When Half a Million a Month Isn't Enough

H/T to Wealth Adviser for reminding us wealth can be relative.

The two children of Richard Mellon Scaife, who died last year, claim that his trustees should not have allowed Scaife to spend more than $300 million from a trust left by his mother, Sarah Mellon Scaife. The trustees may have been inclined to let Scaife spend freely (mostly on conservative causes and charitable gifts) because his mother left his two children a trust of their own. It pays each of the grandkids about half a million a month.

Most people can live well on $6 million a year. Perhaps because wanting more seemed unseemly, Jennie Scaife sought to have information about what her grandmother had left her expunged from court records. The court has refused.

Yet wealth truly is relative. When your father was a billionaire, your lifestyle and the maintenance of your various homes may seem crimped if you have less than $10 million a year to spend.

Half a million a month amounts to roughly $100,000 per week, before taxes. After taxes, perhaps no more than $60,000. These days, in places like Palm Beach and Nantucket, that kind of money may not go too far.