SQUEAKING BY ON $300,000

If the Washington Post hoped to give readers something to talk about, it couldn’t have done better than to publish a front-page piece on Sunday about a woman living in a tony New York suburb who’s squeaking by on $300,000 a year.

The piece has generated nearly a thousand comments, mostly negative, from readers outraged that the Post would publish a tale of woe about Laura Steins whose annual alimony of $75,000 is more than many Americans earn and who lives in a $2.5 million house with an $8,000 a month mortgage and $35,000 in property taxes. Oh, and she maintains a live-in nanny at $40,000

This is an article about divorce and what happens to families when the two-incomes necessary to maintain the lifestyles to which they’ve become accustomed are reduced to one. It’s well documented that many families that experience divorce suffer diminished living standards.

Why am I posting this? I think that as an attorney who specializes in divorce, I owe it to my clients not to sugar coat the situation. Every person going through a divorce or thinking about getting a divorce needs to consider all aspects of getting divorced, including financial.

Originally from Frank James of National Public Radio. The original post is here: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2009/08/mom_eking_it_out_on_300k_reall.html?ft=1&f=103943429