Paul McCartney Talks About His Attitude Towards Money

Paul McCartney reflects on his attitude toward money was formed and reinforced at an early age and hasn’t changed since then, regardless of his situation.

The former Beatle is no stranger to the richest musician lists, with a fortune estimated to come in at $1 billion, and a whopping $68 million earning value from 2019 to 2020.

In a new interview with The New York Times, McCartney shared: “It has obviously changed. What has stayed the same is the central core. When I was in Liverpool as a kid, I used to listen to people’s conversations. I remember a couple of women going on about money: ‘Ah, me and my husband, we’re always arguing about money.’ And I remember thinking very consciously, ‘Okay, I’ll solve that; I will try to get money.’ That set me off on the ‘Let’s not have too many problems with money’ trail.”

He added, saying that “not having much money, when anything came into the house, it was important. It was important when my weekly comic was delivered. Or my pen pal — I had a pen pal in Spain, Rodrigo — when his letter came through, that was a big event. When they had giveaways in comics with little trinkets, I kept them all. Some people would say that’s a hoarding instinct, but not having anything when I was a kid has stuck with me as far as money. You know, I’m kind of crazy. My wife [Nancy] is not. She knows you can get rid of things you don’t need.”

McCartney categorizes himself as a “keeper” rather than a “hoarder”. “If I go somewhere and I get whatever I bought in a nice bag, I will want to keep the bag,” he said. “My rationale is that I might want to put my sandwiches in it tomorrow. Whereas Nancy says, ‘We’ll get another bag.’”

He added that his attitude was a result of the “instinct to preserve”. “One of the great things now about money is what you can do with it. Family and friends, if they have any medical problem, I can just say, ‘I’ll help.’ The nicest thing about having money is you can help people with it,” McCartney said.