[DuncanWaring]

That still leaves her with a cool $1 million ... that should still give her an annual income of around $100,000 even with mediocre investment.

10% return?

Where do you find that these days?

[Vigilanteman]

She had the money in hand shortly after the 1987 divorce and had p*ssed all of it away by 1994 in the manner described. A woman of her described talents should be earning at least $50K annually in a market like Massachusetts. That leaves only a 5% return. FWIW, I'm still doing better than 5% on a large and common mortgage backed mutual fund from Franklin Templeton with only a $2K investment. It was doing nearly 10% in 1994.

This isn't some hot, high risk fund. It is a vanilla low risk fund which has been around for ages.