How Prince Harry And Meghan Markle Spend Their Money

When Prince Harry and Meghan Markle decided that they wanted more out of life than being a future king's wingman and his loyal wife, they gave up a lot more than access to castles and crown jewels — with the royal family's coffers closed to them, they had to go to work.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex lost the money they were receiving from the taxpayer-funded Sovereign Grant, which amounted to around $130,000 annually, according to Fox News. However, the couple's biggest source of income had been the Duchy of Cornwall, which was managed by Harry's father, King Charles III. For the fiscal year ending in 2019, Charles gave Harry and Meghan, as well as Prince William and Kate Middleton, a combined allowance of about $6.1 million, per BBC News. But in January 2020, the Sussexes announced that they were ready to give it all up. "We intend to step back as 'senior' members of the Royal Family and work to become financially independent," they wrote on Instagram.

While they were soon no longer on the royal payroll, Harry and Meghan did use their former royal roles to make bank. They secured a $100 million deal with Netflix in 2020, and Spotify agreed to pay the couple up to $18 million to become podcasters, according to Forbes. The contracts respectively bore fruit in the form of the 2022 docuseries "Harry & Meghan" and Meghan's "Archetypes" podcast. The new gigs also allowed the Sussexes to spend cash like a king and queen without worrying about gossiping courtiers and royal protocol.

Meghan Markle's clothing expenditures are well-documented. From the time of the runaway royal bride's wedding to her announcement that she was leaving "The Firm" — with a prince in tow — the Daily Mail estimates that the former "Suits" star spent about $1.16 million on her wardrobe. According to Vanity Fair, her Givenchy bridal gown cost around $265,000, while the white dress by Stella McCartney that she rocked at her reception was valued at over $157,000, per ET. Aside from those frocks fit for a princess, one of Meghan's priciest sartorial choices as a working royal was the beige Givenchy dress with a cape top that she wore for her first official solo outing with Queen Elizabeth II, according to Insider. It had an $18,000 price tag.

After parting ways from the royal family, Meghan spoke to Oprah Winfrey while wearing a black $4,700 Armani dress with a white lotus design, per Forbes. The outfit Prince Harry chose for the 2021 interview was a $650 gray suit from J. Crew.

As noted by E! News, when Meghan steps out wearing more affordable pieces that are available for purchase online, it's not unusual for them to sell out. Per InStyle, an example is the smocked blue Velvet Torch dress that she wore while FaceTiming her hubby on "The Late Late Show with James Corden" in February 2021. Its $30 price tag helped make the garment's label another happy benefactor of "The Meghan Effect."

Meghan Markle loves adding plenty of sparkle to her stylish ensembles, and while Prince Harry didn't abscond with bagfuls of the royal jewels when he and his wife bolted from Buckingham Palace, he's also been known to add a little bling to his looks. While participating in a beloved American celebrity tradition — encouraging citizens to vote for president — he and Meghan wore twin Cartier Love bangles worth around $4,700 apiece, per Marie Claire. But all of Meghan's jewelry purchases haven't been nearly as expensive, with Page Six reporting that one piece she frequently wears is a dainty gold Catbird ring with a $48 price tag.

The former royal is also a tastemaker when it comes to handbags, hats, and footwear. In 2021, Meghan carried a black Dior handbag while attending the Global Citizen Concert in New York City. On Twitter, the designer identified her accessory as its Lady D-Lite Bag, which is inspired by Princess Diana. Royal reporter Omid Scobie tweeted that the $4,000 handbag quickly sold out after being photographed in Meghan's hands. Fans similarly scrambled to get their hands on the $1,700 Stephen Jones boater hat Meghan wore for the queen's Platinum Jubilee in 2022, per Independent.

As far as footwear is concerned, Meghan doesn't just step out in designer heels — while she and Prince Harry were touring Australia in 2018, the then-pregnant duchess was spied sporting a pair of practical Veja sneakers priced at $140, per People.

Prince Harry, Meghan Markle, and their son, Archie, moved into a $14.6 million mansion in 2020. It was located in Montecito, a wealthy Santa Barbara neighborhood situated near the California coast. Per The Dirt, the 9-bed, 16-bath abode also includes a guest house, so the couple could have made a mint as Airbnb hosts if they got really desperate for cash. A pool and tennis court added to the sprawling property's allure, but Meghan told The Cut in August 2022 that one of Harry's favorite features was a pair of palm trees joined at the base: the perfect symbol of their marriage. 

Harry and Meghan hadn't yet landed their lucrative deals with Netflix and Spotify when they first saw the property listing for the idyllic estate, so Meghan was reluctant to take a tour. "It's like when I was younger and you're window shopping — it's like, I don't want to go and look at all the things that I can't afford. That doesn't feel good," she explained. The duchess was right to worry about falling in love with it, as she and Harry became desperate to turn the mansion into their own Cali kingdom. The couple reportedly took out a mortgage for $9.5 million, and the Daily Mail estimated their monthly mortgage payments to be around $40,000. 

But in her interview with The Cut, Meghan revealed that the palatial home was worth every penny. "It's healing. You feel free," she said of its soothing vibes.

Fans of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry have had a few opportunities to peek inside the couple's home, thanks to the videos that they've filmed there. When she was a virtual participant of Fortune's Most Powerful Women Summit in 2020, three striking black-and-white prints of bird nests were visible on the wall behind her. According to the Daily Mail, the artwork is from Californian Barloga Studios, and each piece had a price tag of $360 at the time.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have some real nests on their property, as well. In its profile of Meghan, The Cut mentioned their chicken coop, so another cost of living in the couple's Cali casa is keeping their feathered tenants fed. Readers also learned that Meghan keeps her human home smelling fresh by burning Bassett Rose Water candles from SoHo House, which are priced at $105.

In Meghan's 40th birthday video on the Archewell website, viewers learned that the Sussexes' décor includes a large fiddle leaf fig tree, and in a nod to her time in jolly ol' England, she sipped tea from a patterned teacup with a matching saucer. Per the Independent, the set is designed by the British pottery manufacturer Burleigh and costs around $54. Meghan can stay extra warm while enjoying her hot beverages, thanks to the Hermès Avalon blanket that fans saw in a trailer for "Harry & Meghan." Per Page Six, the cost of being wrapped in such luxury is $1,625.

Security is of utmost importance to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, as they revealed during their 2021 sit-down with Oprah Winfrey. According to Meghan, she was told that the couple's son, Archie, would not be afforded the same taxpayer-funded security that other members of the British royal family receive, per CBS News. And when talking about becoming financially independent, Harry said, "All I needed was enough money to pay for security to keep my family safe." During the duke and duchess' time as working royals, The Sun reported that the annual cost of their security was over $1.2 million.

When Harry and Meghan moved to California, then-President Donald Trump tweeted, "The U.S. will not pay for their security protection. They must pay!" And pay they did. The Sussexes proved that they were willing to spend big to ensure their family's safety, with security experts telling Forbes that their bill could be as much as $3 million a year. A source the Mirror spoke to claimed that the couple decided to hire the elite GDBA security firm owned by a friend of Winfrey, Gavin de Becker. He's a security expert who served on the National Institute of Justice Advisory Board during Ronald Reagan's presidency, according to the website for the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum. Per the Mirror, his other famous clients include Tom Hanks, Jennifer Lawrence, and Cher.

When Meghan Markle and Prince Harry step out for the occasional night out on the town, indulging in some fine dining is one of their favorite date activities. They've been spotted spending their dough at Lucky's Steakhouse in Montecito, where they were joined by a couple of famous dinner guests: actor Katherine McPhee and her husband, music producer David Foster. Insider shared a photo of the eatery's menu, which showed that its steaks were priced from $56 to $125. If any of the diners added a side of mashed potatoes to their meals, it set them back another $14.

When the Sussexes grabbed a bite at a restaurant in Ojai, California, in November 2022, we can't help but think that its name, The Dutchess, was part of the appeal. An insider told Page Six that they split the tandoori chicken dish, which is priced at $38 on the restaurant's website. Harry has also treated himself to some authentic American cuisine — he had his first taste of chicken and waffles in 2021 when he and Meghan stopped by Melba's in Harlem, per Page Six. While he was reportedly a fan, when it comes to dining like a Yank, one of his favorite delicacies is an affordable option that he can find much closer to his Cali home: In-and-Out. "There's one at the halfway point between L.A. and our neck of the woods. It's really fun to go through the drive-thru and surprise them," Meghan told Variety. "They know our order."

When Archie got his first visit from Santa Claus in 2019, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry reportedly didn't spend a princely sum on his presents. "For Christmas, they bought him books, building blocks, a baby ball pit," an insider told Us Weekly. When Archie got a bit older, Meghan bought him a pool float shaped like a giant slice of pizza for a playdate. On her "Archetypes" podcast, she said that she purchased it online. "I kid you not, the one without pepperoni was a few dollars less than the one with pepperoni," said the bargain-hunting duchess.

In 2021, one of Markle's pals shared a since-deleted Instagram photo of Archie playing with another toy. Per Hello!, fans who saw the post identified it as a Montessori puzzle that challenges toddlers to place wooden carrots of different sizes into corresponding holes. It was priced at $22 on Amazon. While the Sussexes rarely share photos of their son and daughter themselves, Archie has still become a mini fashion influencer. When he was photographed wearing a $39 Boden raccoon coat, it quickly sold out, per the Daily Mail.

One of the Sussexes' expenditures on their kids is something most other parents don't have to worry about. Ahead of Lilibet's birth, they went on a web domain spending spree. "A significant number of domains of any potential names that were considered were purchased by their team to protect against the exploitation of the name," a spokesperson for the parents explained to E! News.

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry had to kiss one frog of a residence before finding the princely property of their dreams in a kingdom across the sea. The couple and their son, Archie, temporarily resided at Frogmore Cottage, one of Queen Elizabeth II's estates in Windsor. It wasn't exactly Cinderella's castle — the royal family's expense reports reveal that the building was not ready for habitation when it was chosen as the Sussexes' home, and it took around four months to complete the required renovations. The fixer upper cost British taxpayers around $3 million, with a source telling People that some of the costs included structural repairs, updating the heating and electrical systems, and replacing old water and gas lines. According to Express, Meghan and Harry also spent over $300,000 of their own money transforming the crumbling cottage into a cozier living space.

In 2020, the couple paid back the $3 million, giving the public and the press one less reason to attack them. "There was no requirement [from the queen] for them to pay the money back but it was important to them that they did," a source told Vanity Fair.

When Meghan sued the Daily Mail in 2019, she accused the newspaper of fabricating stories about the renovations, according to legal documents obtained by Byline Investigates. The Mail falsely claimed that Meghan and Harry used taxpayers' money on creating a yoga room, adding a copper bathtub, installing soundproofing that cost over $611,000, and other extravagances.

Gone are the days when royals rally the troops and set out to conquer other empires, but after it fired the first shots, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry waged a new kind of war on a fearsome foe: the British media. Bringing that ink-slinging machine to heel required the help of high-powered attorneys, including Joelle Rich, the lawyer who dated Johnny Depp after representing him in the actor's libel case. Rich worked for the Schillings law firm, which was allowed to charge up to $674 per hour for a 2019 lawsuit, according to The Law Society Gazette. But if claimants win and are awarded attorney's fees, they don't have to worry about their bank account being drained dry.

Meghan lost a battle in 2020. In legal filings, she had accused the Daily Mail of causing her estrangement from her father by publishing multiple pieces about a letter she wrote to him. A judge threw out these claims, and she had to cough up $88,500 in attorney's fees, as reported by Page Six. But Meghan won the war in 2022, per The Washington Post. For violating her copyright, the Daily Mail was ordered to fork over an undisclosed amount and pay her legal fees, which totaled over $2 million. Meghan and Harry have also hired attorneys to go after photography agencies that sell paparazzi photos, per the Daily Beast, and their legal expenses exceeded $55,000 when they shuttered their Sussex Royal charity, according to the Daily Mail.

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry spread their wealth among many different charities. According to Harper's Bazaar, Markle donated the money she won in her lawsuit against the Daily Mail to an anti-bullying organization. And for Harry's birthday in 2020, he was the one doing the gift giving — Town & Country reported that the Sussexes gave $130,000 of their own cash to the nonprofit CAMFED, which helps African girls receive an education.

In 2022, Harry and Meghan hired food trucks to provide free meals to volunteers in Atlanta who were doing charity work on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. On The King Center's Twitter page, a thank you message addressed to the couple read, "Your care matters so much to those here to register and educate voters and collect items for our homeless neighbors." Harry and Meghan came up with another creative way to help others in 2021. For their son Archie's second birthday, they bought 200 hats from Make Give Live, a New Zealand-based company that donates one hat to a child in need for every hat purchased. "They will be sent in care packs to refuges around NZ," read a post on the enterprise's Instagram page.

Harry announced one of the couple's largest charitable donations in 2021: He planned on donating $1.5 million from the sales of his memoir to the Sentebale charity that he and Prince Seeiso of Lesotho co-founded, per Parade. Its main focus is providing support to African children living with HIV/AIDs.

When The Chalkboard spoke to Meghan Markle in 2015, she listed everything she was spending her dietary supplement budget on at the time. "Magnesium, B-12 drops, multivitamin and Cortisol Manager before bed. Sometimes ashwagandha makes it into the mix too!" she said. We don't know if she kept up this particular regimen, but in a 2020 piece for The New York Times, she revealed that she was still taking daily vitamins of some sort.

That same year, we learned that Meghan is a fan of Clevr beverage mixes when Oprah Winfrey showed off a gift basket that she received from the Duchess of Sussex on Instagram. Per People, bags of the powders cost $28 a pop and contain ingredients such as mushrooms, matcha, Ashwagandha extract, and turmeric. Meghan became such a big fan that she decided to invest in the brand. We also know that Meghan invests in her health by working out. After she attended a hot yoga class at Modo Yoga during a 2019 visit to New York City, a source told People that it's her go-to workout spot when she's in the city. According to the studio's website, one class costs $32.

Meghan makes sure to take care of her flawless complexion, too. Per People, she loves the results she gets from London-based facialist Sarah Chapman so much that she stopped by her office ahead of the queen's Platinum Jubilee in June 2022. Per a 2020 brochure, Chapman's priciest facial costs around $644.

Prince Harry didn't have to go far when he treated himself to an unforgettable American experience in 2022: attending his first-ever Super Bowl. The big game took place on the Los Angeles Rams' home turf, but Meghan Markle skipped that particular outing. Harry's cousin, Princess Eugenie, kept him company instead. If they had to pay for their own tickets, they could have shelled out nearly $26,000 apiece for VIP seating, per NBC Sports.

In 2021, Meghan and Harry jetted off to New York City together for the Global Citizen Live charity event. They checked into the posh Carlyle Hotel, which Harry's mom, Princess Diana, often stayed at when she was in the city. She was a big fan of the hotel's Royal Suite, which cost $8,000 per night at the time of the Sussexes' stay, per Page Six.

But the couple risks getting royally roasted each time they take a trip far from their California home. Because they consider themselves environmentalists, Meghan and Harry have caught some flak for their pricey flights on private jets. When they flew back to the USA from the U.K. after attending the queen's Platinum Jubilee in 2022, The Times reported that they made the flight on a Bombardier Global 6000, which emits the same amount of carbon as 10 commercial planes. According to The Scottish Daily Express, one private jet rental firm estimated that their trip on the aircraft could have cost up to $475,000.

Motherhood gave Meghan Markle the best excuse to go shopping, and other moms-to-be became desperate to get their hands on everything in her stylish maternity wardrobe. After she announced that she was pregnant in 2018, most of the maternity clothing she stepped out wearing soon sold out. Her good friend, tennis star Serena Williams, celebrated when Meghan was photographed rocking a $145 plaid blazer from her clothing line. "The face you make when you and Duchess of Sussex Meghan have matching @serena blazers," the court legend wrote on Instagram. Love the Sales estimated that Meghan spent around $611,000 on maternity wear during her first pregnancy, with one of her biggest splurges being a black-and-white Oscar de la Renta gown featuring a bold bird pattern. The Daily Mail priced it at over $12,000.

While pregnant with her daughter, Lilibet, Meghan wore another expensive Oscar de la Renta design in a video for Spotify's Stream On event, per Insider. The $3,490 dress featured a bright and cheery lemon motif, reminding us that the ex-royal was making lemonade from a sour situation.

Meghan didn't let being pregnant prevent her from rocking jeans when she desired a more casual look. Per Yahoo! Style, she was spotted wearing DL1961 Emma Skinny Maternity Instasculpt jeans in 2021. The low-rise pants with stretchy panels on the sides were priced at $180.

Meghan Markle's two children were born on opposite sides of the Atlantic, but both births cost the Sussexes a pretty penny. The Telegraph obtained a copy of Archie's birth certificate, which confirmed that his royal arrival took place at the Portland Hospital in London. According to The Sun, giving birth at the posh private medical center has plenty of perks. Oysters and lobster are on the menu; staff provide around-the-clock room service; and new moms receive a few baby toys and a bottle of champagne as parting gifts. The outlet estimated that the Sussexes paid as much as $24,000 to start their journey as parents in style. The Sun also reported that the couple treated themselves to a pre-birth babymoon at the Heckfield Place spa, which was valued at more than $40,000.

Meghan gave birth to daughter Lilibet across the pond. After moving to California and shopping around for a new mother-friendly medical center, she settled on Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital. Its amenities include a pantry stocked with snacks, room service, and hot tubs, per the Daily Mail. In each room, there's a recliner, couch, computer monitor, and keyboard. At the time of Meghan's stay, the hospital was charging around $12,000 for natural births and twice as much for C-sections. The Sussexes also had to pay some of the guests that joined them. "They had a big security team that the hospital needed to accommodate," a source told People.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are rather sentimental. When they celebrated their first wedding anniversary, instead of giving his wife the traditional paper present, Prince Harry collaborated with jeweler Lorraine Schwartz on a diamond-studded eternity ring, per Harper's Bazaar. The band also includes a peridot, sapphire, and emerald, which are the respective birthstones of Meghan Markle, Prince Harry, and their son, Archie. According to the Daily Mail, the ring's monetary value is around $735,000. But can you really put a price on a prince creating his own new royal jewels for you?

In an interview with NPR, Meghan described the special gift she gave Harry for his first Father's Day. "I thought I just wanted something sentimental and a place for him to have as a bit of a home base with our son," she recalled. She came up with the clever idea of a bench where Harry and Archie can read together. Meghan also penned a short poem for Harry, which she had inscribed on a plaque and affixed to the bench. It read, "This is your bench/Where life will begin/For you and our son/Our baby, our kin." The thoughtful gift inspired another money-making venture for the Sussexes: Meghan's children's book, which she aptly titled "The Bench."

Thanks to those aforementioned hefty deals they signed after stepping away from the royal family, the Sussexes will surely be able to keep showering each other with meaningful gifts for many years to come.