# What TV/movie/other fictional character live most beyond their incomes? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 31, 2010, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-movie-other-fictional-character-live-most-beyond-their-incomes/552105 "2010-08-31T06:47:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![JoelUpchurch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f05b48/32.png) [@JoelUpchurch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoelUpchurch)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-movie-other-fictional-character-live-most-beyond-their-incomes/552105/41 "2010-08-31T21:58:46Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > > [@footballisplayedwithyourfeet](#): > > > > Penny on **Big Bang Theory** lives alone in a similar appartment to Sheldon and Leonard, eventhough she works at the Cheescake factory and the guys both are PhD’s working at Caltech. > > The guys could probably make more money at the Cheesecake Factory. I was wondering about that. I have some friends that work as servers out at Walt Disney World and they seem to do pretty well. They have their own homes instead of apartments and have fairly recent model cars. The server jobs at Disney aren’t that easy to get though. I suspect it depends mostly on what restaurant you are working at. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2010, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-movie-other-fictional-character-live-most-beyond-their-incomes/552105/42 "2010-09-01T13:12:38Z")
Raj is the only guy on Big Bang that lives up to his means. Sheldon obviously needs a roommate just to function in the real world and Leonard is the only one who seems to fit the bill. It has been shown that Leonard moved in with Sheldon, and Leonard’s mother is remarkably like Sheldon. Don’t need to be a shrink to figure that one out. Howard must have a buttload of money saved by now, especially if mommy isn’t charing him rent. In the book of Fraiser, Kelsey Grammer wonders if Fraiser didn’t buy some Microsoft stock when it first hit the market. ---
**Author:** ![Cicero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cicero/32/3594_2.png) [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2010, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-movie-other-fictional-character-live-most-beyond-their-incomes/552105/43 "2010-09-01T13:19:19Z")
The Thin Man series- I have no idea where the money came from. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2010, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-movie-other-fictional-character-live-most-beyond-their-incomes/552105/44 "2010-09-01T13:23:54Z")
I always laughed at the King of Queens. He’s a UPS driver and she is a secretary(I think) and they have a really nice house…too nice. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2010, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-movie-other-fictional-character-live-most-beyond-their-incomes/552105/45 "2010-09-01T13:25:51Z")
They do have Arthur’s pension, but you’re right. How can they afford a place as nice as sports journalist Ray Romano? ETA: The Nanny. Yes, she lives in, but her parents aren’t rich and yet she has all these fanulous designer cloths. It was finally esplained that her cousin is a successful dress designer, but that was a while into the series. ---
**Author:** ![Fried\_Dough\_Ho](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a88e57/32.png) [@Fried\_Dough\_Ho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fried_Dough_Ho)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2010, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-movie-other-fictional-character-live-most-beyond-their-incomes/552105/46 "2010-09-01T13:27:10Z")
> [@Cicero](#): > > The Thin Man series- I have no idea where the money came from. She was an heiress. Nick comments often that without Nora’s money, he would be nothing and relies on her for his livelihood. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2010, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-movie-other-fictional-character-live-most-beyond-their-incomes/552105/47 "2010-09-01T15:11:47Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > One of the most glaring examples I always figured (and Mad Magazine agreed) was [the absurdly fantastic penthouse apartment](http://www.lifeslittlemysteries.com/where-was-lois-lanes-apartment-in-superman-the-movie-0370/) Lois Lane had in the first Superman movie, on a reporter’s salary. I’m not going to try finding it, but I once saw a Catalan movie where the main character was some sort of reporter and her apartment was both huge and very clearly identifiable. The location actually houses bank offices (the kind of back office where only Very, Very Important Customers go), it’s on a corner building with one side overlooking Plaça Catalunya and the other on Portal del Àngel. It was equivalent to taking the whole upper floor of the TGIF on Times Square and turning it into this chick’s place. ---
**Author:** ![Ellis\_Aponte\_Jr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@Ellis\_Aponte\_Jr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellis_Aponte_Jr)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2010, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-movie-other-fictional-character-live-most-beyond-their-incomes/552105/48 "2010-09-01T15:37:32Z")
> [@Sigmagirl](#): > > > [@BobLibDem](#): > > > > I’m not sure that her father didn’t subsidize her lifestyle. From what I recall about the series, he seemed to be a man of means. > > He owned what appeared to be a successful restaurant. Yes, in Brewster, New York. It would have to be one of the most profitable restaurants in the country to subsidize those outfits. She wears two or three mod ensembles every episode and they _never_ repeat. (This is regarding **That Girl** ). ---
**Author:** ![FrigidLizard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3bc359/32.png) [@FrigidLizard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FrigidLizard)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2010, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-movie-other-fictional-character-live-most-beyond-their-incomes/552105/49 "2010-09-01T16:18:38Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > I think **Ghost Whisperer** is also in this conversation - she runs an antique shop (that never seems to actually sell things, only buy them), and he’s a paramedic, living in a huge house in (I think) some of the priciest real estate in the US. Besides the house, there’s the wardrobe - Melinda goes through about 10 outfits per episode, each of them completely trendy and expensive-looking. iirc, the home they owned was a newly-purchased fixer-upper. Also, I always thought her clothes looked vintage; I imagine she purchased them cheaply, perhaps in bulk, through estate sales or other antique dealing contacts. She may also have bought them through her business (along with her fabulous antique furnishings) and made a tax write-off. ---
**Author:** ![pbbth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f9ae1b/32.png) [@pbbth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pbbth)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2010, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-movie-other-fictional-character-live-most-beyond-their-incomes/552105/50 "2010-09-01T16:41:59Z")
> [@shy\_guy](#): > > Agreed. The show made mention of Carrie’s apartment (which as I recall is located somewhere in the east-70’s) being rent-controlled, but her finances never made any sense. On a sex columnist’s salary (or however she was paid), she routinely wore designer clothes and shoes that would have landed her outfits in the thousand-dollar-plus range. Additionally, she was at the trendiest restaurants and clubs in Manhattan on a regular basis. Even accepting that she was deeply in debt (which she was; at one point she mentions to Aiden that she had to use a credit card to buy tomatoes), it doesn’t work out. Actually her finances made a lot of sense. It was addressed that she was in a rent controlled apartment where she paid $750 a month in rent and she was always, always strapped for cash because of her spending habits. Several episodes revolved around her cash poor situation (she dates a rich frenchman and bemoans her financial issues and he leaves her $1,000 after a night of hot sex causing her to wonder if this makes her a prostitute, she is forced to see the light when she realizes she has no savings but has $40,000 worth of shoes so she can’t afford to buy her apartment, she lets the men she dates pay for everything, etc.) I can completely buy that she was living where she was on that rent amount and spending the entirety of her paycheck along with the extra money she picked up through book deals, writing articles for Vogue, and teaching courses, etc. without saving for the future. I knew several women in college who never once bought food for themselves because they dated their way to full stomachs and free entertainment which is what Carrie appeared to be doing. She fully admitted she had no money at every opportunity and used her pseudo-celebrity status and constant string of men to get what she wanted mostly for free, leaving her paycheck and credit cards to cover her clothes and shoes. ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2010, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-movie-other-fictional-character-live-most-beyond-their-incomes/552105/51 "2010-09-01T16:51:44Z")
Both Buffy and Angel seemed to have strangely extravagant lifestyles. Both of them seemed to have money worries from time to time (well, Angel never worried about money, but Cordelia did), but Buffy never EVER wore the same outfit twice, and Angel lived in a good-sized old hotel. I mean, it had been abandoned when he acquired it, but it was still taking up a lot of space in LA. That land had to be pretty damned expensive. Not to mention upkeep. It never made any sense - I think a lot of people guess that Angel must have some kind of old investments, since he’s about 200 years old, but frankly I doubt that Angelus put much foresight into anything ever. The Winchesters on _Supernatural_ have no legit income at all, and I don’t think anyone has ever even given them cash to thank them for helping them out with a demon/ghost/monster problem, so _any_ lifestyle is outside of their means. It’s probably a good thing for them that they support themselves with credit card fraud, though, since driving around the country constantly in a 1967 Impala has got to cost an absolute fortune just in gas. ---
**Author:** ![Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/intergalactic_gladiator/32/112_2.png) [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Intergalactic_Gladiator)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2010, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-movie-other-fictional-character-live-most-beyond-their-incomes/552105/52 "2010-09-01T17:02:12Z")
> [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](#): > > > [@Joey\_P](#): > > > > And up until very recently, he lived alone. You save a lot of money when you’re only feeding one mouth, only one shower per day, the lights are only on in one room at a time, you aren’t driving people to this and that. On top of that, I don’t think he had much of a social/sex life, so his entertainment (movies, restaurants, bars) budget would be very small. I’m not saying it’s possible to live his lifestyle, but I don’t think it’s that far off. > > Dexter is very much a non-consumer. I don’t think he’d spend much beyond the bare necessities. Plus donuts for the gang at the station. ---
**Author:** ![Agent\_Foxtrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc29f/32.png) [@Agent\_Foxtrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agent_Foxtrot)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2010, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-movie-other-fictional-character-live-most-beyond-their-incomes/552105/53 "2010-09-01T18:08:29Z")
In _The Departed_, Det. Sullivan buys a condo that in no way could be realistically afforded on a city cop’s salary, unless he’s been receiving extra funding from Frank Costello (which is neither mentioned nor implied). Even with the salary from his psychiatrist girlfriend, she’s still drawing a city worker’s income. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2010, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-movie-other-fictional-character-live-most-beyond-their-incomes/552105/54 "2010-09-01T18:27:23Z")
> [@Kyla](#): > > Both Buffy and Angel seemed to have strangely extravagant lifestyles. Both of them seemed to have money worries from time to time (well, Angel never worried about money, but Cordelia did), but Buffy never EVER wore the same outfit twice, and Angel lived in a good-sized old hotel. I mean, it had been abandoned when he acquired it, but it was still taking up a lot of space in LA. That land had to be pretty damned expensive. Not to mention upkeep. It never made any sense - I think a lot of people guess that Angel must have some kind of old investments, since he’s about 200 years old, but frankly I doubt that Angelus put much foresight into anything ever. I was going to mention Angel as well. I’d be on board with the idea of Angel having tons of money squirreld away (stolen from his victims as Angelus, which would explain why he was hesitant to talk about it) were it not for the episode in which he was positively spastic to earn money for Connor’s future, and the team is ecstatic to make a mere $50,000. I mean, they were splitting it six ways by that point. Admittedly, I suspect that Angel’s take was a lot bigger than Lorne or Fred’s, but still. (Actually I’d guess that Angel, Cordy, Wesley, & Fred were equal partners in the business by that point, and that Fred & Lorne were employees.) I also wondered how Wesley & Cordelia managed to be fairly nice cars. I think we’re meant to assume that they have a good number of cases we don’t see or hear much about because they’re boring, if lucrative. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2010, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-movie-other-fictional-character-live-most-beyond-their-incomes/552105/55 "2010-09-01T18:32:28Z")
I’m a little surprised to be the first to mention this, but I’ll put my money on Carly and Spencer Shay from _iCarly_. In their wildly fictitious universe, they live in a _three-story_ loft in a Seattle high-rise, with a private elevator yet. This for a not-particularly successful pop artist and a 14-year old junior high school student who are the offspring of a single parent who lives on a naval field officer’s salary, fer cryin’ out loud. Yes, several episodes revolve around Carly and Spencer coming into large amounts of money, but they were already in the apartment before all that happened. Hey, maybe their absent and never-mentioned Mom was Leona Helmsley. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2010, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-movie-other-fictional-character-live-most-beyond-their-incomes/552105/56 "2010-09-01T19:01:21Z")
> [@Kyla](#): > > Both Buffy and Angel seemed to have strangely extravagant lifestyles. Both of them seemed to have money worries from time to time (well, Angel never worried about money, but Cordelia did), but Buffy never EVER wore the same outfit twice, and Angel lived in a good-sized old hotel. I mean, it had been abandoned when he acquired it, but it was still taking up a lot of space in LA. That land had to be pretty damned expensive. Not to mention upkeep. It never made any sense - I think a lot of people guess that Angel must have some kind of old investments, since he’s about 200 years old, but frankly I doubt that Angelus put much foresight into anything ever. I think you might have a point about Angel, but I’d say the opposite is true for Buffy: she wears lots of different outfits, but they don’t look expensive at all, and she struggles for money all the time. I find it hard to believe that her mother - who was always portrayed as (upper?) middle-class and highly sensible - didn’t leave enough money for Buffy to live on and look after Dawn, yet Buffy ended up working in a burger joint to pay the bills. ---
**Author:** ![Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swallowed_My_Cellphone)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2010, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-movie-other-fictional-character-live-most-beyond-their-incomes/552105/57 "2010-09-01T19:14:34Z")
> [@scifisam2009](#): > > I think you might have a point about Angel, but I’d say the opposite is true for Buffy: she wears lots of different outfits, but they don’t look expensive at all, and she struggles for money all the time. I find it hard to believe that her mother - who was always portrayed as (upper?) middle-class and highly sensible - didn’t leave enough money for Buffy to live on and look after Dawn, yet Buffy ended up working in a burger joint to pay the bills. Yeah, Buffy did worry about money after her mother died. On Buffy, Angel ran a busy club. In LA, Angel ran a detective agency out of a small dingy office, and Cordelia worried about their expenses. I always assumed they also had paying clients that were too boring to be on the show, so the audience didn’t get to see them. The hotel was big time haunted so that the people who owned the property would probably have _paid_ someone to take the property off their hands. So the hotel was more or less acquired due to magic. Then Angle sort of inherited Wolfram & Hart. ---
**Author:** ![August\_West](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/august_west/32/18069_2.png) [@August\_West](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/August_West)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2010, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-movie-other-fictional-character-live-most-beyond-their-incomes/552105/58 "2010-09-01T19:37:07Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > I always laughed at the King of Queens. > > He’s a UPS driver and she is a secretary(I think) and they have a really nice house…too nice. UPS drivers actually make pretty good scratch. That job is often mentioned in discussions about well-paying jobs that do not require a college degree. [This link](http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/02/22/ups_drivers_avoid_blue_collar_union_blues/) states that even a new driver can earn $70K annually with overtime. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2010, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-movie-other-fictional-character-live-most-beyond-their-incomes/552105/59 "2010-09-01T19:48:38Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > > [@Kyla](#): > > > > Both Buffy and Angel seemed to have strangely extravagant lifestyles. Both of them seemed to have money worries from time to time (well, Angel never worried about money, but Cordelia did), but Buffy never EVER wore the same outfit twice, and Angel lived in a good-sized old hotel. I mean, it had been abandoned when he acquired it, but it was still taking up a lot of space in LA. That land had to be pretty damned expensive. Not to mention upkeep. It never made any sense - I think a lot of people guess that Angel must have some kind of old investments, since he’s about 200 years old, but frankly I doubt that Angelus put much foresight into anything ever. > > I was going to mention Angel as well. I’d be on board with the idea of Angel having tons of money squirreld away (stolen from his victims as Angelus, which would explain why he was hesitant to talk about it) were it not for the episode in which he was positively spastic to earn money for Connor’s future, and the team is ecstatic to make a mere $50,000. I mean, they were splitting it six ways by that point. Admittedly, I suspect that Angel’s take was a lot bigger than Lorne or Fred’s, but still. (Actually I’d guess that Angel, Cordy, Wesley, & Fred were equal partners in the business by that point, and that Fred & Lorne were employees.) > > I also wondered how Wesley & Cordelia managed to be fairly nice cars. I think we’re meant to assume that they have a good number of cases we don’t see or hear much about because they’re boring, if lucrative. Angel Inc must also have had a dynamite health plan. When Cordy was comatose because of the cumulative effect of all those visions, the gang found that she’d had a bunch of MRI’s. That stuff is expensive! Doesn’t some company have an investment program for The Undead? This special group can’t use just any bank–since most of them probably have pretty spotty ID’s. But they could really clean up on long-term investments. Well, some company besides Wolfram & Hart. I’m sure they have a subsidiary to handle that sort of thing… ---
**Author:** ![DWMarch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dwmarch/32/1010_2.png) [@DWMarch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DWMarch)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2010, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-movie-other-fictional-character-live-most-beyond-their-incomes/552105/60 "2010-09-01T20:54:32Z")
> [@scifisam2009](#): > > the opposite is true for Buffy: she wears lots of different outfits, but they don’t look expensive at all Buffy would go broke on leather alone: Several leather jackets, in styles that are definitely not vintage Half a dozen pairs of leather pants A few leather skirts, including an ankle-length one that must have cost a mint “Stylish yet affordable boots” by the dozens. Maybe mom or dad bought her a jacket or two but I don’t think they’d spring for the skin-tight red leather pants! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-movie-other-fictional-character-live-most-beyond-their-incomes/552105.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-movie-other-fictional-character-live-most-beyond-their-incomes/552105.md?page=4)