Name: Nigel Farnall
Age: 44
Income: About £70,000
Occupation: Landscaping
As my partner and I don’t have any children and we don’t lead an extravagant lifestyle, I try to be generous with both my time and money. I give £1,500 a year to the Theatre Royal Stratford East and I paid about £2,000 to name seats after myself, my partner and my two nieces. I know many of the theatre’s initiatives are aimed at the younger generation, which is particularly important to me.
I also have a £50-a-month standing order to my local church and whenever there’s a fundraiser, I chip in about the same amount. I’m not very religious but I do it for two reasons – first, congregation numbers may not reflect it, but the church is a pillar of our community. Second, one day I will be buried there, and I don’t want it to be turned into flats before then.
Also, when there’s a big disaster that needs donations, I’ll generally give £250 or £500 through the Disasters Emergency Committee.
I’ve run a landscape business for the past 20 years with my business partner, Kieran. I started helping my nan in her garden when I was four. By the time I was 11, I was working odd jobs around the community – clearing gardens, trimming hedges and wood chopping, and so on. I earn about £70,000 a year through the business, but it’s also important to me to help the community.
I’ve probably donated about £30,000 of work, mainly helping with fencing, to my old primary school over the past seven years through our company. There are various motivations for this – it’s good PR, it’s nice to be involved with the school that did so much for me when I was a child, and it’s good for the local community.
Recently my company, Carnall Landscapes, spent two months clearing a public byway adjacent to my home. It hadn’t been maintained for decades, so we set about doing it ourselves. We cleared and resurfaced it and now anyone can use it.
In 2016, I was surprised to win the Achates Philanthropy prize for my donations to the theatre. It involved an awards evening with about 200 people and then being whisked away in a taxi to be interviewed by BBC Radio 4 about it. It was all a bit surreal.
I live in the house I was brought up in. Four years ago I bought my mum’s share when she moved into a neighbouring property she inherited. We’re having some major renovations done which will cost in the region of £400,000. We’re extending it, building an outside office, and installing solar panels, a rainwater harvesting system and hopefully a ground source heat pump too. I want to be as self-sufficient as I can be.
Due to the renovation work, I currently pay two mortgages, which adds up to just over £2,100 a month. I own another property which I rent out for £1,200 a month. It was my grandfather’s council flat and we bought it together in 2004. Sadly, he passed away two years later. I’m mortgage-free on that property. One of my mottos in life is to pay back what you borrow as soon as you can, which I did very quickly with this purchase.
We live in the middle of nowhere, so we have no gas – we get hot water from a log burner that uses wood which I get for free through work. Energy bills come to about £30 a month. I don’t have a car – I have a transit van which I use for work, and if I need one, I borrow my mum’s car.
As for groceries, my partner organises the food shopping for us and the two dogs. It comes to about £90 a week; if I do it, it can be double.
My nieces are my closest family and I spoil them rotten with birthday and Christmas cash into their savings accounts, trips down to London, visits to the cinema, and so on.
My partner and I treat ourselves to a couple of holidays every year. We try to visit Monaco for the Grand Prix every year and we also try to go away every New Year.
Despite this, we don’t live a lavish lifestyle – I’m not into designer clothes or technology and so on – so we try to find a decent home for the money that we don’t need.
As told to Suzanne Bearne
