One mother in TriBeCa, who is married, at least for now, to a Wall Street executive, put it rather bluntly: âMy job was to run the household and the childrenâs lives,â she said. âHis job is to provide us with a nice lifestyle.â But his bonus has disappeared, and his annual pay has dropped to $150,000 from $800,000 a year. âLet me just say this,â she said, âIâm still doing my job.â http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/fashion/11berrys.html?_r=1&fta=y
"Shortly after Scott lost his job, the couple replaced their full-time nanny with a more cost-effective au pair and began choosing long-weekend getaways instead of weeklong family vacations. Some expenses, though, havenât changed: they still shell out for membership at a local country club (âthe most modest one in town,â Tracey said); they rented a condo last summer on Block Island; and they continue to pay hundreds a month for soccer, skating, T-ball and karate lessons for the children. They afford these things by dipping into the savings Scott put away during the flush years. " This part makes no sense to me. If you lose your job and the next one might be 6 months or more away and with a huge salary cut, why not give up the country club and the maid all together? Why go on vacations at all? The Titanic is sinking and its time to head for the lifeboats not try to bail a little water out and try to make it better.
When you used to make 800k, and face the very real prospect of being out of a job completely given the current state of affairs, do you think these people are going to be the new symbols of a growing and vibrant economy, or a stagnant and shrinking one? All these housewives better get used to getting on all fours and scrubbing the floor, bathtubs and toilets. No more Prada for anyone who doesn't have an inside line to receive taxpayer subsidization of their blown business model, and who is not in the very upper echelon of the ranks. Jamie Dimon will still do fine (noit because of talent, but thanks to Paulson & Bernanke), but the 30,000 or so rest of the employees not in the uppermost strata of the ranks, not so much...
Did you see 20/20 about the tv anchor lost his job and becomes a dog repair and neuter tech. Salary dropped from 250k to 30K. His wife looked like she was going to have a breakdown "no more $300 shoes".
yes i did....very humbling. Although I must say; he is handling it very good. did you see the couple who had $5 mill ( or so they thought ) and now have 150k??...victims of madoff... like me papi used to say back in the day...."don't spit up, cuz it might hit you on the way down".....
"Every good gold diggers gonna wind up there, every playboy bunny with the bleach blonde hair"......Nickelback.
You elitetraders who wallow in the lower end of the income spectrum per your own posts here will never know the pain of losing money once you actually have it. It is far worse to have had money and lose it than never having money at all.
1. Speaking from experience, if it happens to you as a child (i.e. your parents suffer that $250k -> $30k drop in income), it affects you greatly. You view money as a security blanket (real or imagined). 2. The sense of entitlement that exists up in the Financial corridor (NY/NJ/CT) is unreal. Cutting back is belonging to a 'modest' country club and going au pair? Really. While it seems the husband is trying to keep himself in play somehow, the wife's entitlement is going to make her forever bitter. No good solution there unless her attitude changes - divorced, he loses and is forced into penury with child support, etc... or married he loses by needing to stay together. Perhaps best thing to happen is he loses everything financially then the marriage fails allowing him to start over. (no assets or income at that time) Terrible for the kids, but I feel for that guy. I hope to g-d I don't end up him as well. 3. There are going to be a lot of unhappy women in the tri-state area going forward. Seems as NYC/DC is the lagging edge of this whole thing with Florida, California, Nevada, Georgia, Arizona the leading edge.