The dad’s brother paid for the Paris trip. He had been watching his niece (the older one that counts everyone) while he worked in Paris, and in exchange the brother paid for them to go to Paris for Christmas (and also no doubt so he could see his kids). The brother is loaded, as we also see in the second move, he is remodeling a New York brownstone in midtown.
That says, they do pretty well. It may even be the mom with money. There is evidence to suggest she is a fashion designer with all the mannequins in the house. But the following year when they pay their own way, they go to Florida and not Europe, so they are probably not as loaded as his brother.
excellent analysis
learning the lore from Home Alone was not my first idea this morning
I cannot stop now
Rich people go to Florida too. Also I have known a few fashion designers and they generally fell into the pretend job category. I’m sure there are hard working career focused designers out there, but there are a lot of dilettantes half-assing it as well .
She paid $122 for pizza. Just out of pocket. In 1990.
That’s $286.61 in today’s money. Source
$122.50 and she’s apparently a crappy tipper, which leads me to believe that she’s more likely to be the main breadwinner than he is. I delivered pizza for years, and noticed some trends based on income levels/ wealth levels.
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Good word
The house costs around $2.5m in today’s money, or around $1.1m in 1990. Household income would have to be north of $300k/yr in 1990 dollars or over $600k in today money.
Kevin’s uncle paid for the vacation for 15 or 17 people, which would have cost over $40k in 1990. The uncle also had a penthouse in Paris(where he transferred to, creating the desire to bring the family together for xmas.), Kevin’s family stayed in a suite.
Given the neighborhood and proximity to Chicago, the father likely worked in finance.
I don’t think you can can you apply the insertion figures to calculate house prices because real estate has increased so much faster than everything else in the last two decades. To put it into perspective, I recall as a kid in the 90s, a friend living in a two story house with a pool next to the beach, and that house cost 400k - which seemed like a lot because we lived in a 3bed house on a suburban half acre block which cost under 200k.
In '89 it sold for 900k.
Oh ok. So it’s about a 4M house now, maybe more.
Last sold for $2.3m a few years ago, so about $2.5m now.
I wonder if it sold for that amount purely on its own merits as a piece of real estate, or if the price was inflated at all because it’s the famous Home Alone house.
That comes down to the buyer. Most of the houses on that block are north of $1.5M, with a bunch over $2m. That area is very desirable and expensive. At best the price could inflate if a motivated buyer was determined to have the house, but I don’t see that reflected in the price.
I think the only house that would be worse to have is the Fast and The Furious house. Instead of people dressed as the characters and taking photos for a few months, you have riced-out straight-piped cars cruising by and parking to take photos constantly.
Yeah, I lived in a 2 bedroom apartment 1 mile from the beach in the late 90’s that was $850. Now the same apartment is going for $3500. Housing prices have reached insane highs. Housing is so expensive now that it’s driving people out of the cities, and people are commuting hours every day to work.
That home in my city would cost easily 6 million
That’s generational wealth. He probably doesn’t have to do anything but plays at being a businessman or something. People doing mortgage calculations don’t understand how the wealthy live.
I’m in the development office of a tiny city that’s an enclave for the super-rich.
It’s a different world. We’re talking houses with 4 bedrooms but a dozen bathrooms because of all the space taken up by the art galleries, wine cellars, catering kitchens, libraries, etc.
Our city development code has a section on servant’s quarters.
I’m reviewing plans for a guest house that’s 4,000 square feet and has a rooftop tennis pavilion.
Another one bought the 4 mansions down the street and leveled them to build a private soccer field for the kids.
These people literally don’t understand what the rest of the world is like. I’ll get angry phone calls demanding that road work be stopped the next city over because they don’t want guests to see the construction workers from the north tower’s terrace, and they don’t understand why that’s an unusual request and why I can’t fix it.
I used to date a woman whose parents were multi-millionaires. They had a giant mansion in Hollywood hills, with a heated pool, tennis court, basketball court, and private garden in the backyard. I went there for dinner once when they had some friends over. You know how we’ll sit around after dinner with friends and maybe talk about a new car we’re interested in? They were talking about which new private jet they want to buy to replace their current private jets. I thought they were joking at first and then realized they were serious. I just kept my mouth shut. I don’t have anything to contribute to that sort of conversation. I was only making something like $2,300 per month at the time, drove a $4500 car, and had roommates.
I had a rich kid move into my building in LA. He was genuinely angry that he could only get 3 parking spots because it meant he had to choose which sports cars to bring out from New York. He cracked up the Maserati the first month he was there so there was room for the McClaren. I have no idea why he was in the building. I was driving a Ford Taurus.
I hope they choke.
Interesting. I take it, then, that there are no places in your town that sell torches in reasonable quantities.
The cheapest house for sale in this city is over 3 million dollars, and it’s considered a tear-down. People buy 5 million dollar houses to scrape the land and build a 20 million dollar house.
It’s an enclave for the mega-elite. Having a 9-figure net worth would make someone lower class.
The citizens absolutely would not allow torches to be sold, and the police wouldn’t allow them to be lit. We have a police force the size of one for a city 6 times as big, and they’re here to keep out the homeless from the major city next door.
I hate what this place represents. But they also pay me well (not that I could afford to live here of course), and I make them follow rules. They get mad at me, but they hate each other too, so Council usually backs me up.
And there is great satisfaction in being able to say “no” to a billionaire.
Fairfield County somewhere? Or maybe Sonoma or Bakersfield?
Sorry.
It’s a very small city with an even smaller staff. Any more details would peg precisely who I am.
I bet you are in Roy, New Mexico.
Also, people look at the years they earned a good amount and think they are in the top 10%, but it’s more like 30% of people are in the top 10% at some point in their life.
Meanwhile, the truly rich are paradoxically not in the top 10%, because their wealth grows without incurring capital gains income tax.
It’s a totally different world with different rules.
Working class thinks they are rich when they can afford the mortgage for a nice house.
Actual rich have a nice house without a mortgage payment and just have a few multiples of the working class guys salary accrue in a trust. They only take out small amounts for vacations, groceries, a car, etc.
The truly rich live even differently. They have trusts, of course, but their personal expenses are paid for by their personal non-profit charities that provide an allowance to them that’s managed by a family office and full time controller/money-babysitter who is also the family’s fixer and consigliare. Additional big purchases live private jet airfare and shopping sprees are paid for by an amex the controller just pays off.
I sometimes tell people to watch Selling LA and ask themselves what it is that all those buyers and sellers do. Most of them don’t do anything except sell multimillion dollar properties back and forth to each other. Pretend jobs for rich kids.
I wouldn’t mind being a rich kid with a pretend job.
I’d put the sin in sinecure
Both of you are wrong. They borrow, they borrow and borrow against their assets, borrowing to pay off the previous loan and then some, just an ever-revolving door of credit and basically free money, which they do not pay taxes on, guaranteed by their non-liquid capital assets.
Banks have entire offices just to cater to these folks. Like, a personal banker on call 24/7 in case they need some money.
It’s like, breaking the speed of light, financially. The rules of the universe stop mattering to you, and if you can do that, you can pretty much get away with anything.
The official novelisation of the movie says he is a “prominent business man” and the mom is a fashion designer.
So both probably makes quite a bit.
Certain activities pay really well.
Right up until they don’t.
the dad invested in Bingus Token
You know, you got an amazing ability to sum up a man’s whole life in a single sentence. “Degenerate gambler with a badge,” huh? You’re a pisser. You’re a real pisser.
It was the 1980s. Capitalism hadn’t reached its end-stage yet.
The US was still blissfully ignorant of how we were profiting at the expense of many lesser developed countries (that we had a hand in keeping less developed).
was still blissfully ignorant
Most westerners still are lol
Oh it must certainly had. Tech just hadn’t caused that bullshit to infect every corner of society yet. Rome wasn’t sacked in a day.
edited because of *$#& autocorrect.
There is a theory that he’s a spy or government agent and that’s also why Kevin is so good at making boobytraps
Because genetics?
Either that or his dad taught him to.
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Pre internet and bitcoin so lawyer, plastic surgeon, or international jewel thief.
His brother paid for the vacation. He paid for the trip to Florida in the sequel.
Whenever someone is a successful businessman, I assume either:
a) Arms Dealer, so these are all Yuri Orlov.
b) or something worse, such that if we learned about it, we’d wish it was just some guy selling used AKs in Africa, for instance the Sacklers and Purdue Pharma. Or an arms dealer who represents the United States.
My rule of thumb when I meet a rich person is that they probably killed someone/something. Arms dealer, environmental engineer who signed off on a mine that killed off an endangered toad, high-end lawyer who got some criminal asshole off the hook, shit like that. Never do I think that someone improved society.
Prove me wrong kids. Prove me wrong.
Tom Hanks.
Let’s see his investment portfolio.
I’m pretty sure I’ve bought a product owned by Nestle in the past year. Does that make me a monster?
Here’s what I don’t get. You can get “ethical” investments, that avoid all the really horrible companies, land mine manufacturers, Nestle, etc, and those investment packages have less returns.
But why can’t you get a package with only the awful companies in it, that gives more returns?
You can. It’s called Goldman Sachs Mutual Fund.
While his actual name is Peter McCallister, he had a successful line of businesses that he expanded across the Chicago area. He was actually better known as Abe Frohman, The Sausage King of Chicago.
I thought he would have been older.
I live right by the area this house is in. It’s in Winnetka, the “North Shore” of Chicago, where all the rich execs that work in Chicago live.
Oh, so you’re a big shot exec, huh?
And still not have enough brains to keep track of your kids
A politician!
Shoe salesman probably.
“Thanks Peg.”
Every time this comes up it needs to be pointed out that he did not pay for 9 peoples vacation, his boss did.
It was 15 or 17 people and Kevin’s uncle paid for it.
Yes, it was the uncle, so it’s a money family, money comes from the previous generation. They don’t ever mention their jobs in the film, but in the novelization the mom was a fashion designer, but that’s something the author made up on account of all the mannequins. He made the dad a businessman because it was a safe bet.
Where is that mentioned?
It’s at the beginning, when Joe Pesci is casing the house, disguised as a cop. From the script, via screencraft.org:
KATE (to the cop as she pays the boy) I’m sorry. We’re going out of town tomorrow and it’s just crazy around here. My husband’s brother transferred to Paris during the summer and his daughter goes to college here and his son is finishing high school and staying with my brother-in-law.
Kate gives the last of the cash to the Pizza Boy.
PIZZA BOY Thank you. Nice tip. Merry Christmas.
He exits.
KATE You, too.
Kate continues explaining to the cop.
KATE so ••• as a Christmas present ••• My husband’s brother gave us all a trip to Paris ••• So we can all be together for the holidays. My brother-in-law drove in from Ohio today ••• we all leave for Paris in the morning. We have a house full of people here and ••• (referring to Kevin) ••• this one’s a little out of sorts. Give me a minute and I’ll be right with you.
It was a throwaway line early in the film. The uncle paid for plane tickets for all the family members to come see him in Paris, and IIRC the adults were flown first class while the kids were flown coach.
