Rich House Poor House star couldn't cover tonic water bill on £86 'broke' budget
Rich House Poor House millionaire Maxine McCarthy who swapped lives with a struggling family spends their weekly budget on tonic water and 'judged' them for not decorating their house.
The Channel 5 reality show sees well-off families swap lives and homes to see what it's like to struggle to make ends meet, while the other family gets to see how the other half live. When 43-year-old businesswoman Maxine swapped her plush Cheshire mansion with a three-bed house on a Wythenshawe estate for the programme, she wasn't prepared for quite how hard life is for parents Danny and Nicola and their five kids.
When it came to their weekly budget, millionaire Maxine said the £86 the couple had to feed their family would only just cover her tonic water bill. She claimed she could spend about £5,000 a week on living costs - but for the show, the family's budget was capped at £1500.
Maxine's partner of three years, James Davenport, 46, didn't want to take part in the show (Instagram/maxinemccarthyofficial)
She swapped with Danny, Nicola and their five kids for their Wythenshawe three-bed (Channel 5)Maxine's home has an indoor pool and karaoke room and is adorned with Versace wallpaper, while Nicola and Danny's overcrowded house doesn't have enough bedrooms for them all to sleep in. Speaking to The Sun, Maxine said: "I was judgemental when I arrived, I didn't understand why they couldn't find time to give a lick of paint to the walls and freshen the place up."
But it soon became clear, as she learned the couple juggled their jobs, home and kids while caring for their sick parents. They are also forced to sleep on the floor of their living room, as they don't have enough space upstairs. Maxine added: "I soon stopped judging and started admiring how well they cope. We all have struggles but they don't have the luxury of being able to sit with a coffee and look out at sea to regroup – they have to carry on."
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Maxine built her business empire after seeing a training course on Gumtree in 2009 (Instagram/maxinemccarthyofficial)The self-titled "Queen of aesthetics" offered Nicola a free place on her course, worth £2,000, while Danny was introduced to her former boxing trainer. Maxine made her millions through her aesthetics training empire, and now lives a luxurious life, flitting between her Cheshire mansion and Cyprus holiday home.
She started her career as a boxer, retiring unbeaten in 2013. She had spotted a Gumtree ad for a non-medics Botox and fillers course in 2009 and signed up after studying anatomy and physiology as part of her sports science degree. She went on to build her own aesthetics course for beauticians, crediting her boxing career for giving her the confidence she needed.
Previously, Maxine told the Mirror: "It gave me discipline. It empowered me. I was in a male-dominated world and I earned a place within it. It transferred onto every area of my life. Looking back, boxing was the hardest days of my life but the best days of my life. It gave me the skills required to make it big in the aesthetic industry as it has been a fight from start to finish in this crazy world of aesthetics."
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