A MILLIONAIRE mum who swapped her mansion with a single mum-of-three on Rich House Poor House found herself on familiar territory – on a council estate where she lived as a child.
Belinda Sethard-Wright, husband Michael and children 12 year-old Olivia and Theo, seven, live in a spacious home in Orpington with a tennis court, gym and indoor swimming pool.
For the Channel 5 life swap show, the family moved to nearby Bromley for a week where mum Skye Walker shares her two-bed home with her two daughters Ashani, 13, and Riahiema, 7, and 2 year-old son Kareem.
They also swapped their £1500 budget for Skye’s weekly spend of £176.
For Belinda the house, at least, was familiar territory.
She said: “Where Skye lives in Downham, I also lived from the age of two to four in an identical house so it didn’t feel massively different.
“The main difference was that I was conscious I didn’t see as many children out playing as I recall when I was little we were all in and out of each other’s gardens.
She also found the house where she was born and said: “It looked tiny. Funny, 46 years and you come full circle. I never thought I’d end up where I am today.
“When I contacted the show I said ‘I don’t know if we’re the sort of people you want because we haven’t come from a privileged background at all.’
“As it turned out we were just five miles away from Skye but living in different worlds.”
Belinda, 46, says she never felt unhappy or unsafe growing up.
She told the Sun Online: “I grew up in the 1970s and as a kid you don’t have any idea of the stresses your parents are going through but living on the estates was fine because that’s all we ever knew.
“You knew not a day would go by that you didn’t see some wino drunk on a bench or kids driving round on motorbikes tearing around making noise. But I don’t remember every feeling unsafe and I was out playing every day, so I was happy.”
Belinda and Matthew, who works in the City, both come from humble beginnings and met when they were working at Barings.
Now a designer Belinda says she has never forgotten her humble beginnings.
She told the Sun Online: “I grew up in council houses and I lived in three different council estates, so I’m always batting on to my children about the privilege of their lifestyle.
“I have big issues with things like clothes lying around on the floor because I never had the privilege of feeling so dismissive about things in life and I thought doing the show would be good for them.
“Matthew says I use my background as a metaphorical stick with the children sometimes so I thought this would show them what it really is like to struggle with money, and not have the choice of luxuries when you want them.”
The Sethard-Wrights send their children to private school and both drive nice cars – a BMW M4 for Matt and a Range Rover for Belinda. Other spare cash goes on eating out, takeaways, extra-curricular activities for the kids such as playing the piano and guitar, and the occasional treat.
But the mum-of-two admits she struggled when her budget was slashed from £1,599.54 to £176.74 pence and was upset when she couldn’t make it stretch.
She said: “When I opened the box I thought ‘We can smash this. It’s still over £20 a day
“So when we ran out I was genuinely depressed about it.
We were just five miles away from the other family but living in different worlds…
Belinda Sethard-Wright
“Because the ‘luxuries’ as I would call them were that we spent £10 taking the children to a street dance class, and £5 on a chicken takeaway on Friday night which was part of Skye’s routine.
“We didn’t have enough for all of us to have one so the kids did. Olivia found an emergency pound I’d put in her school rucksack, so she could afford a can of coke each.”
Matt was left with beans on toast and Belinda with takeovers although, touchingly, Olivia tried to give her dad her meal as she’d “had a nice lunch” at school.
Belinda said: “It was a real eye-opener as to how much of the budget we have goes on takeaways, and on the food shop and the gas and electric.
“Skye has one of those meters you have to top up and when it runs out bang goes your electric and your heating.
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“On one of the evenings it was quite cold and after seven hours, we had used £3 off the gas. If I did that every day, that’s £21 a week just on keeping warm.
“We put petrol in the car and £15 on the cats and pet rabbits, but there was nothing left to live on.
“If we’d broken down that week, we would have struggled.
“I remember saying you can understand how easy it is to slip into debt and it’s not debt to go out and be frivolous and have a good time. It’s buying a school uniform in September or buying a few Christmas presents.”
While the kids didn’t mind sharing a bedroom, the whole family struggled with the lack of space.
She said: “At home, Theo is always swimming or outside, on the trampoline or in the treehouse.
“But the end of the week, when he’d finished school he spiralled into a marathon of occupying himself on his iPad.
“Olivia surprised me because she likes nice things in life but she was sympathetic to the situation and didn’t complain at all. If anything it was the space, because she’s not used to her brother sitting next to her brother on the sofa, or doing her homework in the same room.
“We all have en-suite bathrooms and Skye has a bathroom downstairs by the kitchen so getting us all up and ready, while making breakfast in the kitchen and people in and out of the bathroom, was like a military operation.”
Belinda said she missed her pool, her dogs and eating out most of all.
She said: “I do cook at home but we have the luxury of eating out if we want to, and I missed having the option of doing that.
“That was the biggest thing. When we got home we had a takeaway and we could all have what we wanted.”
In episode one of the show, millionaire Matt Fiddes was so moved by the plight of his “superhero” swap dad he bought his disabled wife a mobility scooter.
Rich House Poor House millionaire with a weekly budget of £3000 says he learned that family means more than money… after doctors gave him just months to live.
