The New York Times breaks down the annual expenses of your average Fancy Pants Executive Type who lives in Manhattan.
Private school: $32,000 a year per student. Mortgage: $96,000 a year. Co-op maintenance fee: $96,000 a year. Nanny: $45,000 a year. We are already at $269,000, and we haven’t even gotten to taxes yet.
As relatively poor people, we think we can help. Here’s the Times-supplied expenses and our suggestions on where to cut costs.
Annual Expenses |
Our Suggestions | ||
| Private school (per student) | $32,000 | public school + “Gossip Girl” discs via Netflix | $9 monthly subscription fee |
| Mortgage & Co-Op fees | $192,000 | Just move already. To a house with no co-op fees. | $96,000 |
| Nanny | $45,000 | This 500K income is brought in by only one spouse, right? The other one doesn’t have a day job? Do you see where we’re going with this? | $0 |
| Vacations (2: beach and skiing) | $16,000 | Six Flags Great Adventure, Rockaway Beach in Queens, Coney Island, and assorted zoos, gardens, events, and museums in the city | $1500 |
| Summer house | $240,000 | Find a summer share on CraigsList, or rely on invitations from former Hamptons neighbors | $10,000 |
| Chauffer | $100,000 | Did you know anyone can drive a car? It’s true! All you need is a license. | $50 (NYC license fee) |
| Garage fees | $700 | Park below 65th St or, park on the street |
$500 or free, with occasional tickets |
| Personal trainer | $12,000 | Your memory. You paid attention during those earlier training sessions, right? If you still want some encouragement, consider a Wii Fit and/or re-runs of “The Biggest Loser.” | $0-80 |
| Party gowns for galas (3 per year) | $35,000 | You live in the same town as the Fashion Institute of Technology and Parsons. Find an ambitious student to nurture. | $3,000 plus an investment in potential future fashion insiderness |
| Tutoring | $3,750 | “You’re not going to get through private school without tutoring a kid.” That’s not going to be a problem with public school, we assure you. You may still want a tutor though for supplemental education, so we suggest CraigsList | $0-$1500 |
| Groceries | $15,000 | Try the Grocery Game! Otherwise, we’re not going to mess with this one, other than to assume that you can probably shop smarter if you set yourself a lower budget—say, $200 a week instead of the $288 currently estimated | $10,400 |
| Frozen hot chocolates at Serendipity | $8.50 each | You know what goes on at Serendipity, right? | $0 |
“You Try to Live on 500K in This Town” [New York Times]
(Photo: Matt Mordfin)
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I laugh at how all the comments here take this so seriously. It’s a very good post on how the rest of us live.
I think the real problem is that everyone is upset about the stimulus, or at least, should be. The companies that need government support obviously have been very badly mismanaged. They didn’t save up enough cash from the last 2 booming decades. The CEO salaries are the LEAST of the problems with these companies (but most obvious to ousiders). The government can not go in and micromanage the companies and make sure they don’t screw it up again. The whole setting the CEO salary cap is a slippery slope to nationalizing the company. They’ve already started in on /where/ they companies can hold conferences (not Vegas!) and which forms of transportation they can use (not Private Jets) and soon they will have to specify what type of ink they use in their printers (just refill the damn things!) It’s a slippery slope and we’re already sliding down it.
@dognose: If CEO salaries and bonuses aren’t tied to short-term thinking that cause long-term problems, is that going to cause more or less problems and stability in the companies?
$500,000 is a pretty good rate of pay considering these peoples’ level of incompetance. If a supermarket cashier screwed up so badly that the entire country spun into a depression, he would probably be fired, not be paid $500,000/year to keep doing the same thing he was doing before.
“I can’t live on $44,000 a month!”
- Joanna Carson, on her divorce settlement from Johnny Carson
Anyone who wants sympathy from me for a $500,000 salary cap should look between shirt (to keep this PG) and syphilis in the dictionary.
Japanese CEOs don’t make more than 20-30 times their lowest paid employees and they don’t have a problem with it. They also don’t feel any resentment from their employees, even taking the culture into account.
Are they trying to tell me that an executive making $32M a year has thus far been living paycheck-to-paycheck? Rule 1 is to have an emergency fund covering 3-6 months of expenses.
someone made the comment in defense of these over-compensated divas that they’re responsible for multi-billion dollar companies, thousands of employees, etc, and they deserve these rock star salaries.
my counterpoint is that, clearly, with the economy in the toilet, the companies have huge debts, instead of huge asset reserves, and are already laying off tens of thousands, and the companies are standing there with their hands out to those of us who managed to live within our means for huge bailouts: You did it wrong, and you’re not deserving of what you’ve already been paid, in any sense of a meritocracy. You’ve proven that you CAN’T do it. Why the hell should taxpayers subsidize their continued pampering when many of the same taxpayers are struggling with the fallout from the mess these self-absorbed nit-wits created?
Perhaps companies should realize that manhattan is an expensive place to live and work and do business. We live in a world that has teleconferencing and computer networks. There is nothing to justify doing business in manhattan, other than the desires of the CEOs and upper management to be in the manhattan fun club.
for those businesses in manhattan who depend on the largess of CEOs with no restraint – I’d realize the golden goose is clutching it’s chest, and you have no more right to other people’s money than anyone else. I don’t care how many CEO/Diva service businesses fail – you don’t produce anything but overpriced crap and presonallized butt wiping services for entitlement queens that look down on the rest of us, anyway. Your continued existance as someone who walks dogs in the most expensive place in north america is not high on any (genuinely) working stiff’s list of priorities.
NYC needs to get over it’s self-importance. The rest of us in “flyover country” think you’re a bunch of snobs and thugs, anyway.
Yeah, “ladies”, just because you’re married to an ex-stockbroker who used to be worth gazillions, doesn’t mean you’re worth as much, no matter how special your own brats might seem. Try taking care of your own damn kids, instead of delegating the job to “little people”
I say this as single, custodial dad who somehow manages a house, 2 kids and a job without any federal, state or local subsidies, and certainly without the help of some suburban princess.
Proof of the disconnect lies in the fact that it didn’t occur to the CEO’s of the big 3 that flying to washington for a handout in 3 separate private jets just *might* piss people off.
Think of the “welfare reform” and all of the screaming when it was suggested, however gently, that some people on the public dole get off their fat butts and get a damn job. Same here. Do without for a while. Sell a few mansions. There’s more than just a housing bubble, there’s an executive compensation bubble, too.
“You’re not going to get through private school without tutoring a kid,”
That’s interesting, my brother and I both made it through private school with honors and never saw a tutor in our lives. I don’t believe anyone should be restricted in what they spend their money on, but they should not be allowed to make their children hopelessly and endlessly dependent on someone else in order to make it through school (then business, then life?).
the folliwing was sent.
Hello William Rhodes:
I’ve lost a lot of money investing in Citibank and you’re proposing raises for your people. That money was for my retirement, and my health prevents me from getting any kind of work. Giving raises is very nice of you, but why not have it come from those people that cause this problem. You had to take money from the tax payers to stay afloat and your giving raises.
My wife has not had a raise in 3 years from her company, because of what you and your kind did. As part owner in Citibank I don’t want you to give or get anymore raises until you show a profit and have paid back to the tax payers the money they loaned Citibank and then just a token raise for the next 10 years, also wait for my wife to get a raise.
You and your kind suck being officers in any corporation. I never made $96,000 a year and you can’t pay for your co-op, should I fell sorry for you? You could buy a cheaper home, and you’re off springs can go to a state school, there’s a lot of them out their. Let the bank give you one of the home it owns, it would be cheaper for all of us. Why do you need a 20,000 foot house that cost $30,000,000?
No raises for anybody!
Orrin Adler
• The New York Times breaks down the annual expenses of your average Fancy Pants Executive Type who lives in Manhattan.
Private school: $32,000 a year per student. Mortgage: $96,000 a year. Co-op maintenance fee: $96,000 a year. Nanny: $45,000 a year. We are already at $269,000, and we haven’t even gotten to taxes yet.