots of different ways to earn your keep. It wasn’t just with the money I gave her to help with the family, but what I did to help around the house. What was the most lucrative period of your career? Probably when I became world champion – a world record holder for the women’s javelin back in the 80s. I was probably one of the highest-paid women athletes in that era. Now that didn’t come automatically. I was quite a trailblazer in my time. Firstly, women in sport never used to do weight training, and I was a woman in a dynamic event, so I had muscles. The second trailblazing thing was that I was a woman of colour, and there weren’t many sporting women succeeding back then. The third thing was equal pay. Men and women didn’t have equal pay at this time. Athletics was an amateur sport. It was coming out of amateurism into professionalism, and I was determined to fight for the future generations, for women that came behind me. How did you make money as a world champion? Several different ways. Shoe companies pay to have athletes on their books, and then they have a tariff separately from that if they win gold, silver, or bronze. Then, of course, there’s the rankings. There’s a list of rankings in the world, and if you come in the top three, five, or 10, that will determine what extra pay you get as well. Nowadays you also see commercials. That’s all extra funding that comes into a sportsman or woman’s pocket when they do advertising. Some of the top players in certain sports like tennis, even the 100th ranked player in the world, could still be earning over a million pounds which is serious money. But the amount you earn varies from sport to sport. Did you make enough money to retire? I unfortunately had a false retirement at 31 with the complete rupture of my shoulder rotator cuff, so my career was shortened by eight years easily. Fatima Whitbread back in 2024. (Photo by Jeff Spicer/Getty Images) But no, I never made enough money to retire. I invested my money sensibly, but a lot of my earnings went to helping my brother through university. I supported and bought a property for my mum after her divorce to my dad too, because the property they lived was mortgaged to the hilt. What is your biggest money lesson? My grandmother Maud used to say to me, “Fatima, here’s the thing. If you earn £60 and you spend £60, then you’re going to be in Queer Street.” So, the idea really is always save as much as you can, put away for a rainy day, and then you’ll always be quids in. She was right. It taught me some lessons. What is the biggest investment you’ve made? I bought my own property for £300,000. It was quite a lovely house, and that was a lot of money back then in the 80s. When my husband died when our son was nine, I then downsized and moved into a smaller property and used that money to help put my son through the rest of his education. That property didn’t owe me anything. I sold that for £1.7m. When did you start saving for retirement? I realised young that my career wasn’t going to last forever, which it didn’t because I ruptured my shoulder. I had a financial adviser at the start of my career, and I knew I needed to invest my money rather than let it dwindle away. I started my pension at 25 and still live on it now – I have done since I was 55. And I’m 65 now. What would you tell your younger self about money? Definitely don’t be too generous, because as much as it is nice to be generous, especially when I was competing, there’s going to come a time when that rainy day is going to come at you a lot quicker than you think. And you need to save. My advice to sportsmen and women, even now, would be, do good with your money as much as you can, but obviously save it as well. Save for your future and your future family.