DERMOT MURNAGHAN is one of Britain’s best known news presenters. He has fronted BBC Breakfast, with Sian Williams and Natasha Kaplinsky before her, since 2002, although he begins a new job tomorrow presenting Sky News Today.

Before joining the BBC he spent more than a decade fronting ITV’s national news bulletins.

Born in Devon to Irish parents, his family moved to Northern Ireland, where he spent much of his youth. Murnaghan, 50, went to Sussex University, graduating in history, then completed a postgraduate course in journalism at City University.

He lives in north London with wife Maria and children Kitty, 15, Molly, 10, Alice 9, and Jack, 6.

How much money do you have in your wallet? I don’t have a wallet, but I’m carrying about £100 in cash. That’s quite typical but I tend to have a little more when I’m in London.

I used to have a wallet a few years ago, but I kept on losing it. It’s a pain because you lose more than just the cash – it’s the credit cards and all the other things you keep in it. With a suit, I can carry things in different pockets.

I prefer to use cash whenever possible, but cards for larger items.

Do you have any credit cards? I have a Mastercard and an American Express. I also have a Ryanair Visa card, but I’m trying to never use it again. The free flights you get for collecting points come with so many caveats that it’s just not worth it.

I also hate their attitude to the consumer. I recently got my parents some Ryanair vouchers using my accumulated points. I had something like £200 worth of vouchers but the flight they booked cost about £170. Ryanair refused to refund the extra, so I ended up paying in cash instead.

I’ve had the Amex for about 20 years, but I’ve never used it in Britain because I’ve not yet found anywhere where it’s accepted.

I did receive a case of wine from Mastercard once but it probably took 20 years’ worth of collecting points to get that. I pay off my Visa bill every month – incurring interest on a credit card seems a bit insane.

Are you a saver or a spender? I have four children and a large mortgage so there’s a big outflow of funds. However, there does come a point when you have to take a more prudent view. I always intend to save, but at this point in my life I’m very much a spender. I do put money aside into a pension, and I also try to put aside the maximum each year into an investment Isa.

How much did you earn last year? It’s a tiny proportion of Jonathan Ross’s income, but it’s a six-figure sum. Sometimes I get some public-speaking work, too, which pays pretty well – usually a few thousand for an evening. Whenever I get one of these, I get treated to nice hotel rooms and posh dinners. All in all, the extras alone probably amount to what a decent holiday would cost.

How much was in your first pay packet? I was working at a bar in Northern Ireland earning something like 50p an hour. I was about 17 at the time. My manager said that if I wanted any more money I could wash his car.

Have you ever been really hard up? I was a raggedy-arsed student but, having said that, looking at my own children planning for their university days, it seems I was actually quite well off. I had my tuition fees paid, as well as a full grant. I was also able to sign on during the vacations.

I became a freelancer in London for about a year after leaving university. That was difficult because I never knew how much I was going to make each month.

I remember I would get £25 for a small piece published in one of the gossip columns, but that was it for the week.

I saved money by staying in my friends’ houses for a while that year.

What is the most lucrative work you have ever done? Did you use the fee for something special? I once did an advertising campaign for a British car firm in the 1990s. They had just launched a model in the US so I was flown over in club class and stayed in a luxurious hotel near the then standing World Trade Center.

The fee enabled me to extend my holiday in America – enough for me not to worry about money for the next few weeks.

Do you own a property? I have a six-bedroom semi in a leafy part of north London. We bought it four years ago for just under £1m. We moved from the depths of Islington because it is a better place for the kids to grow up. It’s a Victorian building but it’s got an Edwardian feel about it – it was built in the 1890s.

I like a bit of history in buildings and I’m not interested in anything built after 1900 really.

Do you invest in shares? Only through managed funds, pensions and Isas. I’ve always been a contrarian when it comes to choosing investments. I remember in 1998, for example, there was all this rage about new technology and dotcom companies, but luckily I avoided them with a barge pole.

I was doubtful about the dotcom boom due to natural journalistic cynicism, I suppose. The atmosphere at the end of the 1990s was one of a headlong rush to get into these shares and I wasn’t going to follow the herd.

I follow the Warren Buffett rule – try to buy sound companies or funds and hold them long term. I’ve been quite bearish for the past few years, which may have cost me some money, but I feel more comfortable with a defensive stance. I have quite a few investments in bond funds, for example.

What’s better – property or pension? Pensions, without a doubt. If I was given £1 for every time someone said their property was their pension, I’d be a rich man.

What are these people going to do in their old age – live in a tent? What gets me is why we regard inflation as the devil’s work in all areas of the economy, except the housing market.

I would rapidly fall into negative equity if there was a huge drop in house prices, but I think for my children and for the generations to come, the property market needs a severe correction.

The other thing is tax. Look at the capital-gains tax on buy-to-lets and compare that with the generous tax breaks on pensions – it’s just no competition.

So which pensions do you have? I have a number of different pots, but my main pension is a defensive, managed fund with Scottish Equitable. It’s going steadily though I haven’t looked at it recently. Any spare money I have, I put in my pension.

Though there have been many negative stories about pensions, many of these involve irresponsible management rather than pensions themselves. As a way of saving for your future, they are still the best bet.

Are you financially better off than your parents? I would say so. My father was a pilot in the RAF but he left at quite a young age. He went into civil engineering, which paid a decent wage.

Though we weren’t poor, we never had things like foreign holidays. My children have travelled all over Europe already. My mother was a housewife.

What’s been your best investment in life? My house – I think it’s probably increased 30%-40% in value.

I also bought into the Fidelity Special Situations fund in the early 1990s, which has done spectacularly well – I think it’s grown by a factor of eight or nine times. It was a lucky shot – I’ve picked plenty of dogs too. I don’t follow personalities, simply performance. I’m not even sure I knew manager Anthony Bolton had gone. Like Buffett, I plan to hold a good fund as long as possible.

What about the worst? Property again. I bought a house in 1988 in east London for £150,000 and sold in 1993 for £120,000. It felt like financial crucifixion. We’d just had our first child so we were scrabbling to buy a bigger property with less money. The only upside was bigger houses were also cheaper.

I get irritated when people say property prices can only go up – this is clearly not the case.

What aspect of our taxation system would you change? I think in broad terms, taxation rates are fair, but I think it could benefit from more simplification.

What is your money weakness? Not always being aware of what I’ve got in my pocket. I went to the races the other day and put £20 on a horse, but later realised I’d thrown in £40.

I went back to the bookmaker and explained but he just looked at me, showed me his satchel of cash, and asked which one was my £20. I had to just leave it.

The coins in my pocket can get a bit irritating, but I bought myself an electronic coin-count-ing machine recently for a couple of hundred quid.

It seems to have a life of its own, though – it starts gnawing and gnashing even when I think I’ve turned it off.

What is your financial priority? Saving for my children’s university education and making sure they can stand financially on their own two feet.

What is the most extravagant thing you have ever bought? I bought a very dodgy black, full-length, leather parka in the 1980s. I wore it once but was laughed at up and down the street and in the newsroom – it made me look a complete plonker. It cost about £2,000 from an Armani outlet in London.

I also once subscribed to a telephone horse-tipping service that promised me huge success. It cost several hundred pounds a year for the service, but the real losses were on the races. However many thousands it promised in winnings, believe me, the truth was the reverse times 10.

What is the most important lesson you have learnt about money? Don’t count what you haven’t got. I know people who value their houses every month but, come on – it’s just fantasy money.