Dear Mrs. Madoff:

I understand that with your husband in jail for the rest of his life and you losing claim to millions of dollars worth of real estate and other assets in the bargain, you are being left with only $2.5 million to your name. That gives you an income of about $125,000 a year.

Keep this in mind: 90% of Americans don't make anywhere near this. But for two-income professional couples on either coast, this represents a middle class income.

So allow me to give you some general tips on how to live like the middle class, although, as the character in Casablanca says, I don't know why because it can not possibly benefit me.

First thing's first, I'd find your AARP card and join up. Lots of discounts for you there. And you're gonna need them, lady.

Housing: You might have trouble finding affordable housing. This is sure to surprise you, having up until recently enjoyed lavish homes in half a dozen locations without a thought over how they were paid for. But, and I'm sorry to tell you this, your yearly nut won't qualify you for any home anywhere you'd be interested in living. The average cost of a home in Beverly Hills is $1.9 million. While in Manhattan the average cost is $1.4 million. It's looking like nobody in town is going to rent you anything there, anyway.

If you grew up or currently live in Southern California, In-n-Out Burger needs no introduction. The only news you need to know about the cult burger chain is when one is opening up near you. Or you may have heard about how Paris Hilton was busted one night for drunk driving -- on her way to get an In-N-Out burger.

But with the economic meltdown, In-N-Out Burger has become news in another way. While many popular fast-food chains have been suffering the consequences of over-leverage and over-reaching growth, In-N-Out has thrived by doing things the old fashioned way: Refusing to expand nationally, opening only a few stores every year, and giving customers what they want (and not what focus groups tell them we want). At In-N-Out, it's all about the burgers.

WalletPop editor Julie Tilsner spoke with Stacy Perman, author of the best-selling In-N-Out Burger: A Behind-the-Counter Look at the Fast-Food Chain That Breaks all the Rules, to dissect what makes the chain so different from all the others.

What if home ownership really isn't the American Dream? A research paper released by a real-estate professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School starts the debate. And with these delicious findings: Renters are not only happier than the average homeowner, but they're thinner, too.

Oh, sweet, sweet vindication. I'll take it any way it comes.

During the housing boom, I would often shake my head and wonder aloud how home prices could continue to grow, or why it was that they were taking any kid off the street, slapping him in a suit and calling him a mortgage broker. The orgy of greed and building just didn't seem sustainable. It was painfully obvious common sense: If every house in California sells for half a million and up, where are the millions of non-movie stars going to live?

For this, I was often called a bitter renter.

Just last month, our own Sarah Gilbert wrote about endangered bluefin tuna, continuing to sell briskly at trendy sushi bars in London and New York. The best the owners of Nobu London could do was write a recommendation that patrons not order the bluefin sushi (but you could if you wanted to, since it was still on the menu.). She lamented that until the A-listers who dined at these establishments got the message of how close to extinction the tuna really is, sushi bars would continue to serve it.

The stars seems to have taken notice. Just yesterday a group of 31 stars signed a petition vowing not to patronize Nobu London until the eatery stops serving bluefin tuna.

Among the luminaries who lunch: Elle Macpherson, Sienna Miller, Alicia Silverstone, Charlize Theron, Sting and wife Trudie Styler, Ted Danson, Woody Harrelson and Stephen Fry.

"As customers and fans of Nobu we strongly feel that bluefin tuna must be completely removed from your menu due to its perilous position as an extremely endangered animal," their statement reads. "Nobu is a restaurant we all love, a world leader in sushi with a fantastic reputation and enormous influence. If Nobu took a definitive stand on this issue it could make a critical difference."

Well now that the big names have taken a definitive stand, things will definitely change. Consider this the first volley to wipe bluefin tuna off the menus of sushi restaurants everywhere. Los Angeles Nobu is sure to capitulate next, although bluefin sushi is still on its menu (online, anyway). Look for the story in People Magazine soon, followed closely by the bluefin tuna ribbon (blue? Fishy-shaped?) to wear on your lapel.

Because celebrities love a cause celebre more than they love, well, upscale sushi.

I got the call this afternoon.

"Guess who just lost their job."

Since my friend Dawn and I had been talking just yesterday about the fact that her company had been bought six months earlier by some faceless conglomerate, and that her boss is never in the office anymore, I jumped to the wrong conclusion.

"They canned your boss!"

A sickening silence on her end of the line suggested the other possibility.

Then she started crying.

This has happened half a dozen times to me in the last year, as friends, neighbors, even my boyfriend have gotten the ax. Over time, I've developed a five-prong approach to talking them off the ledge.

Your kids love it already, what's stopping you? Maybe you just don't have the right drinking receptacle.

Problem solved. Get your free 14 oz. Juicy Juice water bottle by filling out this simple form. You can fill it with your kids' favorite flavors of Juicy Juice, or fill it with water for yourself.

While supplies last.

It's gotta suck being Dick Fuld. First he loses his great gig at Lehman Brothers, running the company into bankruptcy and kick-starting a global economic meltdown. Then he's forced to sell off some of the family art collection at a loss. Now he's quietly putting up his 6,000 square-foot, full-floor Park Avenue apartment on the market.

It's not listed (he hardly needs any more bad press), but brokers in the know figure the asking price is about $32 million. That's $11 million more than he paid for it in 2007. But they also say the place needed about $10 million of work done to make it Fuld-worthy. That may seem like an excessive amount for a remodel (did they tear it down to the studs and start over?), but then this is a man who runs in a circle with highy-refined tastes. Remember John Thain's $35,000 commode? So $32 million is actually a pretty good price. Or at least Fuld thinks so. Some question his skill with pricing.

If you're one of the greatly moneyed set, you might want to quietly snap this beauty up. The place has 16-rooms, five fireplaces, four bedrooms and four rooms for your servants (I know some families who'd love to rent one of these rooms, if you're interested in a little extra income).

But don't pity Dick. He's still got a place to crash. His properties in Connecticut, Florida, Vermont and Idaho are not (yet) on the market.

Everyone needs a little jolt now and then.

Twenty years ago (ack!), in the fall of 1989, there was a small earthquake in the middle of the night. My boyfriend and I were rattled enough to run out the next day and buy supplies: Water, first aid kit, transistor radio and flashlights. Smart move on our part: the 7.1 Loma Prieta quake hit three weeks later. And we were prepared. The radio in particular was handy, since the electricity was out for days.

Sunday night a 4.7 earthquake hit Los Angeles; not that big, but with an epicenter close enough to my house to shake things up pretty good and scare my kids (and me) witless.

And so I'm thinking it's time to run out and buy some earthquake supplies again. Just in case, you know.

My cousin's 16-year-old daughter is crazy for Hollister, a brand of casual "surf-style" clothes. To this New Hampshire teen, the shorts and hoodies she covets summon up a kind of laid-back, sun-kissed lifestyle (complete with laid-back, sun-kissed boys), that she can only dream of. I had to laugh. The first thing I thought of when I learned about this trend was the small, dusty farming town of Hollister, Calif., which is nowhere near the beach, and where the lifestyle is decidedly more cowboy than surfer.

But then I learned that, more likely, the name might have been taken from a legendary surf spot known as Hollister Ranch, a private stretch of unspoiled beach between Santa Barbara and the mid-coast.

So it was sort of surprising to hear that the makers of Hollister are threatening to sue merchants in the actual town of Hollister if they sell merchandise bearing their town's name.

Preppy clothier Abercrombie & Fitch own the brand, and have already sent a letter threatening action against a clothing line based in Hollister because it had the audacity to put the name of the town on their labels. The owner says she was just trying to give a shout out to the town her headquarters is located in, but she backed down anyway. No small business wants to go up against a giant.

Wanna go into the weapons business?

The Department of Defense is planning to create 20,000 new jobs to help manage its new and improved system of buying weapons, according to media reports.

The Pentagon's number two man, Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn, told Congress the surge is all part of a plan to combat wasteful overspending on the billions of dollars it spends yearly on weapons acquisitions.

So no, you don't actually get to run guns. More like push paper. Still, it's a government gig, which comes with all the benefits of yore, including health insurance for you and your family and decent job security.

Interested? The Pentagon's website doesn't yet show a listing for these many jobs, but you can check back here. As with all things government, information takes a while to wend its way through the system.

Or you could wait for California to finally legalize pot and go into the drug business.