Family Guy Series: Brian Griffin
Oh, Brian. A weird hybrid of dog and human, the Griffins’ pet was an interesting challenge. Sure, your dog doesn’t have a credit card – but if it did, who would buy the next round at the Drunken Clam?
I have assumed that most expenses that a normal dog would incur rest on Peter’s shoulders, but that additional costs come out of Brian’s pocket.
INCOME: $13,558
Brian’s income is difficult to pin down. When he’s not working on his next great novel or filling in at a hardware store, he just hangs out with Stewie. We know he’s not stock savvy from the episode “The Woof of Wall Street,” so it’s doubtful there’s dividends coming in. I actually worked for a publishing company and have a good idea of what novelists actually make from all ends of the spectrum. Answer: not much. Royalties are joke for a book like “Faster than the Speed of Love.” I’m being generous by assuming $50 per month. It’s more likely $50 a quarter. With those odd jobs in various episodes, he probably has about $580 coming in a month. Because he isn’t frequently worried about cash flow, he must have some stream of passive income, and I have to guess that it is show income. I’ll discuss this further in Pt. 2 of the Family Guy Series: The Griffin Family, but in later episodes Family Guy is insinuated to be a sort of scripted reality sitcom where everyone on the show gets paid a salary of some kind. This must just barely close the gap between expenses and income, which would make it roughly $10,000 a year.
EXPENSES: $14,720
His purchases often reflect his wannabe status as a well-to-do intellectual. We can assume that he has his own iPhone on a payment plan, which is about $60 a month. A mid-range Prius runs about $28,000, so that’s a car payment of around $340. Throw in just a little gas and a cheap insurance plan from The General, and the cost of that eco-friendly car per month is about $580.
A few online subscriptions such as the Wall Street Journal help keep up his persona, as does his credit card. In the episode "The New Adventures of Old Tom," Brian uses his card to buy an expensive ring to impress the pretty shop girl. His plan is to return it the following day so she thinks he’s a bigshot. We know from this that he does have his own credit line but that he can’t afford major splurges (like most of us). Rhode Island actually has some of the highest credit card debt in the country at about $6,375 and someone like Brian clearly has no problem using it to get girls – even though he’s most often unemployed. That’s an easy $150 minimum payment a month .
But his vices are probably the most expensive part of this dog’s lifestyle. He drinks, he smokes weed, he’s the guy trying to get dates at a women’s rights rally…those things cost. Assuming he skips the Starbucks-writer cliché, just going out once a week for a few martinis to find potential dates will set him back over $2,160 a year. Throw in a grocery store bouquet and a few dinners out, and his dating life accounts for over 32% of his expenses!
As Peter’s best friend and Stewie’s sidekick, Brian gets into a lot of scrapes. Scrapes that require the ER and a handful of painkillers. If it requires a vet, it’s likely the Griffins pay for it, such as the episode “Once Bitten,” where Peter has to give Brian suppositories. Brian should have some type of health insurance (because just being around Peter makes it a necessity) but his unsteady employment history makes it unlikely.
NET INCOME: $(1,1132)
Brian is always branding himself as the Good Guy, even though he rarely puts forth the effort to truly do the right thing. It’s probably why he’s so relatable. He’ll put a fiver in for charity, but only to make himself look good for the co-ed holding the collection plate. He’ll bring a date to the fancy restaurant, but leave a crappy tip. At the end of the day though, his expenses remain pretty low considering he doesn’t have to pay for housing or dog food. In total, his personal expenses run around $14,720 a year. Not too shabby, but there isn’t an emphasis on saving or financial independence, and he’s always scraping by. He’s a paycheck-to-paycheck kind of dog, using a credit card to fill in the gaps instead of changing his lifestyle (that trip to India? Definitely funded by Visa). But when you don’t have to worry about living to retirement, why not live it up while you can?
*As always, the numbers provided are estimations based on my knowledge of the content, a little research, and pure speculation. If you are interested in seeing the sources I used or the calculations I came up with, you can find the spreadsheet here. Want to see the finances of your favorite character? Submit here.
I can’t talk about Family Guy without leaving this here. #nolaproud
