Rick & Morty
Wubba lub lub dub dub! Welcome to an existential crisis wrapped up in money matters.
Before we begin, I should say that Rick’s finances are actually tangential to this post. He contributes little to the family in a traditional monetary sense. In fact, when I first started thinking about this post, my driving question was “Why doesn’t Rick contribute to the family more?” He has all of these rare, patentable designs, and all his business ventures end successfully with minimal effort, so why isn’t he making his multiverse selves and their families rich beyond belief? It took the Citadel episode for me to develop some thoughts on that, but let’s jump into the family side of things first.
Jerry Smith
Income: $14,280
Jerry has been in the throes of unemployment since season 1. Constantly in between advertising jobs, he has been scraping by on unemployment – first in the Smith family home, and then in a crappy studio apartment during his separation from Beth. Washington state’s unemployment program is more substantial than the ones here in the South, but he is still likely subsisting on less than $1,190 a month. Isolated in his own home, desperately feeling a lack of control over his own life, with his support system confirming his own character flaws on the daily has him racking up $700 on phone-a-friend lines. He tries to borrow a few hundred dollars from his daughter Summer, indicating that he feels unable to ask Beth for spending money anymore. We see him at his happiest when he is validated professionally and emotionally in the simulation episode.
He does have his own car, a vintage station wagon that looks similar to a 1991 Ford Country Squire. I can’t help but think nerdy little Jerry was so excited to purchase his little hipster wagon with cash, a move that I’m sure serves him now – no car note! Maintenance, cheap car insurance, and few tanks of gas will still run him $250 a month. I was surprised to learn that gas prices run a $1 or more in Washington than they do here, at about $3.50/gal. When he is living at the house, all his food, medical, and housing costs are covered.
Beth Smith
Income: $90,000
Expenses: $70,240
Beth is unequivocally the family breadwinner. While proud of her success, she experiences a lot of ambivalence and conflicting feelings about her life. Like everyone in this show, she has her flaws, but let’s talk about how much of a badass she is: Pregnant at 18, she put herself through veterinary school, and now provides for her entire family (a vet in Ellensburg, WA brings in about $90,000 a year). Not only is it incredibly difficult to become a vet, the average student loan balance for one is $145,000. Her debt is probably less, but I’m estimating her monthly loan payments at $350. Her father was nonexistent for most of her life and she was essentially raised by a single mother, although not much is mentioned about her. Through all of this she learned to value intelligence, hard work, and self-reliance. It is insinuated that she has a bit of a drinking problem like her father and an unhealthy work-life balance: when her job becomes obsolete after an alien uprising, she begins making horse-hoof collages. Which I believe wins World’s Most Off-Putting Hobby…
We never see her with any friends or participating in any other hobbies, and she works long hours. She doesn’t really spend money selfishly – the one time we see her treat herself it’s to a blowout to improve her self-esteem. She does have a cute little red Honda Fit hatchback that runs her about $600 a month between a car note, insurance, maintenance, and gas.
Medical: $5,350
The Smith family is in a unique position because of Rick. They are able to use his inventions and access to other planets to their benefit. We see this when Rick heals Morty’s broken legs with an alien serum and when we get a glimpse of his homemade security system, which includes blast shields and kill-bots. I can’t imagine Beth dropping her health insurance entirely (savings of $443 a month), seeing as she would have to be reliant on him during an emergency, but they probably save quite a bit of money yearly by having access to Rick’s brand of medicines. It’s only fair; they only get attacked or injured because of Rick’s schemes. Including the co-pay for one ill-fated therapy session, the overall household medical expenses remain quite low.
Home: $19,333
Rick and Morty is set in the outskirts of the Seattle suburbs. A home similar to the Smith’s would’ve cost $150,000 in 2007 ($820/monthly), when Beth would’ve been hitting her stride in her career, Summer would’ve been 7, and Morty only 2. Maintenance costs yearly would be about $1,500 using the 1% rule, although things like weekly lawn care would be done by Jerry and his interesting weed eating technique…
Even with access to Interdimensional Cable, the Smiths are still shown watching cable, and likely also have the usual TV subscriptions (Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon Prime) at a cost of $125 a month. Average utility bills run $200 a month, but we’re told that Rick’s hidden lab under the garage once racked up a $5,000 electrical bill.
This is an interesting insight into Rick’s mind because we know Rick can create his own energy sources (Isotope 234 and a microverse car battery), but he is so self-centered that it doesn’t occur to him to rig up a similar setup for his own daughter’s home, which would save her $2,400 a year and allow him to use as much power as he desires.
*Note: While technically their dog left to start a new race on another planet, I still did include $500 of yearly expenses related to having a family dog, such as food, vet bills, and toys.
Summer, Morty, & Rick
Morty & Summer Smith
Morty and Summer both attend the local public school at a cost of $2,600 a year. Both kids the equivalent of after-school jobs. Morty is sort of an unpaid-intern sidekick, while Summer is paid to act as a crisis custodian. In addition, Summer has also acted as a shopkeeper to the devil. I have a sneaking suspicion that her laissez-faire attitude towards the moral character of her previous boss coupled with her roid-induced bonding time with Rick offered an opportunity for him to see her potential and put her on the payroll.
Vacations, Hobbies, and Entertainment: $2,100
The only vacation we really see the Smiths take is when Beth and Jerry attend a romantic Titanic-themed event. Oddly, Jerry picks this out and is very enthusiastic, but Beth would be the one to pay for it. I would love to know why she bankrolled a weekend that she has no interest in.
As for the rest of the Smith household, they don’t participate in sports or clubs, they don’t really go on vacation, nor do they make large expenditures on anything. The most we see them spend on a family outing is probably $150 to see the Incredible Hulk Live. Rick’s adventures have completely overridden their lives. When you have an eccentric family member portaling you off-planet every week, I don’t think the beach has the same appeal anymore.
What’s their bottom line?
Net Income: ($16,050)
Financially, this is a fascinating family to study because there are socio-economic disparities between family members, a female head of household, and themes of teenage pregnancy, addiction, and mental illness. Most importantly, we get a glimpse of a world where money is not a primary motivator.
Rick has very little need for money because he has something much more powerful: access to anything and everything. He can go to any world or time period he likes. He can invent things beyond the wildest imaginations of even alien species. He can easily escape any situation with his portal gun, including uncomfortable interactions with his family and himself. When money is the most efficient way to purchase something, he uses it, but when it isn’t, he acquires it by other methods. Rick has transcended beyond a need for money, although he does acknowledge how entire civilizations of lesser beings revolve around a need for it. Undoubtedly, the biggest example of this is when he topples the galactic government by changing a 1 to a 0, destroying the value of the blemflarck, a universally-accepted currency.
It would be an oversimplification to say that Rick mooches off the family, although he certainly does in some aspects. It is brought up a lot that Rick is by all definitions a god – and I feel like Beth’s willingness to provide for Rick’s needs are a way of making offerings to him, to encourage him to stay. This is similar to ancient traditions of house lares and ancestral offerings.
All in all, the Smith family finances are relatively well-balanced. Like most TV shows, there is still a negative balance, but I think that it’s realistic to say they are comfortable and breaking even. Beth is a practical person and I believe that would be reflected in her finances, especially since she clearly controls the purse strings. However, according to these current numbers, she would have to stop saving the recommended 20% of her income to break even. More likely, because of her specialized horse surgeon training, she makes more than the suggested $90,000 yearly.
What do you think would our society’s primary motivator if it wasn’t money? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Also, I played around with a different format for this post. What do you think? Do you prefer the more categorized approach here, or the more free-flowing method of posts past?
*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.
