Six figures and lots and lots of change.
For anyone that has ever wondered how much money Joey ACTUALLY owed Chandler by the time the Friends supped their last in Central Perk, wonder no more.
The jobless actor made an entire life out of spongeing from his transponster pal in their nicely appointed Manhattan apartment, but the true level of his extortion will blow your mind.
Redditor A Smile That Kills decided to do the maths and discovered that Joey owed Chandler north of $100,000.
In his post, referring to a Season 8 episode in which Chandler mentions bankrolling Joey, he says:
There were 2 sets of head shots, each at $500. So there’s $1000. Let’s assume that the acting lessons, dancing lessons, and voice coach sessions were all $1000 on average. So now we’re at $4000.
He then says 3 years worth of rent, utilities, and food. They live in Manhattan in a nice area of The Village, in a 2 bedroom, 1 bath, apartment on one of the upper levels. That is a very expensive location to live in; today an apartment like that would cost around $5000 a month easily, using Zillow.com as a guide (and I’m low balling it assuming they got a good deal). Using an online dollar appreciation site, and using the year 1997, i found that $5000 would translate to about $3500 for them. The rent was supposed to be split 2 ways, so this is 3 years of chandler paying Joey’s $1250. So $45,000 in rent alone. Now we’re at $49,000.
Now for utilities, bills, food. We can guess the utilities may have been $1000 a year so lets add another $1500 for the 3 years of joeys half. So $50,500.
We know they had a phone and cable. Using today’s basic phone and cable TV prices, lets say that would be $100 a month (no cell phones/data remember) counting inflating for 1997 would be around $70 a month; so Joey’s half over 3 years would have been $1260. So now we’re at $51,760.
And there’s a lot more…
Now for food, this is huge. Joey is known to be a huge eater, and add that to the fact that the group goes out to eat constantly; while watching the show you see that not only does chandler cover him every time they get coffee/dinner, he also gives joey money for him to go on all of the dates he constantly goes on; as well as chandler buys all the groceries (Which would be a lot). I can only guess the amounts but lets say $100 a week on groceries+$100 a week on pizza/takeout/coffee+ $50 a week for Joey’s dates, every week for 3 years (which i’ll say counts as 1997 value). So $39,000.
… Chandler basically funded the living expenses of a full grown man for 3 years in one of the most expensive parts of Manhattan, so it was pretty costly to him.
So, we’re at $108,760. Add in the $5,500 Chandler spent replacing the furniture in the apartment and the cost of Joey’s hernia treatment, and you’re talking the final figure of…
$137,760
Holy jaysus.
H/T Buzzfeed
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