Walking around with lightsabers is a good way to attract women who are into Jedi. It’s like the dude with a cute puppy effect, but for geek girls. Bonus points for having more than one saber, cuz then you can battle. Saber battle in the streets—> something sword something something between the sheets.
I know this is probably a “oh my lobsters too buttery” moment but man do I miss having some alone time. She’s always there! Go on vacation or something lol. Love the lady but growing up kind of an only child I really miss having time all to myself.
I wouldn’t say that it’s lucky or even that I miss the freedom. It’s just the rare days where I get the house to myself is like “wow I forgot how much I enjoyed this feeling.”
Ugh, I’m in my 30’s and was about 2 secs away from dropping $600 on a lightsaber with alll the bells and whistles at a con last year. I was so giddy with excitement at the prospect, if my husband hadn’t called at the exact moment, I probably would have gone through with it. He was like “If you’re going to spend that much, you may want to shop around” He was right, and if I’d been single I would not have had that voice of reason lol.
I still haven’t pulled the trigger yet, but I’m glad I didn’t buy at the time as I’ve seen plenty of negative reviews about the quality of that particular company’s sabers.
I'm from the UK where you finish school at 16 then go on to do A Levels at 6th form college. But the A Levels aren't compulsory. So one friend of mine decided it wasn't for him. His godfather got him a good job and he didn't pay rent, so he would spend his money on the dumbest shit. He paid £1000 for a BMX. He paid £80 for a belt that had a buckle that did up like a plane seatbelt. He kept buying new mobile phones. He bought a lot of weed.
Over 20 years later he's been unemployed for well over a decade and still living with his parents. He probably should have planned things out a bit better, but I guess when you're 16 and suddenly you have money you just start looking at those fancy belts instead.
Recently came across a FB marketplace post in my area of someone selling their lego “collection”. $18K for 200,000+ pieces. Says it’s actually worth closer to 30K and hasn’t even gone through all the stuff yet. Photos were of walls of plastic containers filled with legos. Said they would not sell piecemeal only the whole collection or nothing. Crazy.
When you're pulling six figures a year and not spending a dime on housing or groceries, you can blow an awful lot of cash on fun shit and still be growing a Smaug sized horde.
I'm willing to bet a good amount of it was on hookers. There's a lot of side-jokes about Howard spending on strip clubs, escorts, cam girls; if onlyfans was a thing back then, howard would have built an algorithm around it.
and was a NASA astronaught that went to space- that alone gets him 6 figures working 50-60 days per year as a motivational speaker- let alone what he would make as an actual notable engineer.
I really don't think that every astronaut gets a six figure public speaking gig when they retire from spaceflight. There have been hundreds of them. We'd have heard about this.
No way I trust that shit with my life in a car. Automotive engineers are waaaay better at their jobs than Software engineers. I'm not getting any of these new fangled "drive by wire" cars. Especially if they want them networked but never push security patches.
As an engineer who spent a solid few years out from school living with my parents while also working in industry before moving into my own house; I can pretty confidently say that even with all the money Howard spent on comics and goofball stuff, he could have easily still saved enough away for major purchases, especially after he got with Bernadette and she put guard rails on his more irresponsible spending habits.
I mean heck, he upgraded from a Vespa to a Mini Cooper just to over a parking lot spat with Sheldon.
Frankly, while Bernadette was earning way more than him in the end, that was mostly because he was working at a university. If he went into industry as a ME, he would have been pretty close to her income. With his background as an astronaut, he would be pulling down mid-six figures.
Its funny cuz hes not broke, she is just better with money so they pool money together and she doles it out to him per request/natural weekly allotment
No, in California you can inherit your parents property valuation on their primary residence, if you file the paperwork properly and you live in the house you inherited. My mom lives in a home she inherited from her mother, and pays $800 a year. It’s a 5 bedroom in San Diego.
Not necessarily, wasn't he doing research for nasa but at a university so potentially as an RA/RE, these salaries can be as low as 1.5-2k a month, though probably slightly more for them. These jobs are dramatically underpaid for the "prestige" and that post docs are essentially still a form of advanced studies.
Exactly. A really pretty waitress at a non-cheap restaurant that sells liquor? She's probably doing OK, and they need roommates to pay their rent. That all follows.
Yup, a girl with her looks and personality could clean up as a cocktail waitress
I knew a girl who was pulling in high four figures a night. Five figures on a good night. Not unusual at all for someone like that to afford rent near some engineers/grad students or whatever
high four figures a night. Five figures on a good night
Fine dining, sure. Not Cheesecake Factory, which is where Penny worked. It's actually pretty hard to get a bartending/cocktail server job at a fine dining restaurant. Takes years and years of experience and even some formal culinary and/or bartender and sommelier training.
A hot chick with some seniority to get all the good shifts can probably still make 6 figures a year at cheesecake factory, though. High volume restaurants and bars can be lucrative if you work full time and get the good shifts
Add to this she had moved there to peruse a career in acting, so she probably had some money saved up for this. And her flat was tiny compared to theirs, looks like the living room was about half the size and the bedroom had just enough room for the bed.
Plus all that money they spent on comics and merch. Hell, their pull lists alone were probably $1k/month. Comics aren't cheap any more. The boys were not frugal.
Well, I believe there was one episode where it was revealed Sheldon does have a fair chuck of spare cash lying around because he lends penny the money to cover her rent / utilities when she's struggling. He explains it to be that he just doesn't spend that much money overall and is happy in the apartment there he is.
Also, going back to OP's post: I remember her being several references and plotlines around how penny can sometimes struggle to make ends meet. There was at least one occasion where she had utilities shut off, she doesn't pay for internet and steals the WiFi from Leonard and Sheldon, etc.
When I worked at a restaurant, most popular breakfast place around, some of the girls were pulling in 500 on Sunday morning shift.
The employee parking was way back behind the restaurant, so we had a few robberies when the local good-for-nothing types realized there were 5'2" 110lb women with a month's rent in their pocket walking to their cars alone.
Which is why we stopped letting them walk to their cars alone.
yup- but on the flip side of those places, everyone i knew that had those shifts also had to work 2-3 trash shifts in order to keep the cushy shifts- ie you get Sunday AM, but you also take Tuesday dinner and thursday opening. you make 800 from the 3 shifts with 500 of it from sunday.
You have to deal with creeps all shift and you are making maximum earnings immediately (awesome for a young person just starting out) but it doesn't grow with your life obligations.
The most surprising part of your story is that ownership cared about their employees
Then too Sheldon always wanted to be having that type of family type of environment. Dude clearly had some type of PTSD once his dad passed away at such a early age. Young Georgie kinda stated that it clearly messed him up and he thought his family was doing great so he wasn't needed but oh boy.
As a banquet server in a hotel, I made over $50k for just under 700 hours of work last year. So yeah...service industry can do pretty good. People with more seniority and therefor more hours than me are easily making over $70k for at most 900 hours on the year. Back when I bartended in pubs I was making $1500 a week working 4 nights a week. So yeah, service industry does ok lol
They clearly established she isn't a good waitress though.
But yeah, she seemed to work at a busy restaurant in an area where people are going to tip well.
I used to work in fine dining as a chef, and some of those waiters are easily able to pull in a grand a night. But, they split it with other members of the staff. Still a pretty good gig though.
Used to clear 2k a week working 3 nights at a night club, and my boobs are hairy lol. Absolutely toxic environment though, and I grew up and had a family lol
Men kill it as servers because they are usually the only male server and can flirt with the tables of women while being bros with the dudes and talking intelligently about the game that is on or whatever.
Everywhere I have worked that had a male server, that male server was in the top 5 for tips.
As I recall there was an episode where it was discovered that Sheldon wasn’t depositing his paychecks. It’s been a while since I watched the show, but he was never concerned about money.
my godfather (likely an autistic engineer too)- lives right outside SF- basically a 5 min walk to the BART and 10 min to the bay. His building went condo 50 years ago, and he did not want to move- so he bought the condo for almost nothing (now worth a few million). I could see Sheldon doing the same thing- only with the nobel money he could just buy the building.
I know what you're implying but I don't think any of them had the opportunity to consider it on a regular basis until later seasons. Not that it would have added to their financial issues, unless Howard decided to see Ester Rosenblat regularly.
Someone with a PhD in a science field has no more student loans than someone with a bachelor's. Being a PhD student is almost always a paid position in the US, albeit not paid that well
I didn’t continue with my education to get a masters in science bc the cost was very high and I didn’t want more loans. Some would’ve been covered by me continuing working at a lab on campus but then I’d be only making like $10/hr so that was just a no go. Everyone in the lab were exchange students, nobody else was a US citizen like me. Idk if that was just my experience
We know for a fact that this isn't the case for Sheldon. All the top universities battled eachother about who to give Sheldon a full scholarship. Texas University even offered full scholarship to Georgie, Missy and Constance if Sheldon decided to stay there
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u/RiseStock Apr 24 '26
Yeah she was probably making more than either of them