Rowling in wealth

She earns £1 mn every three days from royalties of her six Potter books, has a
£600mn fortune and likes a nice Prada handbag or a Dior shoe, but JK Rowling understands the value of money too well to spend it like the prodigal daughter.

LONDON: If you had a fortune of £600 million and was one of the richest women in the world, would you know how to spend it? JK Rowling, the creator of the best-seller series of Harry Potter and his magical adventures has exactly that problem.

Rowling, who created bespectacled boy-wizard Harry when she was an unemployed single mother living on government benefits, still understands the value of money, though she is now stinking rich. Said to be perhaps richer than the Queen of England, Rowling earns about £1 million every three days from royalties of her six Harry Potter books, movies and from the merchandising of all the by-products.

Having found fortune late in life — she is now in her forties — the world famous author is adamant that she will live a normal life. “I’ve got a mental amount I can’t spend beyond. I limit myself to what I think I would be justified in spending on frivolity,” she told an interviewer. The amount, it seems, is around £500.

In the past nine years of fame she has insisted on delivering her children in her local government hospital, and her offspring are educated at local state schools.

Instead of living in an apartment infested with mice as she did while writing her first Potter book, Rowling now has a property portfolio (Edinburgh, Perthshire and Kensington), flies by private jet and dresses herself in Vivienne Westwood for special occasions. But even that is nothing compared to the excesses of other British celebrities.

Conspicuous consumption is not for her, and she does not indulge her three children by buying them diamond studded designer watches or driving around in luxury cars. Instead she prefers to give her money to charities which are close to her heart — charities for deprived children and single mothers.

Feeling overwhelmed by her new-found fortune Rowling has said, “It just seems this came to me through doing the thing I love doing most. I suppose I feel I haven’t suffered enough.”

Of late, she has settled into her super-rich status, becoming more at ease with all of the nice things she can now have and the most she seems to spend on are holidays with her family.

In the past few years she has cruised the Galapagos at a cost of around £15,000, blown £14,000 on a holiday in Mauritius and enjoyed the comforts of a £6,000-a week hotel in the Seychelles.

Her latest outing, however, tops the lot.

For, after a charitable engagement in New York, she and her family went to the Hamptons, the millionaire's playground on the east coast of the USA, to stay in an imposing seven-bedroom beachfront house. The cost - £76,000 a week.

But when you have a fortune of £ 600 million and growing daily, that is just a drop in the ocean.