Desperate Housewives
The Desperate Finances of Desperate Housewives
By Laura Scharr-Bykowsky CFP®
How the recession affected the pampered "Housewives" from the Bravo reality show.
I admit it. I am addicted to Bravo’s “Housewives of…” reality TV series that follows real life 40-something women in various cities around the US who live the high life.
Oddly enough, my husband got me hooked. We watch with fascination each week while one well-dressed and coiffed, vacuous woman after another embarrasses herself on national television. It is like watching an impending emotional train wreck.
Regardless of the locale---Orange County, Atlanta, New York, New Jersey and DC---- the theme remains the same. Well-kept housewives with overly inflated opinions of themselves overindulge in plastic surgery, host high-end dinner parties, go on multiple thousand dollar clothing sprees, all while maintaining a high level of gossip and rivalry with one or more of the other women in their circle. The antics of these adult women could make high school girl Facebook bullies blush.
My initial thought when I began watching the show was, “Wow. How much money do these women have that they are able to spend it so frivolously on materialistic things?”
On the surface, these women seemed so lucky. They were able to spend indiscriminately. In a blink of an eye they got what they wanted, when they wanted it. They lived the “good life” of fine clothes, food, travel and an endless supply of Botox. Women all around America watched with disgust, tinged with a bit of envy.
Life seemed so easy for some of these women. They had personal shoppers that delivered designer clothing to their door for their review, personal make-up artists, and hair stylists to make them up prior to evenings out. Their calendars seemed full of liquor-filled lunches.
Then, a funny thing happened on the way to the “Great Recession.” Suddenly the façade of endless spending was replaced with the grim reality of the tragic effect the economic crisis and financial irresponsibility had on many of these women.
When the California real estate market plunged, real house wife of Orange County, Jeana Keogh, a real estate agent and owner of four high end properties, is forced to consider selling her homes or modifying the loans to avoid foreclosure. Ultimately, she leaves the show to focus on her career, as she is cash poor and real estate rich.
Her plight is probably shared by many real estate agents as well as countless other Americans who believed putting all their investment eggs in the real estate basket was a smart move in the face of the skyrocketing price appreciation of the ‘90s to mid-2000s.
Also in Orange County, Tamara Barney’s marriage is ripped apart when tension builds due to the financial stress. She had worked as a real estate agent, making an ample income to supplement her husband Simon’s income from his car dealership. Her husband ends up selling the dealership and moves to other ventures, but the reduced income takes its toll on the couple. In addition, they now have the burden of a new custom home that’s worth far less than what they paid for it.
Their marriage seemed so much better when the money was flowing. When tough financial times hit, the underlying tension due to Simon’s controlling nature bubbled to the surface. Tamara seemed to delay the inevitable due to the children, and felt she couldn’t go out on her own due to her poor finances. She ultimately ends up in a small apartment with her three young children, happy to be on her own and making decisions for herself for the first time in years.
Another “housewife” of Orange County, Gretchen Rossi, receives far less than expected from the estate of her dead fiancé and finds out he was in a tremendous amount of debt. Not very surprising, considering that he supplied her with endless baubles and even a pink motorcycle.
Gretchen suffered from a loss of income due to the fact that she left her job (real estate again) to focus on taking care of her fiancée’s health. The May-December romance is fodder for much ridicule within the group of women. Gretchen is seen as a “gold digger and kept women.” Clearly her fiancée was trying his best to spoil and reward her for her loyalty to him in his last days. She learns a lesson about making sure to have her own money and career and after his death uses her inheritance to invest in a new line of makeup, among other things.
In an especially tense episode of the Housewives of Orange County, Lynne and Frank Curtain and their two daughters are evicted from their rental house for failing to pay their security deposit. After the eviction, an angry Lynn confronts Frank about his secrecy regarding their finances.
