How the Other 1% Lives

Some people read F. Scott Fitzgerald when they want a glimpse into the lives of the wealthy. Others watch Entourage or Sex and the City. As for me, I like to turn to the Real Estate section of the New York Times, where I came across this article. The groundbreaking thesis? When most people are faced with a large expense, such as a down payment on an apartment in New York City, they tend to make efforts to save as much money as possible.

The people profiled in the article are not really the ultra-wealthy; the salary figures that the writer quotes show that most of them only make about twice the median household income for the United States. The heroic measures taken by these modern-day Scrooges in order to scrimp every penny include cooking their own meals, taking advantage of happy hours and drink specials at bars, shopping the sale racks at Urban Outfitters, and being deprived of new $300 Gucci shoes (which was too much to ask of one man, who bought them despite the fact that they didn't fit).

I was also amused by this description of a 31-year-old woman :

She also wanted an apartment large enough to fit her lunchbox collection, her Spiderman collection and her collection of Jack Skellington dolls in coffins from “The Nightmare Before Christmas.”

Because really, what's the point of owning your apartment if it doesn't look like it was decorated by Tom Hanks in Big?