‘Don’t try to be Richard Branson’: TV pawnbroker Dan Hatfield shares top tips for making money

Dan Hatfield has been offered a cast of Justin Beiber’s penis and a vial of bathwater that Whitney Houston died in (both supposedly genuine, although he was given no way of verifying that). That’s on top of the Fabergé eggs and superyachts. An unusual way to make a living but he loves it.

A money-making expert and regular on ITV’s This Morning, Hatfield is, first and foremost, a pawnbroker. He gets most excited when people come in with items they had no idea could earn them thousands, like the woman who did not realise she had been gifted a £15,000 Rolex watch.

After being made redundant during the financial crash, Hatfield took over his family’s pawnbroking business and later became a TV personality, almost by accident. His first shows Posh Pawn and Million Pound Pawn were about the high-end luxury business and lucrative deals which can be made through pawnbroking.

Still, Dan Hatfield believes his money-making advice applies to the masses. At a time when employers aren’t paying people enough and the government’s financial support isn’t stretching, he thinks individuals and communities should look take it on themselves to make more money.

It feels a tad “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” at a time when we should be holding power to account, and it’s hard to forget the world Hatfield is coming from – but there’s little doubt his advice resonates with big audiences and genuinely helps people. And he has such compassion and is so well-intentioned that people really want to listen.

It might not change your life in the long-term, unless you’ve got a Rolex watch lying around, but an additional bit of cash could tide you over until the next paycheque. 

Hatfield’s new book Money Makeris all about using the stuff and skills you already have to make a little extra money and use your income. His main piece of advice is not to try to be Richard Branson or Bill Gates and just start with the basics.

Big Issue chatted to Dan Hatfield all about his advice for making money, his favourite anecdotes from the world of pawnbroking and what more needs to be done to support people in the cost of living crisis.

Congrats on the book! How does it feel now it’s out? 

It feels so strange to call myself an author. I’m incredibly proud. None of us thought the cost of living crisis would still be rumbling on in 2024 but it is. I think we’ve still got challenging times ahead of us in the next 12 to 24 months. 

I wanted to write a book that would empower people and help people to understand that we need to not rely upon successive governments to get us out of this financial crisis.

I wanted to try and get the get across the message that if we work within our communities, and we work to help each other and we try and promote a circular society, perhaps we can create something a little bit different and a little bit better, and not allow big corporate companies and governments to dictate to us what the financial landscape should be.

How have the last couple of years been for you as a money expert? Have you noticed a change and an increase in worry? 

I am getting hundreds of emails a week from people asking me for advice ranging from ‘I’ve been made redundant’ and ‘I’ve got a certain amount of money. What would you suggest investing in?’ right through to ‘What kind of side hustles do you think I should undertake to earn extra money?’ The thing is, there is no hard and fast answer to that. We’re all unique.

Let’s strip it all back and have a look at who you are as a person. What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? What opportunities can you see within the world and what threats could you see that might hinder your money-making possibilities?

I talk about a bubble and by that I mean the world that you inhabit. What interests do you have? What items do you have? What hobbies do you hold that you might be able to monetise?

What’s the most popular question that people come to you with?

How much is this worth? Brits have around £48bn of unwanted items collecting dust. I’m sure you’ve got something in your home that you’ve wondered the value of. That could be anything from a kitchen gadget right through to a 90s toy or old CDs or DVDs.

Everything has an intrinsic value. We throw away hundreds of thousands of tonnes of stuff that goes into landfill every year. And the only thing that is doing is being detrimental to our environment. If you want some extra cash, the first thing to do is not to try to be Richard Branson or Bill Gates but to look at yourself and what you’ve got and start with the basics.

Are there any items you’ve dealt with that particularly stand out to you?

Oh my gosh. I’ve dealt with everything from Fabergé eggs to superyachts. I once got offered apparently a genuine cast of Justin Bieber’s penis, right through to a vial of water that Whitney Houston had died in, supposedly. I come across weird and wonderful things. 

But the most amazing things for me are things that people have at home that they did not know the value of. I used to do a TV show called Million Pound Pawn and we had a lady who worked in a nursing home during Covid and one of her patients passed away, and she was gifted his watch. She thought the watch was worth about £200. It was actually a Rolex watch worth £15,000. That changed her life.

If we try to understand how much our items are worth, we would be creating a more circular society. If we reuse, refurbish and recycle, that helps us not just environmentally but economically as well. I think the environment and economic side of things go hand in hand.

Do you feel that pawnbroking has changed your life too?

Absolutely. I worked in the City prior to working in pawnbroking and I got made redundant in the mid-2000s crash. But my family have been pawnbrokers for years. There’s sometimes a bad reputation where pawnbroking is concerned but actually it’s a fabulous way to unlock money very quickly from items. It’s a secure loan, which means that if you borrow something off us and you don’t have the money to pay us back then you can lose your item without debt collectors chasing you. 

It’s about buying the crazy, wonderful things as well. I really love it. I’m proud that we’re now authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority as an industry which means we adhere to the highest standards. Our very ethos in everything we do is always putting the customer first. Gone are the Dickens days that you imagine pawnbroking to be. It is now a very viable way of unlocking money.

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We’ve spoken to pawnbrokers before in our reporting and they said it’s a thriving industry in the cost of living crisis. Is that something you’ve seen?

It is something I’ve seen. I speak to a lot of pawnbrokers and as a group we are acutely aware of the financial difficulties that many people find themselves in. A lot of us have dropped our interest rates. If someone’s struggling to buy their item back they’ve loaned against us, lots of us now drop our fees in certain circumstances. A lot of people call us. A lot of people need us.

But pawnbrokers have stepped up to the mark and they’re trying to do things in a fair manner, so I’m really proud of the industry. It is one of the oldest industries in the world. We wouldn’t exist if we weren’t needed.

Was there ever a time in your life when you worried about money?

Yes, absolutely, while studying at university. That was a tricky time. You’ve just got into adulthood and trying to balance your own bank account is a really hard thing. I don’t think as a nation we help young people to understand how to balance the books. We turn 18 and we’re just expected to have these skills.

Even in my mid-20s, it was hard to learn that I can’t just spend everything on myself and self-gratification. We need some kind of system in place in our schools. We have not addressed that and I don’t understand why we haven’t addressed that. As we evolve out of this new financial landscape, one thing that we’re going to have to do is teach our young people how to survive economically. That starts in schools.

In the aftermath of the cost of living crisis, lots of people are struggling and have nothing left to sacrifice. What would be your advice in these circumstances?

There is light at the end of the tunnel. The world around you has lots of things you can utilise and monetise. It’s really important to stress that I don’t mean sell the family silver sets or items that you don’t want to sell.

Even if you think you have nothing in your house you can make money from, one of the simplest things is to actually delve into your wardrobe. We’ve got 350,000 tonnes of clothes going into landfill each year. We have treasure troves in our homes.

There is stuff in your homes that you can make money out of. And after that, it’s about looking at your skills and your hobbies and everything that you’re interested in. 

We should all have a look at side hustles. Around 44% of Brits have side hustles. There’s a massive move to getting incomes from alternative means. People have found, especially in 2023 when inflation was going crazy, that a lot of us can’t just survive on the income that we’re earning from our companies. We have to find other ways to supplement incomes. This can be a fun too: focus groups, surveys, mystery shopping. When I was at university, I was an extra in a TV comedy.

Do you have a favourite piece of advice?

I think renting out your items is going to be a massive aspect of making money in the future.

How many people have wedding dresses they just don’t use anymore? For some people, it’s the biggest financial commitment they’ll ever have other than a house. You could get between 10% and 15% of the value of your wedding dress by renting it out. You only have to rent your wedding dress out seven to 10 times to pay for your wedding dress.

The average lawnmower costs £150. You can get between  £15 and £20 per day renting out your lawn mower. We maybe use a lawnmower once a month, so the other 30 days of the month, you could be renting it out.

I wanted to come back to this lack of government support and lack of income meaning that people are struggling. How does that make you feel that people are having to take it upon themselves to survive?

I think it’s terribly sad. It’s a double-edged sword, isn’t it? I think we’ve had a nanny state whereby we’ve almost been led to rely on governments. I think we can take that power into our own hands. We can become self-sufficient. We can find ways out of economic woes by using our own initiatives. 

So it does make me sad, and I think that in the short-term, we definitely need more help. People need to be helped because we’ve been led into this position, but long-term we need to take that power back and we need to realise that actually, the people that can alleviate our economic woes are ourselves. 

That probably sounds a little bit of tough love, but we can’t rely on successive governments. I think as economics change and become more turbulent, we might see governments coming back and forward at a quicker rate. So we’ve got to work within ourselves.

Did you ever imagine you’d be a TV star?

No. This all started in a really random way. I had taken over the pawnbrokers and I got a phone call from a researcher at a production company asking if I wanted to take part in the first show I ever did, which was Posh Pawn on Channel 4. I was going to quit. I was actually going to phone up the production company and tell them that I wasn’t going to be a part of the show because I got cold feet. 

I got the wrong date. I thought we were filming a week later. I arrived at work all ready to make a phone call to the production company and there was a director and an assistant director and a runner with cameras ready to film that very day. It was by accident I got into this. I did Million Pound Pawn, did an interview with This Morning, and then one of the producers phoned me up. 

I thought I was in trouble because I’d taken two bottles of water out of the green room, but they actually said: ‘We love your message. We love your enthusiasm for making money and helping people. Would you want to do two or three more segments?’ Two years later, I’ve lost count now. I’m knee deep in it and part of the This Morning family. I am in the happiest of places because I’m doing what I love, which is helping people and trying to get more people more money in people’s pockets.

Money Maker: Don’t Just Save It, Make It! is available now, published by Catalyst (hardback, £16.99).

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