It’s easy to wonder how much Carrie Bradshaw made as a columnist on Sex and the City after taking one look at her Upper East Side apartment and closet full of designer goods. Knowing how expensive it can be to live in the Big Apple, one of the most unrealistic parts of the successful series was how Carrie was able to afford her fabulous lifestyle as a columnist and freelancer.
And Just Like That, but the question for the original series remains the same.
How Much Did Carrie Make In The ‘90s?
At the beginning of the HBO series Sex and the City, Carrie Bradshaw was 32 and already living quite well in New York. With her friends being successful lawyers, gallerists, and publicists, Carrie certainly wasn't in the same wheelhouse financially, yet as a popular columnist in the ‘90s, she more than got by.
The woman Carrie is based on, Candace Bushnell, had a newspaper column in the ‘90s, and she revealed to The New Yorker that her payment for her work in The Observer wasn’t much, but she was able to afford to take less there because of how much she made writing for Vogue. The author said, “It was a real time for media. I worked for Vogue, writing the ‘People Are Talking About’ column, and got paid $5,000 a month.” Presumably, as Bushnell's author surrogate, Carrie was making the same amount.
Carrie’s Career At Vogue Paid For Her Fashion Hauls
At the time, Carrie Bradshaw would have been able to pay for her apartment and fashion addiction just by writing about her boyfriends throughout Sex and the City. Based on author Candace Bushnell’s Vogue salary, it's justifiable how Carrie afforded her lifestyle. Bushnell explained, “The Observer paid less, but I could afford that, because of Vogue. I mean, this was a time that writers were getting a Vanity Fair contract for six pieces and $250,000 dollars a year.”
With her Vogue income, it makes sense how Carrie was able to afford those Manolo Blahniks and Prada bags. With a love for fashion, controlled rent, and a knack for eating leftover Chinese food, Carrie had additional funds to pay for her fashion hauls. And while it may seem outlandish to see her stuffing designer brands into her oven for storage, the reality is that most of her paychecks went right to her love of fashion, which was a quirk that Sex and the City fans loved about her, to begin with.