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“The monthly outgoings include $5,000 in rent, $5,000 for “housekeeping/sitting”, $4,000 for a personal assistant, $1,000 for electricity, $500 for the telephone, $500 for food and $750 for laundry and dry cleaning.”

OK, $5,000 rent in South Orange, NJ. Why does she need to live in such an expensive place. Does she have a reason to live in South Orange? Family, boyfriend? There are tons of nice places where you can live for less than $5,000 a month.

$5,000 for housekeeping/sitting? She’s paying $150 a day to cleaners and people to sit and watch TV? Sounds as if her house is too big and she is away from it too often. Where is she going? Article below mentions living in Brazil part of the year.

$4,000 for a personal assistant. I’ve got a complicated life, but I don’t have a damn personal assistant to pay $135 every day of the year. Maybe she should do some things for herself.

$1,000 for electricity! WTF? What does she use all of that for? That’s a lot of juice for an old woman. I would love to see what she has plugged in.

$500 for the phone? Who is she calling all the time and why does it cost so much? She can get a decent cell phone account for 1/10 of that. She could even get one for her personal assistant (whose ass she should fire).

$500 for food? Maybe, if she entertains a couple times a month. But I imagine she gets a LOT of free meals from various admirers. Strangers would probably LOVE to buy here dinners. People like to give things to famous people. I’ve never understood it. Even stupid Bieber can walk into any restaurant in the country and they’ll buy him a free meal.

$750 for laundry and dry cleaning. Laundry costs Mrs. RWA and me about $15 a month for soap and water. We don’t do dry cleaning very often. Why does she need so much dry cleaning? Does she go out a lot where she dresses up? Alone or with boyfriends?

The woman seriously needs to come down to the level of the average person and stop living like a queen.

And I really can’t believe she never set up some kind of retirement account.

A lot of details here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/9962594/Dionne-Warwick-dizzying-downfall-of-a-bankrupt-diva.html

Thanks for the link. Sadly, financial ruin happens a lot to entertainers and sports figures. A number of them aren't very well educated. They don't know how to manage their assets or how to make a budget and live within it. Many entertainers come from poverty and have little to no education, but even athletes, who presumably graduated from college and thus should he better educated, make the same mistakes. They feel the need to live high on the hog because they believe the fans expect them to. And they feel obligated to support family and friends, often giving them meaningless but well paying jobs (house sitter, dog walker, etc.). That's wonderful at the height of a celebrity's career, but what happens when that career is over?

Ms. Warwick has or had a financial manager. All well and good if you find an honest, competent one. But what if you don't? A good manager would have invested her money well and put her on a reasonable allowance. But Ms. Warwick herself should have kept tabs on her money and the manager, making sure that the manager was handling her finances in a sound manner and if he did recommend altering her lavish spending, she should have listened.

Ms. Warwick is in her 70s, hasn't had any major success in decades, plus her children are grown and on their own. She should have retired, downsized and uncomplicated her life years ago. She has no one to impress anymore. She could have lived well in a nice condo or an upscale senior community for a lot less than what she was spending. Foolishness on her part.