Buffy's money gone dry.... why??

[Joan the Vampire Slayer]

I just keep coming back too this: Why did they keep the house? It seems realistic that they would have gotten an apartement, like Anya, Xander, and Giles had (well, a "flat" as he calls it).

I guess plot-wise, they needed the house for later on when the Potentials showed up.

And how long was Buffy dead anyway? Like a few months? How did they go through the money that fast? And why were they still living in her house? To take care of Dawn?
[br][/br]
Edit:
[br][/br]

Yes because I can't totally see how that relates in the real world when one of my best friends just committed suicide, i found out my mum was adopted, my "real"grandfather is in jail, my best friend is suffering depression in a major way, my grandmother that means the world to me has just been told her life style isn't going to support her... BUT screw my job... THAT I can do without!!!

Well, isn't that what we do here?... Talk about a ficitonal world?

 

[Silum]

now that i think about it, Tara and Willow and the rest of the gang clearly weren't too busy to hold down jobs, they had too much time on their hands making "your the boss" trophies for Willow, preparing for a pretty pointless parent teacher conferences (moms out of town excuse pretty much does the trick) and programming buffybot with lots of extra puns.

I dont really have a problem with them not having jobs from a writing point of view, but such a major arc for this season is the real world of money that buffy has to live in and the major lack of support provided by her friends. I suppose you could argue that this season was about everyone being self involved, but from Buffy's perspective it seems she was self involved enough to just get by! I think she became self reliant solely because of what her friends are doing to her.

yey off to the new years party

 

[Primal Slayer]

I just keep coming back too this: Why did they keep the house? It seems realistic that they would have gotten an apartement, like Anya, Xander, and Giles had (well, a "flat" as he calls it).

I guess plot-wise, they needed the house for later on when the Potentials showed up.

And how long was Buffy dead anyway? Like a few months? How did they go through the money that fast? And why were they still living in her house? To take care of Dawn?
[br][/br]
Edit:
[br][/br]

I think she was dead around 6 months? Or 4 if you just go by the summer hiatus.

I think they didnt want to give Dawn such a big change in her life, mom dead, sister dead, lets move you out to somewhere new all together. Plus they planned on bringing Buffy back so they wouldnt do that without her approval. Plus they would need "Buffy" to get rid of the house which I dont think they could have programmed the Buffybot to do as realistically since she hardly survived the parent-teacher day.

But Xander/Willow/Anya/Tara were trying to keep everything as normal and regular as possible since if they brought Buffy back and everything that she knew was gone, who knows how that would have affected her.

 

[fly on the wall]

preparing for a pretty pointless parent teacher conferences (moms out of town excuse pretty much does the trick)

Except that I'm pretty sure the school knows that their mom is dead. 😛 Buffy going to the parent-teacher day was purely about appearances. Maybe a little unnecessary, but meh.

It always annoyed me, how little Willow and Tara contributed financially. I've been in sad places in my life before, and made the decision not to get a job...but that's when I was a minor, living at home and didn't NEED a job. But, as others have said about Tara and Willow, there was no excuse.
If the writers had even slipped something in, like how Tara and Willow had been job-hunting but found nothing yet, I could believe that. After I moved, it took me a couple months to find a job, even though I was very much actively applying places. Of course, that excuse could only hold MAYBE until they brought Buffy back. Especially since Buffy managed to get a job pretty much right away.

I'm a full-time student, I work 30+ hours a week, I pay my bills, buy my groceries, pay my rent, do my laundry, buy everything I need, and no my best friend has not just died, but if she had I certainly wouldn't use up all her money, do nothing to contribute other than to baby-sit her teenage sister and call it even.

 

[Airam]

I guess their was a very good chance we just didnt see it... but it doesnt really explain the conversation where they were asking Buffy what she was going to do... leading to the whole D.Meat palace crap. It should have been a conversation between them about what THEY were going to do about it... together. If you watch the episode, its clear that the strain is all on buffy which results in some really crap times for the next 6 or so episodes.

I agree with all that. That paragraph is right on and exactly the problem I've always had with it... the scene does nothing to allude that Tara and Willow have been helping in anyway... its all, "YOU'RE broke" not "WE are broke, what can WE do to get out of this bind." They're talking AT Buffy the whole time.

 

[BuffyElevated]

Yeah, and Xander, Giles and Anya shouldn't be asked to help out because they all have apartments to pay for themselves.
Since Willow and Tara actually live in Buffy's house - they should have been helping with the rent. It's really too much to ask Dawn to work as she has full-time high school and was still underage at that point, correct?

Right, Willow and Tara should have been helping. They were right that Buffy needed to get a job, but if they were living there, they should have gotten jobs, too, to help out... It's only fair.

 

[T.I.P]

It is kinda strange the moneys dried up already, Buffy was only dead for 47 days was it? Id think that wouldnt be long enough for all the money to dry up!

 

[Blondie Bear]

^ 147 days, which is about 5 months.

 

[cryptwarmer]

The whole money issue is fraught with inconsistencies...

I was under the impression Joyce worked for a gallery, not that she owned it. If she didn't have a certain level of equity in the house, the mortgage company would have required her to have mortgage life insurance, which would pay off the home in the event of her death. And even if she had the equity, and was not required to have the insurance, I find it hard to believe that Joyce herself, being the sort of mom she was would not have had enough life insurance to pay off the house.

Yes, Tara and Willow should have been contributing somehow financially, etc. Everything everyone has said here is true, so I'll try to toss a new bone in. In books, tv shows, movies, etc priority is given to the story being told at the expense of the details. I write novels, and there is simply no way to cover all the bases without it getting distracting and tedious to the reader. An agreement is made between the creator and the consumer...to accept certain things, to play along.

When money IS the issue, then it comes up, when it's not...the creator hopes you will not ask too many questions. That's the way it is...same with lots of other issues, a story line is chosen and all the other things sort of become backround, you're just supposed to trust that it's getting taken care of somehow. The point is that Buffy wakes up to hell in many forms. I mean, where is her father? He just fades away and is never mentioned again. Convenient, but not very realistic, not that there are NOT dad's who disappear, but legally, with Mom dead, he's going to at least be called in about Dawn.

So, while I too find all this sort of analyzing really fun, I also know that there are things that don't add up, but that they are not mistakes on the part of the writer's or even intentional. The writer's focus on telling a story, and whenever any story gets told, you get a certain spin on it, certain issues and facets are highlighted or exaggerated at the expense of others, and sometimes stuff is left out because it's tedious or for effect. We want our 47 minutes packed with interesting drama, not knowing how people are making ends meet..until THAT is the story of the week.

I also wondered why Buffy didn't accept Spike's offer to get money...and I wonder if that is why Spike decided to play Doctor and traffic in demon eggs, to get some cash to help Buffy out. So, see, I like to speculate too, but in the end, I think the truth is that the writer's were too busy telling us the human interest story to bother about exactly how/why they had money issues, and how a six buck an hour job magically solved them.

 

[Blondie Bear]

I thought Joyce owned the gallery because she was looking for a place to open it in Season 1 and said she found one. It wasn't like she just went and started working for an already existing gallery; she started a whole new one. Hence the assumption of ownership.

 

[Silum]

The whole money issue is fraught with inconsistencies...

I was under the impression Joyce worked for a gallery, not that she owned it. If she didn't have a certain level of equity in the house, the mortgage company would have required her to have mortgage life insurance, which would pay off the home in the event of her death. And even if she had the equity, and was not required to have the insurance, I find it hard to believe that Joyce herself, being the sort of mom she was would not have had enough life insurance to pay off the house.

Yes, Tara and Willow should have been contributing somehow financially, etc. Everything everyone has said here is true, so I'll try to toss a new bone in. In books, tv shows, movies, etc priority is given to the story being told at the expense of the details. I write novels, and there is simply no way to cover all the bases without it getting distracting and tedious to the reader. An agreement is made between the creator and the consumer...to accept certain things, to play along.

When money IS the issue, then it comes up, when it's not...the creator hopes you will not ask too many questions. That's the way it is...same with lots of other issues, a story line is chosen and all the other things sort of become backround, you're just supposed to trust that it's getting taken care of somehow. The point is that Buffy wakes up to hell in many forms. I mean, where is her father? He just fades away and is never mentioned again. Convenient, but not very realistic, not that there are NOT dad's who disappear, but legally, with Mom dead, he's going to at least be called in about Dawn.

So, while I too find all this sort of analyzing really fun, I also know that there are things that don't add up, but that they are not mistakes on the part of the writer's or even intentional. The writer's focus on telling a story, and whenever any story gets told, you get a certain spin on it, certain issues and facets are highlighted or exaggerated at the expense of others, and sometimes stuff is left out because it's tedious or for effect. We want our 47 minutes packed with interesting drama, not knowing how people are making ends meet..until THAT is the story of the week.

I also wondered why Buffy didn't accept Spike's offer to get money...and I wonder if that is why Spike decided to play Doctor and traffic in demon eggs, to get some cash to help Buffy out. So, see, I like to speculate too, but in the end, I think the truth is that the writer's were too busy telling us the human interest story to bother about exactly how/why they had money issues, and how a six buck an hour job magically solved them.

great post.

A few things. I agree that financial issues dont actually need to be addressed by the write and we can easily go along with it...afterall we are taking a lot on faith here (ie Vampires!)...but on this occasion, they WERE explicitly addressed. It is brought up that "Buffy is broke, what ya gonna do about it Buffster?" which directly implied the lack of involvement of all of her friends on this issue, and THAT is the problem. The way finances played out in S6 were an arc, not just an episode (the arc being life in the real world) and so it should have been addressed because it appears as a viewer that Buffy worked for nothing in misery at the D M Palace while her friends "had an elsewhere to be".

As for Spike, she should have accepted the money, we see in S8

Spoiler

she couldnt really careless where the cash comes from for the greater good,

ill accept that she didnt have this point of view at this time though.

Spike as the Doctor... i highly recommend that article thats floating around on here about what may really have happened in that episode and spikes actually involvement as the doctor, its a great read.

 

[sosa lola]

As for Spike, she should have accepted the money, we see in S8 she couldnt really careless where the cash comes from for the greater good, ill accept that she didnt have this point of view at this time though.

There are two differences between Spike's stolen money offer in S6 and

Spoiler

Buffy stealing money in S8.

First, Buffy isn't the same person in S8 that she is in S6. She doesn't think she's above the law here, or considers herself The Law. She's just a girl who happens to be a slayer and struggles to fend for herself and her sister.

Second: Spike's offer here is to help her personally, he's stealing for Buffy. And that's a big difference from why

Spoiler

Buffy stole in S8. In S8, she stole to buy equipment to save the world, not for personal financial issues.

 

[Silum]

well Im not sure Buffys finances qualify as a spoiler-esk information of S8, but my apologies if they are.

As far as spikes money, i did make the clarification that she was at a different place in S6, but your definitely right about how Spike offered the money and why, good point.

 

[palabravampiress]

I thought Joyce owned the gallery because she was looking for a place to open it in Season 1 and said she found one. It wasn't like she just went and started working for an already existing gallery; she started a whole new one. Hence the assumption of ownership.

I thought so, too, BB. I always thought Joyce owned the gallery, or at least held a stake in it. Given the type of work that she did, that she sometimes acquired authentic artifacts for home decoration (as in Dead Man's party), and that she was able to afford a house and support Buffy (and, later, Dawn) more or less on her own led me to believe that if she wasn't an owner, she was definitely a higher up.

 

[Atren]

She might have run the gallery, but not own it. That would explain the situation rather well i believe. And concerning Season 1, if she sais she found then it is finding. Founded would mean creating new one.

Also if she founded even then she might have had partners who later bought her part of it, for example when she was in more dire need of money (hospital expenses maybe?).

 

[palabravampiress]

She might have run the gallery, but not own it. That would explain the situation rather well i believe. And concerning Season 1, if she sais she found then it is finding. Founded would mean creating new one.

Also if she founded even then she might have had partners who later bought her part of it, for example when she was in more dire need of money (hospital expenses maybe?).

Oooh. That's a really good suggestion, especially since it is implied that a lot of the money went toward Joyce's medical bills.

 

[Blondie Bear]

Aha!

Joyce: You know, I think we can make it work here. I've got my positive energy flowing... I'm gonna get the Gallery on its feet... Oh, uh, we may have found a space today.

"WE" may have found a space today. What I get from that is 1) she's opening a brand spanking new gallery; and 2) she's not doing it alone (unless the "we" refers to her real estate agent, which isn't outside the realm of possibility). But I still think she at least co-owns the gallery and definitely founded it.

 

[BookemDanno]

I never understood why she didn't get funding from the watcher council.

 

[palabravampiress]

I never understood why she didn't get funding from the watcher council.

Good point. She got Giles retroactive pay. Why didn't she get a living stipend for the slayer? Saving the world should be worth something.

 

[Silum]

Good point. She got Giles retroactive pay. Why didn't she get a living stipend for the slayer? Saving the world should be worth something.

true, the council showed themselves to be quite powerful, and powerful=money for all those living in the real world. I would have thought money issues are something completely pointless for the council, why would they have their only weapon worrying about money when their is a fight against evil to be had. Think of how many man(woman)hours Buffy spent at doublemeat crapalace when she could have been fighting the good fight.