Anne Marie on That Girl. She was some kind of aspiring actress who barely worked, and yet she had an endless wardrobe up groovy hip outfits that were never repeated and an apartment full of the hippest & mod decor.
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.
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.
Later in the series things become at least a little more realistic. Carrie gets book deals, gets help from Charlotte (who, following her divorce, is wealthy enough to not have to work at all, and then marries a successful attorney) in buying her apartment, and further supplements her income by writing a column for Vogue. Of course, Mr. Big is probably a billionaire; that takes care of that once she marries him.
The other three main characters are realistic in terms of money. Charlotte appears to come from a wealthy family, marries into an even wealthier one, benefits financially from her divorce, and then marries Harry, an attorney (possibly a partner? I can’t remember). Miranda becomes a partner at her firm around season 3. Samantha runs what appears to be a very successful PR company. The least realistic thing about the other three is how they have the time and energy to run around Manhattan having sexual exploits and then gab about it over lunch afterward.
ETA: In regard to Dexter, I also assumed that Dexter had been able to save a considerable sum owing to his spartan lifestyle. His biggest vice that isn’t serial murder seems to be fast food; other than that he wouldn’t seem spend much money at all.
Well, she did turn the occasional trick.
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.
I sometimes wonder about the economics of Robert B. Parker’s detective Spenser, since he seems apt to work for free. A notable offender is Walking Shadow, in which Spenser works for his sweetie Susan and employs two backup musclemen (Hawk & Vinnie) and one Chinese-language interpreter in a case that takes weeks to resolve and involves a lot of travelling up and down Massachussets. I can maybe imagine Hawk working the case out of loyalty to Spenser and love for Susan, but there’s no way Vinnie & Mei Ling were doing so.
Parker [del]does[/del] did 
make an attempt to justify, or at least handwave, this several books, though. At the beginning of the story, Spenser will mention that he just finished a case for which he’s gotten a big payday, but we don’t get to hear about it–presumably because he found the case boring.
Dexter is very much a non-consumer. I don’t think he’d spend much beyond the bare necessities.
I don’t think Mike Brady was unrealistic. At least not that much.
Real estate wasn’t sky high in the late 60s in California. Mike’s house only had three bedrooms (plus a maid’s room). The kids wore hand-me-downs, Mike took them camping and to the Grand Canyon, both cheap vacations. Remember his Hawaii vacation and Cincinnati Amusment Park vacations were paid for by his company. Even the boating trip was courtesy of his boss.
Did the kids ever have anything really extravagant? Peter and Bobby had a TV but so what? So did I in the 70s and I was 10 years old. I got a paper route. Marcia and Jan and Peter and Greg were shown at times to have part time jobs (though whether or not they lasted is debateable)
He owned what appeared to be a successful restaurant.
At the end of the series the entire gang could probably afford their lifestyles.
I always thought the issue was re Chandler. Now he worked as an Executive and it was mentioned many times that he very well off. He could have probably afforded a far better apartement then he had.
“No, that’s my whore money! I have to save it for something special!”
The gang on Burn Notice has tons of money for a pack of unpaid vigilantes. Fi of course has some enterprises on the side, but I can only assume Michael and Sam skim some of the piles of cash they’ve encountered.
The guys could probably make more money at the Cheesecake Factory.
But isn’t that one of the reasons he was well off? He could afford a better place but saved up instead.
I always wondered about Frasier’s money. Sure, he was a psychiatrist, but do radio personalities make that much?
He boasted of his designer Art Deco furniture (the couch was an exact replica of that owned by Coco Chanel in her Paris atelier), he had lots of great art (including a Chihuly sculpture that goes for around $10k), and was always able to dole out funds to charity events.
I thought that Frasier and Niles had trust funds from their mother’s family.
Siskel and Ebert devoted an entire episode of At The Movies called “How can they afford that apartment?” IIRC aside from the aforementioned Lois Lane, they mentioned the Patsy Kensit movie Twenty-One, where she played some free-spirit social butterfly 21 year old, with no job, living in what appeared to be a 3,000 square foot loft.
There was an episode from the first season where they did, in fact, keep a ton of money from some bad dudes for the specificd purpose of financing their vigilante ways.
It depends, but unless they’re syndicated, probably not.
Still, I think it was mentioned at some point in the series that his mother came from money. Also he had a successful psychiatric practice beforehand and was making enough doing that to afford a nice townhouse in Boston. So it’s also possible that he managed to save up a lot of money and make some wise investments before moving back to Seattle.
Frasier’s mother’s family had enough wealth to be “upper class” but not “stinkin’ rich”. Frasier and Niles both attended expensive private schools. Nile’s invisible wife is the uber-wealthy one. Both seem to invest wisely and have profitable practices.
Frasier’s apartment is similar to the one belonging to a lawyer I know, so I don’t think it’s entirely off base.
As for his furniture tastes and whatnot, our house has vintage designer pieces and we’re not by any stretch wealthy, we just know how to exploit Craig’s List.
On Burn Notice the Michael Weston character only rarely asks for money from his clients (especially if they are “good people”). In the last cliffhanger episode Michael took a submersible vehicle from a crooked lawyer as “payment”. I forget the back story about how he came into his loft/warehouse…but he’s living there basically mortgage/rent free and off the grid somehow.
But helpfully, Sam & Fiona have no such qualms about doing stuff for money and are able subsidize Michael’s convenient vow of austerity.
I remember that episode. They also talked about the movie Quicksilver with Kevin Bacon. He’s a guy so desperate for cash taht he takes a job as a bike courier… while living in a completely empty warehouse.