Posts Tagged ‘careers’

Thomas Wolfe once wrote a novel called “You Can’t Go Home Again,” whose title emphasizes how much people and places change, no matter how fondly we remember them or how much we wish they would remain as we once knew them. For Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, the antihero of the FX original series “Justified,” going home entails discovering how much he, his hometown and his credit score have changed.

From Florida to Kentucky in One Shot

The son of a notorious con man, Givens left his home in Harlan County, Ken., as a young man, hoping to escape life in the coal mines. As a U.S. marshal, Givens specialized in fugitive retrieval in Miami until he shot a known gun thug in a restaurant.

During the media frenzy that followed, Givens’ angry superiors sent him back home to Harlan County, the very last place that he wanted to go. According to a pay scale published on Indeed.com, Givens was making approximately $51,000 per year in Miami, which is about 5 percent less than the national average.

Since the transfer to Harlan County also is a demotion, Givens probably sees his pay grade reduced to an even lower level. The government pays its marshals based on their geographic location, so Raylan’s annual salary could easily take a $10,000 hit thanks to that one careless shot and his transfer back to Kentucky.

Relocation Costs Can Affect Credit Scores

In a turbulent economy, many people must pack up and move to a different city to take a new job. Relocation is stressful enough, but Givens has to leave Miami in a hurry, which means he may have to leave some essential things behind and have them shipped later. If he takes an apartment or rents a house in Kentucky, that means additional credit checks, and too many of those can lower a credit score to an unacceptable level.

Suits, Stetsons and Sidearms

Even at the top of his game, Givens is a man of simple tastes, with the exception of his clothing. Cultivating a modern cowboy look, Givens is rarely seen without a tailored suit and a well-fitting Stetson hat; his ever-present sidearm and holster complete this ensemble. The Stetson Retro Fedora that Givens favors costs around $50, but a more stylish Stetson Brewer Panama Fedora carries a price tag three times that price.

Raylan also enjoys wearing cowboy boots and, depending on the material used to make them, these can become a pricey accessory. With Givens’ devotion to Cowboy chic, it is a safe bet that he carries at least one credit card from a men’s specialty shop or department store. Department store cards like these tend to carry an annual interest rate that exceeds 20 percent.

Rebuilding a Reputation, Career and Credit Score

In the blink of an eye, Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens lost nearly everything he had worked for. Given a second chance, Givens has to live on a lower annual income and avoid the credit traps that come with relocation. If he doesn’t scale down his fine taste in clothing, though, he may watch helplessly as his credit score spirals out of sight.

Steven Bryan

It comes as no surprise to today’s moms and dads that parenthood is expensive. Some parenting choices, such as a stay-at-home parent or private-school tuition, can add considerably to the costs of raising a child. “Parenthood,” NBC’s new drama based on the Steve Martin film of the same name, offers a fine example of what it costs to juggle family life with a professional career.

Julia Braverman-Graham is one of the four Braverman siblings around whom the series is based. Julia, played by Erika Christensen, is a high-powered corporate lawyer in Berkeley. Her husband Joel stays home full-time and raises their 5-year-old daughter Sydney. The family lives in a beautiful and immaculate home, send their daughter to an expensive private school, and spend money on expensive meals, auction items and lessons for their daughter.

How Much Does a Lawyer Like Julia Make?

Working in the private sector in California, Julia will make substantially more than her public servant counterparts. SchoolAAH notes that 2007 Berkeley Law School graduates working in the private sector have an approximate starting salary of $160,000 a year. With some experience under her belt, Julia will make at least $200,000 a year.

What Debt Would Julia Have?

A pricey house in Berkeley like the one that Julia and her husband own probably costs at least $1 million. In addition, her law school debt could be upwards of $100,000, though it appears likely that she has paid off some or all of that debt at this point in her career. In addition, Julia and her husband send their daughter to private school, which could run $15,000 to $20,000 a year based on estimates from the Online Guide to Bay Area Private Schools.

What are Julia’s Spending Habits?

Though Julia spends much of her time working or trying to grab a few minutes with her daddy’s-girl daughter, you do see them spending money rather extravagantly. In order to show off in front of a threatening woman at her daughter’s school, Julia spends almost $2,000 on a premium parking space. In addition, the family has their daughter enrolled in various lessons and classes, decorates their home beautifully, drives nice cars and dresses well.

Are Their Spending Habits and Financial Outlook Realistic?

Based on what we see on “Parenthood,” Julia and her husband have some pretty expensive tastes, striving to keep up with the rest of the families on the block and to provide their daughter with the best life possible. Thankfully, Julia’s career choice does allow the family to afford some of life’s finer things. However, they should remember to save money and invest well and use their credit cards only when they can pay off items immediately. Otherwise, expect that when college tuition, retirement or future children arise, they won’t be as comfortable as they are now.

Kelly Herdrich

He’s an FBI agent living in Los Angeles and at the center of an investigation that has captured the attention of the world at large. Mark Benford of “Flash Forward” has enough on his plate without spending time worrying about pinching pennies. But does this father and recovering alcoholic make enough money to support a pricey West Coast lifestyle?

Who is Mark Benford?

Mark Benford is the husband of Olivia and father of Charlie. Mark is an FBI agent and a recovering alcoholic, both of which play large roles in his day-to-day life. He and his family live in Los Angeles, Calif., though his work has shown him jet-setting across the globe as he tries to make sense of an event that caused the entire world to fall asleep simultaneously.

How much money does Flash Forward’s Mark Benford make?

As an FBI agent with roughly 15 to 20 years of experience (based on his age), Mark likely makes approximately $75,000-120,000 a year, according to Payscale’s career profile. The show gives little to no evidence of credit card or financial struggles for the Benford family, though statistically, alcoholics have a high risk of financial trouble.

In addition to Mark’s salary, his wife Olivia has a high-profile career as a trauma surgeon, where she may make a salary of $300,000 a year, according to the Salary Wizard. With their incomes combined, therefore, the Benford family may bring in around $400,000 a year, substantially higher than the national average.

How much does it cost to live in Los Angeles?

It isn’t cheap to live in Los Angeles. According to City-Data’s comprehensive look at the region, the average income is just under $50,000 a year, the average cost of a single family home like the Benford’s is $670,000 and the cost of living is 162 (very high), whereas the average cost of living in the United States is 100. As such, Mark would be able to survive on his own, but his wife’s salary is the real boon that keeps his family afloat.

Assuming, though, that Mark and Olivia Benford have no outstanding debt or financial troubles, it’s reasonable to assume that they’d be doing quite well for themselves in Los Angeles compared to other residents. With no credit card debt that we know of and secure jobs, even with childcare for their daughter and a high cost of living, Benford just may be able to make his salary (combined with that of his successful wife) stretch far enough to make it!

Kelly Herdrich

Living in Miami can be expensive, especially if you’ve been burned. Just ask Michael Westen, a disgraced spy living in Miami and trapped there by his “Burn Notice” (USA Network).

Life on Easy Street

Before he was sold out by someone more powerful than he, Michael Westen was an international field agent - presumably for the CIA. Based on his level of technical proficiency and the sensitivity of the jobs he was given, it is safe to assume he made a nice living. The base pay for a top non-supervisory field agent is around $79,000 annually, and with Miami locality pay, the number increases to $98,000. That buys a lot of Cuban sandwiches.

But base pay is only part of the picture. As a jet-setting international man of espionage, Westen had access to a nearly unlimited expense account. On-scene weapons procurement, bribes and elaborate escape plans all require serious capital. Not to mention any “bonuses” he may have earned by neutralizing a particularly troubling target. All in all, he was sitting pretty.

Feel the Burn

After escaping death when his cover is blown, Westen was dumped in Miami, where he grew up. It was there he discovered just how bad a burn notice could be. No job, no identity, no social security number, no credit or personal history and a frozen bank account.

He managed to find a loft above a bar in a seedy part of town. Based on current rental information, a loft in Miami like Westen’s rents for around $800 per month. He grabbed his father’s old muscle car for wheels, so he saved some money there. But paying off the right people to find out how and why he was burned costs money, so Westen has to take a few “odd jobs” off the books.

Like any business, Westen’s requires start-up capital. For openers, a Sig Sauer P226R 9mm pistol (the gun preferred by special ops guys the world over) retails for $1,200. Given the current shortage of ammunition, Speer Gold-Dot Hollow Point 9mm rounds are selling for $1.50 each. Multiply that by 5,000 or so and, well, you get the picture.

Westen runs with a sketchy crowd, too. There’s Sam, a former SEAL turned FBI informant who is a bit of a shlub, but who always manages to come through for Michael whether he needs inside information or a good trigger man. There’s his on-again, off-again girlfriend Fiona, an ex-IRA assassin and demolitions expert who never met a mercury detonator she didn’t like. His brother Nate is a born con man. And his friend Barry is an international money launderer and identity thief.

Identity theft is actually Westen’s stock-in-trade. In the variety of assignments he accepts, he always impersonates someone else, sometimes with full credentials provided by Barry the money launderer. While he is always a good guy, Westen illustrates just how easy it is to have your identity compromised and why it is a good idea to take the necessary steps to avoid identity theft.

By helping the right people out, Westen manages to make enough money (all cash, of course) to keep yogurt in the fridge for himself, beer on ice for Sam and miles of detonation cord for Fiona. Though he’s trying desperately to get back in the good graces of his former employer, he may discover that the security of a government paycheck might not equal the freedom and profitability of freelance spy work.

Dave Guilford

Although most people work to live, some folks are lucky enough to have jobs that they truly love. Will Schuester, the central character in the Fox’s series “Glee,” enjoys his teaching duties so much that he actually pays for the privilege of taking over a high school glee club.

The Opposite of a Salary

Schuester, nicknamed “Mr. Shoe” by the students, owns a car with a muffler that hangs so low it scrapes the road. Although his true passion is performing music, Schuester makes his living teaching Spanish classes to the students at McKinley High School. After the faculty adviser to McKinley’s Glee Club is fired for inappropriate behavior, Mr. Shoe asks to take over his duties. Unfortunately, the penny-pinching principal makes him agree to pay $60 each month to cover the costs of this extracurricular activity. Schuester also must monitor after-school detention for several months without pay to guarantee practice space for the Glee Club.

Teaching in Lima

“Glee” is set in Lima, Ohio, a town where the average salary for a teacher at Schuester’s level is $39,470, according to Salary.com. Thanks to his devotion to the Glee Club, he has to forfeit $720 of his annual gross salary, plus any additional money that he could have made during the hours he spends in detention.

Spending Habits
If Terri’s spending behaviour is a reflection of her spending habits, at best the Schuester’s likely carry a balance and at worst are in debt. Balance transfer or low interest interest credit cards would be a smart move, but not without a change in how the money is managed.

Schuester’s wife, Terri, works four hours a day, three days a week at “Sheets and Things,” which sells bedding and other household goods. Based on Ohio’s hourly minimum wage of $7.30, she contributes $87.60 to the household income before taxes. Unfortunately, Terri also takes her Pottery Barn credit card for regular outings, which forces the Schuesters to live paycheck-to-paycheck.

Her husband, on the other hand, is a pretty conservative spender as witnessed by his dangling muffler. The only time he shows any plastic in the pilot episode is when he uses a credit card to scrape gum off the shoe of a pretty, germ-phobic co-worker named Emma.

A Planned Pregnancy and a Career Change

Just when Mr. Shoe has rounded up some truly talented kids for Glee Club, Terri discovers that she is pregnant, which, along with finding a reliable glue gun, has been one of her life’s ambitions. A new baby costs quite a bit of money each month, which means that his teaching salary just won’t cut it anymore. At Terri’s insistence, he applies for a lucrative accounting job.

Waiting for the Other Financial Shoe to Drop

To stay at McKinley and do the work that he loves, Schuester is going to have to make some hard choices. With a wife that spends way above their means and a baby on the way, he must find ways to make additional money. Schuester is devoted to his Glee Club kids, but he’s also an honorable husband and father.

However, there is a very noticeable attraction between him and the cute, wide-eyed Emma, which is bound to cause some marital friction down the road. If he happens to end up in divorce court, he can expect Terri to take him to the cleaners financially.

Watch “Glee” online at Fox.com/glee today, and on Wednesdays this fall.

Steven Bryan

HBO’s “Big Love” follows polygamist family Bill Henrickson and his wives Barb, Nicolette and Margene, who all live in a suburb of Salt Lake City, Utah, with their eight children. They try to keep their lifestyle a secret, even as they discover running three households can be extremely expensive.

Three Roofs

Bill bought three neighboring houses for his three wives and children. The median price of a house in Salt Lake City is $284,756, according to www.saltlakecityutah.org. That means that Bill owes a total of $854,268 for all three homes. In addition to mortgages, he would have to pay utilities and car payments for his wives’ cars. His first wife, Barb, is the most financially responsible. His second, Nicolette, grew up on a Mormon compound and has difficulties fitting into the modern world.

Nicolette also has an addiction to shopping, and tried to hide her credit card debt from the family. She bought plenty of clothes from catalogs, and finally admitted to Barb that she accumulated $60,000 in charges on her credit card. She would most likely need a debt management plan if she ever wanted to pay it off in her lifetime.

Big Spending
With three wives and seven kids (so far), everyday expenses add up. Cash back credit cards can be beneficial—as long as they’re paid-off every month. Cash back rebates range from 1% of all purchases up to 10% at selected merchants. If the cards are used carefully, the cash back earned by the family spending would pay for the kids’ allowances…maybe.

One Income

Bill runs a home improvement store chain, while his wives are unemployed for most of the series. The purchase price of a franchise can cost up to $1 million, according to www.businessbroker.net. The show depicts Bill and his business partner, Don, purchasing property for their additional stores and seeking out a new business venture in electronic gaming. Bill’s credit score must not be that great; he had to ask his Uncle Eddie for a loan so he could bid on a casino business.

Margene, wife number three, decided to launch a jewelry business later on in the series, and Nicolette briefly worked at the district attorney’s office as a temp. In reality, the family would need more income to function each month.

The cost of living for this family keeps increasing as Bill tries to add a fourth wife to the family, and his wives have more children. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that families spend $269,520 to raise a child from birth to the time they turn 18. Living a polygamist lifestyle is risky, and could cost them their family and their jobs. The show should probably be called “Big Debt” rather than “Big Love.”

Stephanie Armstrong

It is hard to make ends meet as a mural artist. It’s especially difficult if you also have dissociative identity disorder like Tara Gregson in Showtime’s “United States of Tara“. Tara has three alternate personalities named T, Alice and Buck. T is a rebellious teenage girl who loves to wear short skirts and go on shopping sprees at the mall. Alice is an old fashioned homemaker who loves to bake. Buck is a male personality who smokes and drinks. The question quickly becomes How do you support all of these personalities on an artist’s salary?

According to Payscale, Tara’s annual income as a mural artist can average around $43,000. Her husband runs a small landscaping business and probably earns $30,000 a year. They have two teenagers and live in the suburbs of Overland, Kansas. House prices in their neighborhood start at $215,900, and the average monthly mortgage payment is $1,658, according to the 2007 U.S. Census Bureau. The census also states that the median household income for a family in Overland is $91,806. The Gregson family is estimated to make almost $20,000 less than the average, and most likely has plenty of medical bills and credit card debt.

Adding it up
If the Gregsons rely on credit cards to pay for the basic living essentials for a family of four (seven including T, Alice and Buck), there is no “best credit card” to use. Should Tara’s condition stabilize, depending on the size of the family’s debt, transferring high interest rate balances onto balance transfer credit cards would be the best step to take. But as soon as the debt is consolidated, the newly-empty accounts should be closed to prevent further spending.

Tara’s alternate personalities are not cheap either. T frequently steal’s Tara’s credit card and goes on shopping sprees with her daughter, Kate. Buck goes out to buy beer and a pack of cigarettes whenever he can, and his costly habit is coming out of Tara’s pocket. The family would have to rely on credit cards to keep up with Tara’s lifestyle and live as comfortably as they do.

Throughout the series Tara visits a therapist once a week, which can cost up to $200 an hour. The series does not address where the family is getting the money to pay for Tara’s medical treatment, but Tara did comment that she hoped to get better before their insurance ran out. When she admitted herself into an inpatient treatment center to figure out what triggers her alternate personalities, her husband mentioned that it was costing them $6,000 a week. She and her husband are self-employed and would have to pay out of pocket, use credit cards or purchase an insurance plan to cover her medical expenses.

Paying for medical bills with a high interest credit card can result in serious debt for the Gregson family. Tara only has one freelance job as far as we know: to paint a mural for an acquaintance. Tara was then fired because one of her alternate personalities ruined the mural. Her family cannot afford to lose any income when they have a mortgage and car payment to pay.

Stephanie Armstrong

Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo is part of the team of investigators that make up Jethro Gibbs‘ crack squad on “NCIS.” DiNozzo is promiscuous, smart, a huge movie fan, and utterly obsessed with the finer things in life including nice clothes and nice cars. In fact, he has been known to say that his car is part of who he is. Disinherited by his wealthy father, partially orphaned by the death of his mother, and resistant to the very concept of long-term relationships, DiNozzo has created a family that consists only of his fellow NCIS agents. The question that haunts “NCIS” fans is whether being a resident of this “copland” means being economically sound enough to afford all of those Italian suits and shoes and expensive high-performance cars that define him.

Dressed to Kill

A cursory view of any of the Rat Pack’s movies reveals a definite similarity to the style with which agent DiNozzo presents himself to the world of murderers, not to mention every single attractive female he meets. DiNozzo prefers form-fitting suits from Prada and Hugo Boss, shirts from Zara and Bloomingdale’s, shoes from Rockport and jeans from Marc Ecko. Those Hugo Boss suits can easily run over $1,000 and Bloomingdale’s shirts can run in excess of $300. It is easy to assume that his claims of disinheritance may be overstated since the salary at NCIS probably does not allow him to pay for these things with cash.

The Color of Money

The money that arrives in DiNozzo’s weekly pay packet is clearly not enough to allow him to afford the stylish European tailored suits that he wears while he drives his ‘90 ZR1 Corvette. According to the Department of Defense National Security Personnel System Worldwide Pay Table, the salary for an NCIS agent maxes out at just over $130,000. Considering that DiNozzo has been on the payroll for less than 10 years, it seems unlikely that he is near the top end of the pay scale.

A Place in the Sun

Since DiNozzo is famous for clinging to sophomoric behavior, it is entirely within reason to suspect that his claims of being disinherited by his wealthy family may not be entirely authentic. However, he often expresses a very real grief over not having access to his ancestral wealth. So, if his disinheritance is authentic, it is reasonable to assume that he has piled up a rather substantial amount of credit card debt.

In a very real way, DiNozzo personifies the central paradox of the modern American dream. He is probably using credit to live beyond his means while simultaneously living far below the economic status to which he was born. The story goes that DiNozzo’s father abandoned him in a hotel room and forgot all about it until the incoming credit card bills reminded him of his son’s predicament. How fitting.

Timothy Sexton

Before Rebecca Bloomwood hit the big screen and startled audiences with frivolous spending in Confessions of a Shopaholic, she was the main character in the Shopaholic book series by author Sophie Kinsella. With out-of-control spending and an inability to stay on top of her credit card debt and finances, Rebecca is a financier’s worst nightmare.

Who is Rebecca Bloomwood?

Rebecca Bloomwood is the main character in Sophie Kinsella’s Confessions of a Shopaholic series and recent film. The Successful Saving magazine writer lets a flat in London, and can’t seem to stay on top of her shopping habit. The deeper in debt Bloomwood falls and the more trouble she finds herself in financially, the more she appears to spend, unable to curb her frivolous spending habits. Both the books and the movie focus on how Rebecca can handle her creditors — while still shopping and falling in love, of course.

How did Rebecca’s spending get so out of control?

In both the books and the movie, you quickly see that Rebecca has an obsession with shopping—name brands, especially when they’re on sale, popular and trendy stores, and staying fresh and in style. Even with a reasonable salary writing at Successful Saving (a typical London magazine writer’s salary would be approximately $20,000 to $26,000 British pounds; a writer in New York City would earn between $40,000 and $60,000, depending on the publication), Rebecca would have been in a tight spot simply paying for rent, food and utilities, even without the excess spending.

Dealing with Addiction
With out-of-control spending and only a moderate salary, Rebecca’s precarious financial situation is all too common in today’s economy. Once she get’s control of her spending, Rebecca would benefit from consolidating credit card debt to balance transfer credit cards. And if there’s no happy ending, a debt snowball is her best bet.

Is Rebecca’s financial chaos in Confessions of a Shopaholic realistic?

Kinsella does a good job of interjecting bits of seriousness into her account of Rebecca’s antics, with letters from creditors and banks regularly filling Rebecca’s mailbox. While Rebecca’s fall into debt is very realistic, one has to wonder how long she’d be able to keep up her spending before a collection agency became involved. The movie notes that Rebecca has maxed out 14 credit cards at one point—add to that her regular bills and rent, and a credit consolidation agency or collection agency’s involvement is almost a certainty in the real world.

If you call yourself a shopaholic, it’s an almost certainty that you could take lessons from Confessions of a Shopaholic’s Rebecca Bloomwood.

Kelly Herdrich

Having the life of a skilled plastic surgeon is amazing. It ensures fast cars, fame, money and women. This is true if you’re the dashing Dr. Christian Troy from the dark satire “Nip/Tuck.” He is one half of McNamara/Troy, the plastic surgery practice he owns with best friend Sean McNamara. They are two successful plastic surgeons from Miami who live a glamorous lifestyle and have recently relocated to Los Angeles to enhance their careers.

About Dr. Troy

Christian Troy is vain, wealthy, and loves to splash his money around. He drives a $200,000 Ferrari 360 Spider, owns a speedboat, wears $1,000 Gucci suits, and has a pretty nice Beverly Hills bachelor pad. He spends money frivolously on women, dining and drinking out on the town with McNamara. The cost of partying in Los Angeles can easily cost $200 a night at some of the top restaurants and bars, if not more.

The Practice

The median annual salary for a plastic surgeon is about $250,000, according to PayScale.com. That is almost his whole salary just to pay for his Ferrari. While Troy and McNamara do run their own company, the cost of rent for their business in Beverly Hills can start around $1,500 a month, and they would still have to pay their employees. The median medical secretary salary is $30,000 a year, and Liz, their head anesthesiologist, would cost them at least $183,000 per year.

The real Dr. Troy
If Troy’s salary was the median for his work, he would definitely have to use his credit cards to make ends meet. Working in LA however, with the higher cost of living and the endless clientel, he probably does fairly well. Since image is important, his wallet would be full of excellent credit credit cards—probably even a Platinum Amex waiting to be upgraded to a Black Centurian Card.

This doesn’t take the cost of their medical supplies and legal fees into consideration. McNamara and Troy have made plenty of mistakes over the years, and probably would have been sued for malpractice in reality.

While the number of cosmetic surgery procedures have increased over the years, both surgeons would have to clock in long hours to pay for their fast paced lifestyles. Troy must have a great credit score to finance his car and be able to lease his office building and apartment.

While McNamara feels a bit of financial pressure on the show, Troy is carefree and often charges dinner, his bar tab and his designer addiction to his credit card. In short, Troy’s finances are about as real as the surgery he performs.

Stephanie Armstrong