Wimbledon Prize Money

I spent a good portion of the July 4th weekend watching tennis, since the weather wasn't all that nice where I was. While watching the championship matches, all I could think about was how amazingly these people play. The Williams sisters were great, and then the Nadal/Federer match had me gasping repeatedly when seemingly ungettable shots would not only be returned, but then those returns would actually be perfectly placed winning shots. I had to leave to go back to NYC after the fourth set, so I was left wondering what happened and didn't get to see the final LONG set in which Nadal won. Wow.
But now that I'm back to my weekday blogging life, here's what I'm thinking about: how much money did they win!? Here's the dirt from the Wimbledon website:

	2007	2008	Increase
Total Prize Money	£11,282,710	£11,812,000	4.7%
Gentlemen's Singles Winner	£700,000	£750,000	7.1%
Gentlemen's Singles Runner-up	£350,000	£375,000	7.1%
Ladies' Singles Winner	£700,000	£750,000	7.1%
Ladies' Singles Runner-up	£350,000	£375,000	7.1%
Gentlemen's Doubles Winners	£229,000	£230,000	3.2%
Gentleman's Doubles Runners-up	£111,440	£115,000	3.2%
Ladies' Doubles Winners	£222,900	£230,000	3.2%
Ladies' Doubles Runners-up	£111,440	£115,000	3.2%
Mixed Doubles Winners	£90,000	£92,000	2.2%
Mixed Doubles Runners-up	£45,000	£46,000	2.2%

(£1 is currently about $1.98)

It's interesting to note that the prize money is increasing more or less in line with estimated inflation rates. But the prizes for the top singles players have increased far more than inflation, and the lesser prizes seem to be not quite keeping up with inflation. I guess in tennis, as in the rest of life, income inequality is increasing!

Fiercely Frugal: Tyra Banks

Who knew? I've never actually seen Tyra's show, but here's my favorite part of the cover story about her in the New York Times Magazine:

She has no interest in owning the latest designer this or that — her wardrobe, which features form-hugging, low-cut dresses on air and jeans for the office, is mostly within the budget and desires of her audience. At the end of each taping, a photo of Banks, head to toe, is posted on the show’s Web site with links to information on where to purchase whatever she had on.

“I’m frugal,” she said. “I’ve always been this way. When I was young, my mom would give me my allowance, and I’d peel off a little each week and have some to spare.” She looked around the room, which had cream industrial carpeting and walls painted in a shade somewhere between cantaloupe and terra cotta. “When we moved into these offices, I didn’t like the carpet,” she continued. “But do you know what carpeting costs? It’s really expensive. So, I picked out a color palette that would go with this carpet, and I painted the walls instead. Painting is much less expensive than carpet.” She considered this decision for a moment. “One of the first things I ask when I hire someone who deals with the financials of the company is about their spending habits. How you spend money reveals a lot about you.”

Banks does not flaunt her income like some superstars. “As Chris Rock says,” Veronica Webb, who modeled with Banks, told me, “ ‘Tyra’s not drinking Puffy juice and taking Kanye injections.’ She hasn’t become obnoxious because she’s successful. She’s always been a businesswoman and a sweet girl.”

From her two shows, Banks makes an estimated $18 million a year, and her net worth is around $75 million.

Now that's my idea of model behavior!

Eartha Kitt

I keep seeing mentions of Eartha Kitt lately, in the NY Times Arts section and various other places. She is 80 years old and still going strong, with a series of performances at the Cafe Carlyle here in New York this fall. You may remember her more for her role as Catwoman in the old Batman TV show, but I always associate her with her wacky foray into disco with a song called Where Is My Man, which I remember hearing on the radio when I was a kid:

Where Is My Man?

I don’t wanna be alone where is my man?
I don’t wanna be alone where is my man?
I spend hours by the phone where is my baby?
I chew my fingers to the bone where is my man?

My list of needs is really quite brief, I need a man who can bring my relief,
From all the stress and strains of the day with just a tiny stroll thru Cartier
I need a man who can take me then taunt me and make me
Buy the things I so richly deserve, a man who knows what I require
Is the thing that I desire, is there anyone out there who has the nerve?

Where is my baby? He can’t be far, look for an ascot, a big cigar, tell him to find me, just send his car to this address I have to stress, I need him now
Where is my baby when will he start? To use his Visa right to my heart
I’ll give him Carte Blanche baby be smart, baby, drop your amount in my account
But do it now.

The kind of man that I adore is the kind of man that gives me more of all the better things in life that aren't free.
Such as summer by the sea, The Hamptons, Malibu, Capri
The kind of man who comes alive when he comes near Rodeo Drive
Is the kind of man who wins my heart with style and class
You know I've tried some other men, the kind with zeros less than ten.
But every time I grab the ring it's always brass

Now there's another musical classic for a personal finance playlist! I wasn't familiar enough with Eartha Kitt's entire repertoire to have realized it, but apparently songs about money are her stock in trade! From the NY Times review:

During a show that found her prowling the stage in a dark red velvet dress, she was unable to contain her amusement at her gold-digger routine. Or as she said, widening her cat’s eyes into a ravenous stare and scouring a room filled with well-heeled patrons before breaking into a grin, “Je cherche un billionaire.”

I'm not a big fan of cabaret shows-- it's not usually my kind of music, and it's expensive! At the Carlyle, general seating is $95 per person on a Friday or Saturday night, and you have to buy dinner on top of that. But having the chance to hear Eartha Kitt growl "I want a man with a big, big, big... yacht" might be worth it!

What Price is Right for Drew Carey?

$100 and up if you're talking about his tip on a meal at Denny's or Cracker Barrel.

It was recently announced that Drew Carey would take over Bob Barker's role telling people to "come on down" on The Price is Right, a favorite game show of my youth. The New York times article about it wonders:

Was Mr. Carey that desperate for work?
"Well, I don't need the money," said Mr. Carey, 49, whose network series "The Drew Carey Show" and "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" live on in lucrative reruns after ending within the last few years. And yet, while he would not disclose his new salary, he acknowledged, "I like the fact that I'm getting paid."

Carey won't be giving away his own money on the show, but he says he likes the idea of giving away prizes to people who probably really need them. As far as his own money goes, he likes giving out those big tips. The article didn't say anything about whether or not he donates to charities, but maybe he just enjoys the immediate feel-good aspect of sharing money with individual people like restaurant waitstaff and game show contestants.

"I just want to share the wealth," he said. "And by doing 'Price is Right,' that's what I'll be doing every day."

The Bachelorette Party

As I wrote several weeks ago, my friend Fifi is getting married. I decided not to go to her expensive island wedding and feel that in doing so I have already given her a valuable present: she was talking about how the cake costs $120 for just the bride and groom, plus $15 for every additional person who has a slice. I can only imagine what everything else must cost!

But of course skipping the wedding didn't mean skipping all the rest of the fun: last night was the bachelorette party. I have to say that I approached this with some degree of trepidation. Fifi is an old family friend that I have known forever, and though we get along well and I adore her, we are very different in a lot of ways. She is a couple of years older than me, and as an adolescent I was always a bit awed by her seemingly effortless ability to wear makeup & dress fashionably. She always has expensive shoes, bags and jewelry (to the detriment of her finances, of course.) And I knew that all her other friends seemed to fit this mold as well, though I'd rarely met any of them. So when she invited me to the bachelorette party, saying we'd be going out to dinner and then to a club afterwards to go dancing, I inwardly groaned a bit, envisioning myself amidst this crowd of exceedingly worked-out, well-groomed, dressed- and accessorized-to-the-nines females. It's not as though I am some obese troll who wears nothing but sweatpants and Birkenstocks, but knowing you are going to be hanging out with a crowd whose appearance values are on a different scale than yours can still bring out a lot of insecurity!

In any case, I had resigned myself to all that, and prepared for the party as best I could. I had an outfit in mind, and I spent about $35 on assorted gifts of edible undergarments, edible handcuffs, and an edible, um, circular male accoutrement. Then Fifi called to make arrangements to pick me up, and mentioned the name of the club we'd be going to afterwards, where one of her other friends had gotten us on the VIP list.

I quickly googled the club, which I'd never heard of. On Citysearch, I discovered that it's considered a "crowded," "trendy," "see and be seen" type of club, and that bottle service starts at over $1,000! (For those who aren't familiar with the concept, bottle service basically entitles you to sit down in a banquette and be attended to by a waitress. You buy an extremely marked-up bottle of liquor, which will come with some ice and mixers. There's usually a maximum number of drinkers per bottle, lest you'd think you could make it worthwhile by having a lot of people share. I'd heard of places charging a couple hundred dollars for a bottle, but never over $1,000.)
The comments that people have left about the club involve a disturbing level of debate as to the racial criteria of the doormen, and whether or not there are "a lot of guidos." It's obvious that some of the comments have been made by the club promoters themselves-- it's actually kind of fascinating to see what they say. For this kind of club, no one will want to go if they think it's not exclusive. But if they think it's truly impossible to get in, they won't bother to try. Women won't want to go to the club if there aren't enough guys. And guys won't want to go if there aren't enough women. (There's no pretense that this is a "mixed," i.e. gay/straight, crowd.) So you have to strike this careful balance of saying "the door is really tight, so a lot of people won't get in, but you probably might get in if you try, and there's lots of hot guys, and lots of hot girls, so many that the gender ratio will be in your favor no matter what you are! And the venue is big, but it's actually quite small, and it's also really expensive, but totally worth it if you're lucky enough to get in, and did we mention that only really cool people could possibly get in? But you should try anyway..."

In case you haven't guessed this already, it didn't sound like my kind of scene. But I decided to gamely soldier on in the name of friendship.

The evening arrives. Of course my friend takes way too long to get dressed, so by the time I get picked up, it's 5 minutes before our dinner reservation time, and we still have to get from Brooklyn to the West Village. We call the restaurant, call one of the other party guests to try to get her to show up and keep us from losing our table, and then miraculously make it there by only about 20 minutes after our reservation. By a half-hour after the reservation, all but 2 of our party are there, and we are seated. The restaurant, of course, is a very "in" place that one of the girls, "Adriana," recommended. They are already antsy about us being so late because they have another group coming in later and they need to turn the table. We tell them the other 2 girls are "on their way" even though we've discovered that they have only just left the suburbs. We have drinks, we have appetizers, we have entrees and are looking at the dessert menu, 2 hours after our original reservation time, when the missing duo arrive. One asks, "Did you guys order yet?"

My fears of being under-dressed, under-jeweled, and under-made-up were somewhat justified, as was my informal hypothesis that high-maintenance women have a harder time finding love. A lot of the conversation involved clothes and dating. One woman was carrying an $1,800 Jimmy Choo bag that her ex-boyfriend had given her. She and her friends had gone back and forth as to whether the bag was gorgeous or tacky, decided it was tacky, and tried to exchange it, but Jimmy Choo won't let you return things after a week so she ended up having to keep the bag, which in my opinion really was tacky. Someone else told a tale of woe about her Jimmy Choo boots, and said she has now shifted her allegiance to Christian Louboutin (easily $600 for a pair of pumps). As for the dating stories, yikes. One girl went on a first date with a guy who asked if her breasts were real, and actually reached across the restaurant table to test them for himself! Another got a call from a man who turned out to be a neighbor who had been told that a cute single girl had just moved in and that he should try to meet her. She asked who had given him her phone number, and he told her that he'd paid a private investigator $175 to figure it out for him!
Someone else told a story about a girl they'd been trying to set up on dates. She's in her late 20s and really wants to be married, but manages to find fault with every guy she meets, sometimes even before she meets him: wrong job, bad dancer, funny ears, etc.
It was a bit sad, really-- there are a lot of wackos out there, and those who aren't actually crazy often just have such high standards it's no surprise they're single!

So by the time we paid the check at the restaurant ($85 per person not including the bride-to-be), it was almost midnight. Originally I'd thought we'd leave the restaurant much earlier and be arriving at an empty club that had just opened, which to me was kind of appealing given the sound of the place. Now I figured we'd be hitting the start of the crowds, but at least I knew we shouldn't have to wait in line. "How'd we get on the VIP list," I asked. It turned out that Adriana had a friend whose son was a promoter for this club. You know, it's great to have connections who can get you on a VIP list, but for NYC clubbing I think it's probably a good rule of thumb that you should at least be of the same generation as the promoter who's getting you in! Our group was mostly late 30s-early 40s, with a core group of high school friends who'd been talking their way into Manhattan hotspots since they were about 14, but even the 20-somethings felt old when we got to this club-- we may have been the only people who didn't need to use fake IDs. Sure enough, Adriana's connection did get us breezed past most of the people who were waiting, but once we were inside, it turned out that we were going to be expected to pay the $20 cover charge, while quite a few scantily clad babelets seemed to be getting in for free. I was sort of surprised that the $20 cover made a difference at that point, but it was decided that we would leave. We went back to our cars and drove to a different place further uptown where there was supposedly a nice rooftop lounge, but the line there was a mile long. At this point, we were all starting to yawn and two of the women had to go home, so the party broke up-- so much for a wild and crazy night out on the town! Despite my desire to report back to you all on drink prices at trendy New York night spots, I was kind of glad to get home and go to bed!

Money Music

The financially fabulous SingleMom wants to know what I'm bumpin'!

I had actually been planning a post about this anyway, so it's perfect timing. Here's my ever-evolving personal finance iPod playlist-- these songs are not all explicitly about money but they all have lyrics that have something to do with money, consumerism, greed, aspirations, and dreams of the good life, or at least sound like they do when taken out of context! (I know I'm missing some obvious candidates, but these are my personal favorites-- it's not intended to be an all-encompassing list of songs about money.)

There's a gypsy down on Bleecker Street, I went in to see her as a kind of joke, And she lit a candle for my love life, and eighteen bucks went up in smoke.
Song for Sharon-- Joni Mitchell

You ain't got no money, you just ain't no good.
Hit the Road Jack-- performed by Shirley Horn

In a college town, away from home a new identity I found, said I was born elite with maids and servants at my feet. I must have been insane.
I'm Livin' in Shame-- The Supremes

Give me my money back, give me my money back, you bitch! I want my money back, and don't forget... and don't forget to give me back my black T-shirt!
Song for the Dumped-- Ben Folds Five

Once I lived the life of a millionaire, spending my money and I didn't care, takin' my friends out having a good time, buying bootleg liquor, champagne and wine. Ah, but when my money began to fall so low, didn't have a friend and I couldn't go. If I ever get my hands on a dollar again, I'm gonna squeeze it and squeeze it, until that eagle grins, 'cause noboby knows you when you're down and out. In your pocket, not one penny, and friends, you haven't any.
Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out--Alberta Hunter

All the money in the world won't buy you peace of mind, you can have it all but you still won't be satisfied.
Money Can't Buy It-- Annie Lennox

Don't even like it, but you've just gotta try it, you don't even want it, but you're gonna buy, gonna-gonna-gonna buy it.
Swine Fever-- The The

You just haven't earned it yet baby, you must suffer and cry for a longer time.
You Just Haven't Earned it Yet Baby--The Smiths (also as performed by Kirstie MacColl)

Speak to me of universal laws, The whores hustle and the hustlers whore, All around me people bleed, Speak to me your song of greed.
The Whores Hustle and the Hustlers Whore-- PJ Harvey

I am a man of means, of slender means.
Nowhere Fast-- The Smiths

Don't be mad 'cause I got it made, diva-hatin' waitin' snake in the grass, look me up and down when I pass, vibin' with your girlfriends, jealous of my dividends and my Benz...
RU Ready-- Salt-N-Pepa

I'm not the type to look for a man with cash...
Nature of a Sista-- Queen Latifah

Oh if you work hard you can be the boss, But if you don't work at all then that's nobody's loss, There's room on top - if you dig in low, And the idea is what they reap you sow.
The Lodgers-- The Style Council

We know where our hearts are--right behind our wallets, yes, and that's where they're staying.
Sugar and Stress-- The English Beat

Junk bond trader trying to sell a sucker a style, rich man in a poor man's clothes...
Junk Bond Trader--Elliott Smith

After man makes everything, everything he can, you know that man makes money to buy from other man.
It's a Man's, Man's Man's World-- James Brown

If you get too cold, I'll tax the heat, if you take a walk, I'll tax your feet.
Taxman-- The Beatles

I'm about to give you all my money and all I'm asking in return honey is to give me my propers when you get home.
Respect-- Aretha Franklin

We want the best, we won't settle for less. Don't be a drag, participate-- clams on the half shell and roller-skates!
Good Times-- Chic

Move on up and keep on wishin', remember your dream is your only scheme, so keep on pushin'.
Move on Up-- Curtis Mayfield