I’m with @sue22. I have sympathy for those who face hardships not of their own making. But here we have a well educated guy who has made a string of poor decisions, including mooching off others, to live a certain lifestyle or to project a certain aura. The title of the article and the beginning of the article focus on the middle class. If I was a true middle class person, unlike the author who is not (didn’t qualify for FA for kids’ college), I would have seen the title and thought “Hmm, let me read this because this sounds like it could pertain to me and my circumstances.” Then I would have read the article and been pissed off and resentful.
Google is a useful tool. Zillow, which tends to be pretty accurate, estimates his house to be worth over $2.6 million. East Hampton is expensive, even if you are not living oceanfront in a mansion, even if you are living year round and not just summering. Given his profession, he could live anywhere and would have plenty of choices across the country where his daughters could receive a good public school education at a much lower real estate price point (let alone the prices and goods and services in a highly priced area), even elsewhere in Long Island. But my guess is he is the type that gets caught up in saying he lives in East Hampton.
He’s 66 years old. That’s pretty darn late to have an epiphany about his finances. Am I concerned for him to be financially strapped at that age knowing that his earning potential is limited by his age? Yes. Do I feel sympathy? Maybe a little but not much and definitely nowhere near the amount I would for those facing true hardships not of their own making.
Is he brave to write about himself? For me, no. He does a disservice to those who truly have faced middle class struggles and an eroding middle class lifestyle throughout their life. I think he wrote the article because he knew it was the kind of stuff that would sell, become viral (we’re talking about it!), and he needed the money. I just don’t see where his tale helps those who face an eroding middle class, where both parents have worked their whole lives and often more than one job at a time.
Why would he take the money upfront if he had to pay income taxes at a higher rate? For example, Why not take $62,500 a year for 4 years instead? Have the income match expenses better?
I know you can’t put yourself into Gabler’s shoes.
Also, doesn’t he have to amortize expenses?
One thing about certain careers is they are age based. In my career, most people peaked in their 30’s. Most women actresses probably peak in their 20’s, early 30’s. If you are a drummer, its tough to lug drums around in your 50’s and 60’s. My wife’s distant cousin worked on the Carol Burnett Show. He probably peaked in his 40’s.
What we don’t know, we don’t know. We don’t know a lot. I don’t know what I am going to be doing in a few hours. How am I supposed to know what my life will be like in 20 years? I will be 80. Maybe I won’t even have a life.
I get the not being able to rely on a constant income thing. I never knew what I was going to make. I could have lost big at times. I have empathy for people who don’t have reliable incomes. I saved tons. Gabler didn’t. I still have empathy for him.
People tend to spend more when they make more. They become accustomed to that spending. I think it is hard for people to downsize. People can be optimistic. “I am struggling now, but the future is bright. So…I don’t have to cut back. I only live once so I am going to enjoy my life”.
I don’t know all the ins and outs of this, but Gabler, as a self-employed person, is able to deduct business expenses, including (for example) costs for his working space. It may be that his problem was that he got all his income in one year, and then had nothing to deduct against in the subsequent years. That would be a kind of double whammy. It does seem like it would be more sensible to take the advance in installments, but I don’t know if that is really possible.
It’s a double edged sword, isn’t it? It’s a great thing and keeps the human race going through all kinds of natural disasters, wars, famine, holocausts, you name the disaster both large scale and more personal. Yet, it can cause us to put on our rose colored glasses sometimes and not adjust based on past experience and make poorly calculated or risky decisions.
@dstark - The wife can’t be under the impression that things were going well if they had been living frugally for several years according to him.
We have old cars by choice although we do know we have a bank balance to pay for an expensive car outright but we allocated the money to college already. Same can’t be said for the author that if things were going good he had to keep 10 or 20 year old car.
@hunt - I suspect they take it upfront lest the company change their mind later about the book and cut off future funding.
If he spends, say, 4 years writing a book and he wants to maintain a lifestyle that includes living on Long Island and putting two kids through expensive schools, he needs to make at least $600,000 off that single book, probably more. That is very, very difficult for any but the top authors to do.
He can be as optimistic as he wants, but the numbers still have to add up if he is going to support his family.
Optimism is a double edged sword. I do think optimists have better lives than pessimists. Attitude is very important.
That house value is very interesting.
I think Gabler should do a follow up article and explain the house. Explain why he got into tax trouble with the advance. He could make more money with the follow up article.
I have known many successful writers, including one ginormously successful one, who worked as temps or word processors in law firms on the way up or at times when they have needed a stable salary or benefits. They all managed to write, as well.
The wife could have reinvented herself and found SOME job or other. I’d do that before borrowing money for heating oil from my kids or raiding a 401k to pay for a kid’s wedding or having my folks fund my kids’ dream colleges.
Oh wait, I and many people in CC have done this–found jobs after taking time out to raise our kids to supplement family finances. Maybe it wasn’t our dream jobs, but it helped with the myriad of expenses that are part of living the way we prefer to live and keeps us from having to borrow or raid retirement accounts.
Many in HI work multiple jobs to make ends meet as best they can and when it still doesn’t work, they sadly move to somewhere they can more comfortably afford, with lower housing and COL.
My DH owns his own business and works on 100% commission. Income is not guaranteed and differs from year to year. When he gets a commission, the money goes into his corporation. If he decides to pay himself, his accountant writes him a check and takes out the income taxes, social security, etc. from it. At the end of the year, we either owe some more or get a refund. But doing it this way keeps him honest to himself and doesn’t allow for the situation described above. He knows other people in his industry who don’t do it this way, and sometimes they end up in the same boat as Gabler. If you are not very very disciplined, you can get in big trouble if you don’t set aside the tax money or incorporate and have your corporation pay you as though it were an employer like any other.
Yep! We always have at least 3 years living expenses saved. We chose 3 years because for the first three years of our marriage, DH’s industry was in a major slump and he had no income at all. We lived on my measly salary, so as soon as times got good again, we began socking it away so that we’d be ready to weather the next slump.
Did the wife not know that the grandparents were paying for her children’s college educations? Of course you don’t expect to walk back into a career after taking a hiatus for 10-20 years but even going back at half the old salary, or even less, would help. I worked throughout my kids’ childhood but other female family members did not yet they went back to work and rebuilt careers and in most instances have now surpassed their old earnings.
I think there are a lot of missing pieces to this story but they might not fit the narrative nor are people good at being objective about their own lives and tales, even writers.
Gabler has another job. He works at Stony Brook Southampton.
@texaspg, you mentioned buying an expensive car. I think buying an expensive car is a waste of money. I am right about this.
I dropped my ipad in the garage. The ipad cracked. My oldest daughter came over and asked what I did to the ipad.
I told her I dropped it. It cracked. I scotched taped it back together.
See? I am teaching my daughter excellent financial values while teaching her not to drop things.
Not paying the taxes when they were due didn’t change the amount he owed. He simply had to pay a big chunk out of what was essentially a 3-year paycheck. How he thought accruing late fees was going to be a good financial decision is beyond me.
@dstark - may be so but driving around in 10 year old cars while paying 70-130k to colleges because they demand does not seem to be that much fun. I keep going whats in it for me that I have to work so hard to give it to the most liberal institutions in the world (Karma I guess!).
The more I learn about Gabler, the more I cringe. BTW—That TV job he lost? That was a gig on PBS that he did for only three years back in the 80’s.And he did not loose it, he quit. “I didn’t like television and the things I was required to do. I thought I was a lot smarter than I was allowed to be on the program.” HE QUIT! (And it was hardly a recent event that he had to overcome ).And his wife the “movie executive” managed a movie producer’s office back in '82. I managed an office for a producer at Paramount for a few years back in the 80’s as well and I hardly call myself a “former movie executive”. I lost the job in '85 .I got fired! Somehow I got over it , moved on and got back in the work force.
Seems to me someone who wanted to be a tv writer and married to a movie executive would move to Los Angeles. I don’t know the difference in cost of living, but job prospects would be better. I can’t believe anyone would take money from grandparents for their kids college or pay for a wedding with a 401k.
One of the most successful writer/journalists I know lives in Oklahoma City and works full time as a PR manager for a non profit. I see her byline all the time on AP stories on yahoo, and she’s also had articles in magazines. It can be done, she’s just not quitting her “day” job.
Thanks for the home info Doschicos. I was giving him something more of the benefit of the doubt, seeing EH homes in the 700 to 800K range. The Zillow estimates may be high, but still likely worth over a million. That is decidedly NOT middle class. It makes me have even less sympathy for him and believe that his article is misleading in suggesting he is just like all the others who are struggling.
Others that live in beach towns rent their homes out for the summer and go rent cheaply somewhere else. Home in EH rent for several hundreds per night according to home rental websites.
It is one thing to discuss your financial issues as a cautionary tale. But it is another to pretend to be middle class when living in a home worth over $2 million and which offers you the opportunity to put a big dent in your financial hole, just by moving out for a while.
I feel kind of bad for his kids. Especially the daughter (and son-in-law) who may not have even known that dad emptied his 401K for their wedding.
