The Real Recession of Orange County

The Real Housewives of Orange County are back for another season. The recession has hit Orange County and the housewives have not been immune. My last trip to out there was this past June and I could definitely feel it there...mostly from the large vacant stores and empty car dealerships.

Tamara's house is currently on the market as a short sale. She fired a nanny and maid and now is seen cleaning her own house (the horror!). She made statement about how they should have saved money. Uh, yeah...and tell your husband to go back to work and give up his tequila business.

Jeana received notices of default on all four of her properties, but was able to modify the loans to avoid foreclosure. I wonder if she went into default to qualify for a program though or if she was really in trouble? She even asked Vicki for a loan...and Vicki said no.

Gretchen had a garage sale with Slade (ugh...Slade), who gossip blogs say owes close to $80K in back child support for his son...who has a brain tumor! Slade lost his house to a foreclosure last year. Rumor has it that Jeff left Gretchen about $1.5M...don't know if it's true or not. She is only 31 years old though and $1.5M isn't going to last her forever.

Lynne cannot even afford her house rental which her family was evicted from, but she is shown getting a face lift for herself and a nose job for her daughter. Nice priorities!

They do get paid a decent amount of money for doing the show...rumored to be around $30K per episode, but clearly they either need more income or need to downsize their lifestyles. Vicki excluded for now since she works hard and is still able to finance her lifestyle.