Tag Archives: Madoff

Honey, We Have to Move

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So, here I talk about how to handle the move with the wee ones. It was VERY emotional at times before we moved. Hearing little Viv say she didn’t want to move was a knife in my heart. I I think from the comments I get from all of you and from my own experience, a reversal of fortune is harder because you have kids, but it’s what also makes you get through it. Also, my stepson is a no-drama kid. I say, “So, your room is going to be smaller; is that okay?”

“Sure, that’s fine.”

Later, “Um, there isn’t enough room in the house to hang all of our art work; would it be okay if next to the Simpson poster we hang these art photographs?”

“Sure, that’s fine.” Phew.

When I was single and childless, and I was unemployed for a while or had ive with my parents after college because I didn’t have a pot to piss in and student loans to boot, it wasn’t great but not that big of a deal. You know other friends who also don’t have much. You get a six pack together and watch TV.  In my 20s when I wanted to go to Europe, I put it on my credit card and then ate cereal for a few months at home alone till I made some payments on it. Nothing that kicks you in the gut. But when you feel like you are letting your kids down, when you aren’t giving them the life you had dreamed for them, that can send you to a dark place.

But if it wasn’t for my kids’ If it weren’t for my happy-go-lucky daughter, my even-tempered stepsons, my supportive step-daughte,r and a newborn boy who needs me totally, I could have easily gone off the rails. To be jolted like this without my wee ones, well, I’d probably be shooting heroin in my gums.

Happily, a fresh coat of pink paint and white shelves really made the difference for Vivien in the new house. I shelled out the money for that happily. She has not missed a beat and loves her “new, pink room.”

For anyone else who has had to guide their kids through a similar transition, I welcome hearing about how you did it.

My Letter to the Editor

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Well, after my big vlog yesterday, as promised it’s going to be all geared toward “reversal of fortune” this week on Cool Mom. And again, thank you so much for the dear comments. I appreciate them, and I also appreciate the lows that others are going through or have come out of.  Makes me think of what a mentor told me in college years ago,

“Daphne, you know life is not like a movie, that it’s not on a constant upward trajectory?”

Me: “Of course I know that.”  Inside I was like, “Crap, yes, I thought it was like a movie; I thought it was a constant upward trajectory.”  How she read me so well, I do not know.  Well, the last few years have felt pretty good… despite aging father and such. But, dang, someone just grabbed that fun romantic comedy I was watching in the DVD player and threw in another with some dark turns. Wait, look another DVD is coming back in,  it’s the “comeback” story, the “As God as my witness, I will never be ripped off  by a Wall Street creep again!”

Wouldn’t be great if the whole country right now could cut to the montage? The one where in 90 seconds we get slim, smart, and prosperous?

ANYWAY…

Last week I wrote a letter to the editor of the LA Times business page. Here it is.  I was rather proud of it. The one thing I would add to this is the SIPC funds we read about (most recently one said $30 million given so far to Madoff victims) is only if one was a Madoff client. Myself and other family members were not.  We were in a feeder fund who didn’t disclose that he was taking a fee… a sizable one… to hand over 100% of said funds to Madoff. The gov’t doesn’t count us for the SIPC. I bring this up just because it’s easy to think “Hey you Madoff people quit your whining; you’re going to get 500 grand.” We will not. We are praying that we do get some of the taxes back we paid on the phantom profits.  But as I say in the letter that won’t do anything for my IRA or my husband’s. That’s Puff the Magic Dragon time.

People talk about how the economy is in trouble because everyone was spending and not saving. Ha, ha, I started my IRA when I was 16 and was making $3.75 an hour. I am sure you all know how hard it is to save when you make that wage. I wish I had spent more money; then at least I’d have something to show for it!  Also, most everyone I know in Miami is in foreclosure, and I have a terrible property there I bought before I was married. It’s very under water, fiscally speaking. Irks me when I hear people talk about “speculators.” I mostly know moms who were trying to supplement their families’ incomes by buying a condo or a house, fixing it up, and selling it.  A year ago, they would have been called entrepreneurs; now they are speculators?  They (me) got caught.  So many of us got caught in this mess.  Ideas that seemed like a good idea a few years ago are a disaster now.

I don’t know about you, but it can certainly undermined my confidence.  And I will be slow to give anyone else financial advice in the future.

I Am a Madoff Victim

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This has been the hardest blog post for me to do. When I vlogged about my miscarriage that was challenging, but this has other layers to it. By revealing about how we were robbed, how we are part of possibly the largest financial fraud in US History, I am not only disclosing my own life, but the life of my family. I didn’t blog about this before for many reasons. Chief was absolute shock. Then, it was too painful to discuss except with very close friends. I still have some friends I haven’t told. Sometimes it exhausts me too much to do so. Then when I wanted to blog about it, my husband didn’t want me too. I think like anyone who has either been in mourning or been the victim of a crime there are the stages you go through. For me this was both. We were robbed. Someone sits in jail right now because of what has happened to us and thousands of others. And it has altered the trajectory of my life. Many assumptions that I made are no longer valid. To have a secure retirement gave me a buoyancy I no longer possess. I would like that back.

I also didn’t want to blog about it if it was just for me to vent. I didn’t start this online adventure to be a Dear Diary, but I have been touched by comments that some of you have made on this site about your own struggles with the economy. So, I thought maybe by doing this we could help each other through a historical low. One of my initial reactions when we heard that our money was gone was to beat myself up… and my husband. We should have been more diversified ( we were, but not enough), we should have done this or that. And it did help when we realized that we were not part of a small fund like we had been led to believe, but a world wide one where people more savvy or richer than us were also robbed. Mort Zuckerman, Kevin Bacon, Steven Spielberg. And also better people than us, Elie Wiesel (who steals from Holocaust survivors?!)  I also started to hear from friends and neighbors how they too thought they might need to sell their house or move in with relatives, and it was for other reasons than our own, a real estate deal gone south, unemployment.

So, going forward I’m in a sense catching you all up with what I have been personally struggling with for the last 6 months. There is so much to say about this. But I’m still going to have some funny blogs and funny videos, because my whole life comedy has meant a great deal to me. It is healing (remind me to tell you about doing improv for chronic pain patients), and it has dictated my entire career to me. And like the saying goes, tragedy plus time equals comedy.

Have you heard about the pregnant lady who found out she had been robbed? Ah, yeah, not funny yet.