Thriller writer Lee Child has just released the 12th instalment of the adventures of Jack Reacher, a former American military policeman. Entitled Nothing to Lose, it is currently No 2 on The Sunday Times hardback fiction bestseller list.

The novelist was born in Coventry but grew up in Birmingham. He wrote his first book, Killing Floor, after he was laid off as a presentation director from Granada TV in 1995. It was published in 1997.

Child, 54, lives with his wife, Jane, in New York.

How much money do you have in your wallet?

When I was flying home to New York, I took out £410 and replaced it with $480 (£241) in the plane on the way back.

Are you a cash or a card person?

I’m pretty much a card person – I don’t use a lot of cash except for taxis and in low-end diners. It was very interesting to observe the chip and pin card system in London over the past three weeks. It seems to be very fast and easy. In a funny way I would say that the UK has more of a card economy than the US.

Do you have any credit cards?

I have two Amex cards, one for business and one is for my family. Mostly I use the Visa card that is tied to British Airways because I get Air Miles for every dollar I spend.

Are you a saver or a spender?

By nature, I’m a spender but now I’m almost a saver by default because whenever I spend there’s always money in the bank. I’m completely undisciplined. It’s just good fortune that, once I’ve bought what I want, there’s still some left over.

How much did you earn last year?

A comfortable seven-figure sum – almost all of it was from book royalties although some was from movie work that I was commissioned to do.

I’m not looking to get more involved in that side of things. It is something that people ask me to do and I’ve done it once or twice now. In general, the book world is a lot saner than the movie world.

How much was in your first pay packet?

About £7 when I was an evening shelf-stacker at Sainsbury’s in Birmingham while I was still at school. I got the job to pay off a speeding ticket I received a week after gaining my driving licence. I was only there a couple of weeks.

Have you ever been really hard up?

I have been hard up in the middle-class way – struggling on a student grant or being strapped for a couple of years after buying a new house with a big mortgage. I’d hesitate to call that poverty because that is an insult to really poor people.

What is the most lucrative work you have ever done? Did you use the fee for something special?

I did story doctoring for a film that is yet to be made – The Silence of Six. They had a screenplay that wasn’t really working so they asked me to redo it. It was 11 days’ work and it paid a fortune – about $250,000 (£126,000). I used the money to buy a painting by Renoir. It’s a small still-life of roses in a vase.

What property do you own?

My wife and I have two apartments on 22nd street in Manhattan – one where I live and one where I work – and two houses inland from Saint-Tropez, again one to live in and one to work in. I’ve had the properties for around 10 years or so. The apartments cost about $950,000 each; they are in the same building so I have an 18-floor commute on the elevator.

The big house in France was €500,000 (£404,000) and the smaller one was €300,000. They are only a couple of miles apart. Our home is in the countryside just outside a little market town and the office building – originally a 14th-century house – is right in the centre of the town.

Each of the New York apartments is worth about $2m. The big house in France is probably worth €600,000 and the smaller one €350,000.

Do you invest in shares?

No, I don’t. I figure that if you seek advice, the adviser is thinking of himself first. I have a standard question for advisers who say “this is great” or “that is great”, which is: “Will you send me a copy of your tax return? If this is so easy and so great then you must be making a fortune.” They never do.

What’s better – property or pension?

I think that over the very long term, pensions probably perform better. People love property but I think over a lifetime real-estate performs a little less well. Of course, it is a question of when you retire and what is the situation that day. It is very hard to pick a favourite.

I have half a pension left from when I worked at Granada. I do the maximum pension contributions for a self-employed person here. That’s partly because it’s insane not to, tax-wise, and partially because it’s building up a fund that I’ll be able to use when I retire. I will sell the “separated offices” and liquidating those assets will provide me with another pension.

Are you financially better off than your parents?

In the sense of income and money in the bank, absolutely. But they are very content. It’s almost a Zen question: they’ve got everything they need and I have everything I need so, in a sense, we would be equal.

What has been your worst investment?

Cars, I’m sure. I change cars quite frequently and of course you lose a fortune on them. I have a Jaguar S-Type R – the supercharged Jaguar – and that’s a ridiculous thing to have in New York because I almost never use it. It’s actually three years old now and it’s only turned over 6,000 miles.

And your best?

I spent £3.99 on paper and pencils to write my first book, which came out 11 years ago and is earning me a fortune all over the world.

Did you always want to be a writer?

I knew I always wanted to be involved in entertainment but not writing specifically. I was first of all interested in theatre and then I worked in television. To me, writing is really part of the entertainment business, certainly the sort of books I write. They are an alternative to somebody renting a DVD or downloading a CD. It’s all the same thing at very much the same price.

What aspect of our taxation system would you change?

I’m not sure there’s anything I would change because there’s the same amount of logic – or illogic – in practically all of it. What’s interesting to me is that America is considered to be a low-tax country, but it isn’t.

I pay federal income tax, what people in Britain would think of as income tax, and that’s probably about 5% lower than the British rate. On top of that I pay income tax to New York State, income tax to New York City and what they call unincorporated business tax to New York City. I also pay self-employed social security, which is the equivalent of National Insurance. By the time you add up all those layers, I would guess that it is actually coming out a little above the plain income tax that I would pay in Britain.

What is your financial priority?

Knowing that I can carry on living in a modest fashion even if, for some reason, public taste changes and my books stop selling tomorrow.

Do you have a money weakness?

Mechanical watches. I like the French company Breguet, but my favourite designer at the moment is Fabergé, the old Russian jeweller that made Fabergé eggs.

I also love paintings. I’m not rich enough to be a serious buyer of art but I have a weakness in the area. I love the Impressionists and I like to invest in the work of living artists too.

What is the most extravagant thing you have ever bought?

Probably my Fabergé watch. It runs a couple of minutes fast every day and it cost more than my Jaguar.

What is the most important lesson you have learnt about money?

When you have plenty it is really liberating but you reach a point where you realise, “Wow. I can have anything I want.” This just prompts the question, “Well, what is it that you want?” and I have found that actually I don’t want very much.

You can be surprised, once you have acquired the money, by feeling that you never really needed it. We tend to always assume that we want more and more and that we have to move ahead, but when you actually get there, maybe you don’t need so much after all.

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