And the boat is usually parked in A.J.'s driveway because Rick can’t afford the dock fees.
Meredith Grey on Grey’s Anatomy has a huge house in Seattle. But the house apparently belongs to her Alzheimer’s stricken mother and she has roommates. That seems realistic to me.
Several of the doctors on ER have been shown living in appropriate apartments. Abby and Luka’s apartment seems about right given his doctor’s salary.
Some of the houses on Desperate Housewives look commensurate with the character’s incomes to me and some do not. Bree’s husband was a doctor so that makes sense. Gabrielle is a former model married to a rich man so again that seems plausible. The Scavos have had two incomes for much of their marriage so that’s where the nice house comes in. The only one that doesn’t ring true for me is Susan. Isn’t she an author? Is her ex rich?
Heh, my favorite was Dr. Carter, who at least for part of the show seemed to be augmenting his income by being the superintendent in his apartment building being woken at all hours by tenants needing help with things.
Wasn’t he working as a resident director in a college dorm?
We learned quite early on ER that Dr. Carter had a lot of family money, something like in the nine figures. Remember late in the series when the hospital was building the AIDS clinic, which was going to cost something like $200 million, and he offered to finance it himself, including providing an endowment for operating it. So if Carter was working as an RA, he was living well beneath his means.
From what I understand, either his family cut him off because he went off and did his own thing instead of the family business, or he cut himself off to prove that he could take care of himself. Aside from a small time when he lived with his grandmother because she was ill, I don’t think he ever relied on his family’s money to live off of. I could be wrong, though.
I think his brother or his cousin had some kind of drug problem that Carter wasn’t able to help him out of, and he got cut off after that. To make matters worse for him, BECAUSE his family had money, he couldn’t get financial aid either. There was one part where his grandmother was going to change her mind about donating the money as retaliation against him for some thing, and he talked her out of it.
Carter was one of my favorite characters, especially since he evolved from being the comic relief intern to having interns of his own to deal with. Shame that he caught a mild case of the asshole from his boss though.
Oh, and whoa, I just realized that Carter, the rich priviledged white boy, was an intern under Dr. Benton, the hard-working too-proud-to-check-the-African-American-check-box black doctor who definitely seemed NOT to have come from old money.
Architects don’t make much money, unless they’re nationally recognized or the senior partners in a very large firm. If Mike Brady was a typical architect (for his experience and age, probably pulling in what would be a $60K-$70K salary in 2006 dollars), there is absolutely no way he could afford to support six children, a stay-at-home wife, and a live-in maid, even in 1970s-era Orange County, California, when housing prices were still somewhat affordable.
Same thing with Tom Bradford of Eight is Enough. Newspaper feature columnists in mid-size markets might pull in $50K, more if they’re lucky. Odds are he’d have to supplement his income with books about subjects of local interest, as many columnists do.
Drew Carey is probably living within his means. Houses in Cleveland’s Old Brooklyn neighborhood go for around $80K to $120K, easily affordable to a single person making about $40K a year.
Mindy McConnell of Mork and Mindy lives within her means. Housing in Boulder is outrageously expensive today, and an apartment at 1619 Pine Street, a few blocks from the 16th Street Mall, would be pricey but not outrageous; probably around $1,000 to $1,200 a month. In the early 1980s, the housing market in Colorado was depressed, downtown Boulder wasn’t yuppified, and rents in Boulder were much lower than they are today in relative terms.
When his Grandmother died, Dr. Carter inherited the bulk of her estate, including the mansion. He was also made chairman of the board of the family foundation.
In one episode, before her apartment goes co-op, she states that her apartment is rent controlled and she only pays $750 a month.
It occurs to me that for shows taking place in New York, “Rent Control” is almost a plot device. At least in Joe’s Apartment, the writers had fun figuring out how to GET Joe into a Rent Controlled place. 
He didn’t own it in the first few seasons, but in the last season, when they returned from Europe, he bought it (or maybe another club, I can’t recall). Of course, the club is only seen about 3 times in the last season.
Sounds like Mike Brady is in debt up to his eyeballs.
Susan Meyer’s ex husband, Carl, is a rich attorney who offered to buy them a fancy new home so the daughter could live in luxury instead of in a mobile home. Susan is an illustrator for children’s books.
Actually, in the DC area, you don’t get COLA. At least not when I worked at the Pentagon. The reasoning was it would cost the gov’t way too much considering how expensive the area is and how many military personnel are there.
<Johnnycarson>I did not know that.</Johnnycarson>
I’m just gonna assume he makes money on the side selling cocaine for the Drug Cartels.
He paid off Abby’s student loans or something so she could get her diploma, didn’t he? Something along the lines that although it was a huge amount to her, he had just made it in interest standing there talking to her. To some that may have come off as bragging, but I thought it more along the lines of “You’re a friend, I’m going to help you out, it won’t be a hardship, I’m happy to do it.”
Susan of Desperate Housewives illustrates children’s books. As the wronged wife of an adulterous husband, I imagine she made out like a bandit in the divorce, and there’s child support (for Julie) to consider.
I think the Solises are living beyond their means. Carlos lost his job, was arrested for something, and Gabby hasn’t worked meaningfully in years. They’re very much the superficial couple, all show and no substance.
The Scavos of Desperate Housewives are also only barely living within their means. They have to scrimp when only one of them is working. They extended themselves to get the boys into private school. Lynette can’t afford a new suit for her job. I suppose it depends on whether they’re budgeting for savings and other things, or they really are at the limit of their income.
Which would eat up the bulk of her salary as a columnist for an alternative weekly newspaper. Where’s the money from for those $350 pairs of shoes?