11 Money Lessons From ‘Breaking Bad,’ ‘Modern Family’ And Other Emmy Favorites
September 23, 2013 by Maggie McGrath
Host Neil Patrick Harris may have said it best in his introduction to the 65th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards: “I love television, because it’s more than entertainment; it’s education!” Surprising, but true: there are money lessons to be had from best drama series winner Breaking Bad, best comedy series Modern Family and other small screen favorites.
Arthur Keown, a finance professor at Virginia Tech and author of Personal Finance: Turning Money Into Wealth, even uses television examples in his classes. “It’s everywhere,” he said. “If you think about it, a lot of the predicaments that people get into (on TV) are financial, and there probably isn’t anything you could write about on television that someone hasn’t gotten into trouble with [in real life].”
Of course, not every character in every situation is worth emulating – here’s looking at you, Walter White – but primetime television is surprisingly rife with practical advice, if you look hard enough. Here are some of the best financial DO’s and DON’Ts from Emmy heavyweights. (And, oh: potential spoiler alerts ahead.)
DO put your money in a place where it will grow — with protection.
Aside from the obvious fact that cooking meth is illegal, the antics of Breaking Bad’s Walter White provide a lot of examples of what not to do with your finances. “There’s a lot of examples [in the show] in terms of how he mismanages his money,” said Cary Siegel, author of “Why Didn’t They Teach Me This In School?”One of Walter White’s biggest financial offenses, Siegel said, is storing his massive fortune in barrels in the desert, rather than putting his money to work in the market. “He’ll literally make hundreds of thousands of dollars and… none of it earns any interest. There’s nothing he puts his money in that earns him anymore,” he said. Just think: that $80 million, invested in the market and assuming a return of 6%, could have grown to $84.8 million in just one year.
DO put your money in a place where it will grow. Beyond the obvious fact that cooking meth is illegal, Breaking Bad’s Walter White provides lots of fodder for what not to do lessons. “There’s a lot of examples [in the show] in terms of how he mismanages his money,” said Cary Siegel, author of “Why Didn’t They Teach Me This In School?”
One of Walter White’s biggest financial offenses, Siegel said, is storing his massive fortune in barrels in the desert, rather than putting his money to work in the stock market or at least in a bank. “He’ll literally make hundreds of thousands of dollars and… none of it earns any interest. There’s nothing he puts his money in that earns him any more,” he said. Just think: that $80 million, invested in the market and assuming a return of 6%, could have grown to $84.8 million in just one year. (Of course, if White had put his meth profits in a brokerage or bank account, it might also have earned him the attention of the feds after the financial institution filed a currency transaction report or a suspicious activity report.)
DO protect your money. It’s also worth noting that White’s barrels weren’t protected by either the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), as bank deposits are, or the Securities Investor Protection Corp. (SIPC), as brokerage accounts are. This means that when Uncle Jack raided White’s $80 million stockpile, not only could no one stop him, but White didn’t even get the luxury of the $250,000 FDIC insurance that all bank depositors are afforded or the $500,000 SIPC protection for brokerage customers. (Note that the SIPC doesn’t protect you against losing money in the stock market, but does protect if a broker-dealer handling your money goes under and takes your money with it.)
DON’T just buy your kids whatever they want. If anything good can be said of Walter White, it’s that everything he does, he does (or at least says he does) for his family. Unfortunately, this has meant he’s set a rather poor financial example for his son, Walt Jr.
“He goes off and buys his son a new car. That’s a bad lesson in how you teach your children to manage money. You just don’t get them things,” Siegel said, in a reference the sports car that White bought for Junior once he came into his fortune. And he didn’t just buy Junior one car – later in the series, he purchased a second sports car for his son. (It’s worth noting that, in a literal example of burning through your money, White blew up the first sports car in order to make a point to wife Skyler.)
“My kids are not going to get a nice car from me; they’ll all use a car together,” Siegel said. “When they can afford one, they’ll realize the value of saving money.”
DO save regularly. In season three of Modern Family, it is revealed that Luke, the youngest son in the Dunphy family, has been skimming money off his parents and slowly saving it over the years — and has more money saved than either of his older siblings. While Luke’s methods might be questionable, saving at least 10% of every paycheck is the fastest way to financial security.
DON’T invest all your money in one company or industry—diversify. Robert Crawley, Downton Abbey’s Earl of Grantham, learned this lesson the hard way after investing the entirety of the family fortune in a Canadian railway that went belly-up in relatively short order. What he should have done instead: spread his money across a variety of industries and companies in order to protect his money from disappearing when one company went bankrupt.
“It was a dominant theme for a couple of episodes on one of the most popular dramas on TV. It was very rare that you saw that kind of a storyline carefully and extensively depicted,” said Ric Edelman, chairman and CEO of Edelman Financial Services. “It was a great example of diversification.”
However, Edelman noted that the show could have been a bit clearer with the lesson. “Unfortunately, if you weren’t familiar with diversification, you wouldn’t draw the lesson. Instead what the show said: these are the dangers of investing in stock,” he said. “[I]t’s not that stock investing is bad, it’s that over-concentration is bad.”
DO coupon. Mel Brooks won an Emmy for his portrayal of Crazy Uncle Phil in Mad About You, and one of Uncle Phil’s shining moments was a hilarious encounter with coupons. He found a bunch – probably a few too many – and wanted to use them to save money. While his intent was good, Joanie Demer, one of the founders of thekrazycouponlady.com, says that in practice, you don’t have to coupon quite like Uncle Phil.
“Moderate and organize,” Demer said. “Don’t be super crazy and don’t go for a $200 shopping spree. Cap off how much time you’ll spend [clipping coupons]. Give yourself five minutes a week and you can save 20 bucks. That’s a pretty good dividend.”
DON’T rely on an inheritance from your parents. 2 Broke Girls’ Caroline made this mistake, and after her Bernie Madoff-like father had his fortune seized, she found herself serving burgers at a diner in Brooklyn. She’s not alone: a recent Interest.com report found that 27% of adults under the age of 60 expect to receive an inheritance, with 49% of the future heirs expecting to inherit $100,000 or more. Do yourself a favor: if you’re a part of the 27%, adjust your expectations. Your aging parents may have to use their money to fund long-term care costs, not an inheritance stockpile.
DO negotiate your salary. In season three of The Good Wife, Alicia finds herself in want of a higher salary. Rather than sitting quietly and expecting her bosses to read her mind, she approaches the senior partners about the possibility of getting a raise. While she doesn’t get as much as she wants – nor enough to put a down payment on her dream home, a secondary but equally important lesson in living within your means – named partner Diane does offer a small stipend as “a demonstration of our confidence.”
DON’T spend too much money on an engagement ring. The Office’s Michael Scott thought three years’ worth of salary was what to save (and spend) on an engagement ring; conventional wisdom typically suggests just three months’ worth of savings is all you need.
DON’T play credit card roulette. In an episode of The King of Queens, wife Carrie decides she needs a dress – but she doesn’t have the money. So she charges the clothes to one card, uses a second credit card to pay off the first credit card, and eventually gets stuck in a vicious cycle. “She ultimately got trapped,” Edelman explained. “It collapsed all over her and it was a funny but an accurate portrayal of what people do with credit card juggling.”
DON’T take on more student debt than you can pay off. Virginia Tech professor Keown uses Marshall from How I Met Your Mother as an example of why you should be careful about how much student debt you take on, and why it’s important to consider what your salary will be upon graduating. “A law degree with student debt: does Marshall take the low-paying dream job or high-paying evil job?” Keown asks. Trapped by his debt, Marshall had no choice: he had to take the soul-sucking, corporate law position. Which was not so legen – wait for it – dary.
