I hope you kept all of the records of dividend reinvestment and other purchases (which probably resulted in lots of fractional shares). Otherwise, it can be a hassle reconstructing the cost basis for tax purposes when selling the stock (especially if there were splits, spinoffs, or mergers relating to that stock).
“But I agree I should not have been so unnecessarily defensive and unfair to posters. Like the author, when you are this close to financial instability, it is very easy to get defensive about the choices we have made, and the ones we perhaps should have made.”
Yeah, that makes sense, especially when people you know have made ignorant comments to you. We all project our experiences to others, just can’t help it. I’ve made plenty of financial decisions I regret, and some that I don’t regret, that others thought we were insane to make. Hindsight surely is 20/20. But I don’t think this guys situation is even remotely like yours. It would be nonsensical and unfair to criticize people who have had medical issues. I think Iglooo’s comment about it being more like crumbling nobility (did I get that right?) than middle class problems was accurate.
“He had air taken out of his tires slowly” (Post #534) No, he simply refused to fix the leak.
And, @ucbalumnus, I have indeed kept all the records. One year-end summary page per year over the last 20 years. Twenty pages altogether. Thanks for the heads up.
@busdriver11, ITA (#541.) We’ve been down that path with major medical issues, too. Outside of CC:PC, I don’t talk about them and even relatives have no clue.
We’ve also made some poor choices, some of which had nothing to do with anyone’s health. Unlike the author, we’ve tried to learn from them, educate ourselves so we can do better, and move on. I do get impatient with whining, especially from adults who don’t seem to make an effort to change.
I don’t think most are projecting. We are questioning his contention that his very real financial issues are the same of as those of the middle class. Or that he is one of the “poor” year round EH residents. His EH home is not a “poor person’s” home. Those of us that live in the NYC suburbs, know that there were many places his kids could have gotten a great education surrounded by affluent folks in a $400K house back in the later 1990s. You just had to buy the mid-range or cheaper home surrounded by those in the $700K homes.
While you can argue that his decisions were his and if he had continued to sell movie rights or wrote a best seller, he would have been able to support his lifestyle, the way he spins it is what has caused many here to question his story and his spin.
Medical issues can be VERY costly and force a lot of choices that no one wants to make. I have sympathy for folks who are in uncomfortable financial situations due to serious medical issues. The OP never mentioned this as adding to his continuous financial slide, just pointed out one expensive financial decision made after another.
Sorry, I’m not buying that the wife and Ds had no idea of their financial situation. If you frequently find unpaid bills, that’s a tip.
Our current Governor was accepted to MIT for engineering but chose NOT to tell his folks and go to in-state flagship U to save his parents money. His other sibs did go away to expensive Us for engineering and he didn’t want to be a further burden to his folks.
We all make choices and the clues are around if we choose to look for them about whether or not the family is financially comfortable or struggling.
I get that the OP doesn’t make enough money to live the life he believes he should live (and that many others don’t either). Where I and many don’t ID with him is that he made repeated financial choices that were extremely expensive and dig his financial hole ever deeper. He has never learned to live beneath his financial means and live without debt.
Insanity is making the same choices repeatedly and expecting different results.
There are exceptions of course, but I’ve found exactly the same thing. The people for whom it’s a real stretch to pay me, do it right away without even asking. The rich guys lose the invoices, wait for months and whine that they shouldn’t have to pay more even though they doubled the original scope of the job.
“Sorry, I’m not buying that the wife and Ds had no idea of their financial situation. If you frequently find unpaid bills, that’s a tip.”
This one I completely believe. You would be surprised how many spouses leave the finances to the other and then - boom! - the shock comes that there was some hidden self-dealing going on. One person has the key to the mailbox, the bills are electronic… paid out of the working spouse’s account. There are many, many ways to hide financial infidelity. Remember the recent thread?
I used to live near a middle school and there was a suspiciously tall young man who was a crossing guard during the afternoon when school got out.
Turns out it was Adrian Dantly - a former NBA player and member of the Hall of Fame who took the job so he could get health insurance. This was before Obama care so I wonder if he’s still at it. Good, smart, choice for him though!
Impressive, greenwitch, taking care of business!
NG says the bills are coming in the mailbox all the time. If the wife ignores them, I guess it’s selective blindness. If they both know they need a new roof and are dragging their feet, that’s another sign. There must have been countless such signs over the decades.
I take care of all our finances on-line. Very little paperwork comes to the house. Our tax returns are complicated and husband trusts I’m giving the accountant all the correct info and the accountant is doing his job. He just signs the form. Occasionally he asks me to explain something on the forms before he signs. A few times a year I explain to him where the finances stand and remind him where all the account info and passwords are in case he needs them. It is an absolute leap of faith on his part that I’m telling him the truth about everything. My husband is the smartest person I know. I have friends with the same arrangements. It’s not that unusual in my experience. It is easy to be dishonest. I wrote up-thread about a friend who divorced her husband when she found out how much he had hidden from her.
My wife disagrees with me and agrees with you and others.
She can’t believe my views. She reminded me that I used to tell the kids, “You are the sum of your choices”. I thought I meant morally, but whatever. 
She thinks NG is a poor poster boy. She doesn’t trash him. She thinks he should sell or rent his place.
Yes, I handle the bulk of finances in our house, but I would never keep financial problems to myself–it’s a disservice to H and our family.
We do go over the tax returns the CPA prepares as well as the summary sheet from the CPA.
When I was growing up, I had a general sense of how our family was doing financially, even if I was never privy to ANY discussions of finances. It changed from very struggling when I was very little and we had only one car and meager food to more comfortable when we moved to the suburbs and got second used car to more comfortable when dad joined the country club.
Speaking of this thread… What I find interesting here is that the same thing happens in many corporate boardrooms, and it is not good for the business. A manager screws up and admits it, accounts for the mistakes. The person gets fired. Instead of diving into a productive discussion of how things can be turned around, what lessons are learned, and what can be salvaged, people in the room continue to discuss how bad of an idiot that incompetent manager was. I have seen this many, many times.
ETA: I see that the discussion is turning more productive. It is not very productive to say repeatedly gee how screwed up NG was. He was. Stick a fork in it.
@midwestdad3 - You must have been paying dividend taxes for all those years on the DRIP right?
There’s a beautiful historic house near me with a glorious yard and I passed it one day walking my dog and there was a wedding reception going on. How sweet!
Then our neighborhood list serve blew up a week or so later because there was another wedding reception there! Was someone being smart and making some extra money to pay off debts? Uh, yeah, the convicted felon who hasn’t paid his taxes in a few years and got caught bribing a state official and was sentenced to 5 years in federal prison.
Smart? Maybe. But also not permitted and breaking the noise ordinance in a tight residential neighborhood so it seems more like “once a criminal, always a criminal”.
P.S. He tried to appeal while in prison when the feds were garnishing the rent checks he got for renting out the place so I doubt he’s letting them know about these wedding venue fees.
@dstark You married a smart woman!
There are tens of millions of Americans who struggle financially through no fault of their own and who deserve our sympathy and help.
Neal Gabler isn’t one of them.
There are many problems that are very hard to solve. But some problems actually have very easy solutions and only a fool (regardless of their level of education) can’t readily see this. Gabler’s problems could all been avoided if he had followed one simple rule:
Of course, for many people following this rule is very difficult or impossible. Maybe they’re struggling to support a family on < 40K a year, live in a high cost area, or their paying to send their kids to college; maybe they have health problems that prevent them from working or that are very costly to treat. I completely understand why those families aren’t in a position to save any money or have to go into debt or even bankruptcy.
But Gabler is a successful author who has consistently earned a solid 6 figure income and who hasn’t really had any unexpected tragedies to deal with. He’s benefited from a great education. He has no excuse.
I’ve seen many people like him. They all think their problem is that they don’t make enough money. But that’s usually completely false. If you had given him an extra $100,000 per year for the last 20 years he would have found a way to have squandered it and would just have ended up in the same place. Best as I can tell from the article, over the years he’s spent almost $2,000,000 dollars (net of taxes) above and beyond his income. He’s spent every dime he could get his hands on, including borrowing from his inheritance and his home equity. Running out of money is the only thing that has stopped this pattern. He has a spending problem and an entitlement problem, not an income problem.
In Gabler’s case, I might also add a second rule:
I’m surprised that more people haven’t strongly criticized Gabler for this. Generally when 1-percenters don’t pay their taxes there isn’t much empathy for them. A chunk of his book advance wasn’t his to begin with – after all, most people have the amount of taxes they owe withheld immediately. He’s lucky the IRS didn’t garnish his income and seize his house. Besides, by the time the IRS is through collecting penalties and interest then you will have ended up paying upwards of 50% annual interest for the use of the money. It’s cheaper to borrow the money from Don Corleone.
I wouldn’t be critical if the message of his article was “it’s surprising easily for even an upper-middle class / rich professional family with an annual earnings potential well into the 6 figures to get in over their heads and squander their financial resources. It’s incredibly tempting and easy to make poor decisions. Here are the mistakes I made – everyone should try to avoid them”.
He sort of says this. But of course he realizes that this message won’t garner much sympathy and reflects poorly on him. So he then tries to play the victim card and conflates his situation with that of people who are truly struggling. To me, it’s quite clear that he’s spinning the truth and misleading his readers in order to generate undeserved sympathy. I think he comes across as an entitled, prevaricating fool.
I have a very elderly uncle sort of like the author. First his parents bailed him out, then my parents, and now his kids. He’s over 90 now Recently I was telling my husband I hoped one of the members of the younger generation didn’t turn out like Uncle Irresponsible and husband replied he wasn’t sure it has been a problem for Uncle since he’d had a pretty nice life, and fortunately family members had had the means to subsidize him when necessary. My mother always resented it, but he really didn’t impact her standard of living. He managed to get his kids elite, fancy educations so they are well able to keep him going during the twilight years. Looking at it that way, I decided to quit being aggravated about him on behalf of my grandmother and mother. That was a huge relief. If I’m beyond being upset with Uncle, I sure can’t be agitated about someone I don’t even know. Though I kind of liked the idea of a road trip to check out his house.