New York Threads

November 25, 2011

Richard Ambrosio, JP Morgan trader, rotates through the collection of shoes he bought when he earned four times more / Photo by Teresa Mahoney

Forty-nine-year-old foreign exchange trader, Richard Ambrosio, has put shopping on the backburner. His scuffed brown shoes, $30 Macy’s sale shirt, and balling up wool jacket tells the story of how his shopping habits have changed since he was laid off almost eight years ago.

Ambrosio used to work for UBS making about $400,000 a year as a Wall Street broker. This year he was hired by JP Morgan Chase and earns about a quarter of what he used to—about $40,000 a year less than the median salary of a foreign exchange trader. To cope, he dresses from the large wardrobe he accumulated when times were brighter.

“Luckily I still have a closet full of stuff from when I made more. I used to shop at Brooks Brothers and Charles Tyrwhitt without even looking price tags,” Ambrosio said of the $168 dress shirts he used to buy. He added that he is also more conscious of prices while grocery shopping and has cut his annual vacations to Florida all together.

In the early 2000s, it wasn’t uncommon for him to buy five suits a year—about $1,000 each. Now he shops the sales racks at large, run-of-the-mill department stores on an as needed basis.

“I’m lucky I have a pretty common size,” Ambrosio said of his 34 waist and 17x34x35 shirt size. Even though he looks for bargains, he makes sure he buys fitted shirts instead of the normal cut which he said can look sloppy. “I always want to look good, but brand isn’t that important to me,” he said.

He anticipates his bonus this year to be about 10-20% as a newcomer of his just under six-figure salary. Ambrosio’s former jobs produced a nearly 100% annual bonus.

His wife’s shopping habits have also been impacted by his pay decrease. She used to shop at Ann Taylor and small boutiques on Madison Avenue—filling her closet with over 100 pairs of shoes—using her husband’s bank card. Now she shops at Marshalls.  

She’s even had to take on a job in Long Island caring for an elderly woman after twenty years of not working. Sometimes Ambrosio borrows money from his in-laws who have steady government jobs to help with bills. Ambrosio and his wife used to give them their gently used clothing they didn’t want.

Richard Ambrosio / Photo by Teresa Mahoney

The scuffed tan shoes he wore today are about five years old. “I wouldn’t normally keep these for that long,” he said. He owns about 10 pairs of shoes which he rotates through. Ambrosio anticipates wearing most of his shoes and clothing out until he throws them away.

 “I don’t see clients face-to-face like I used to at UBS, so what I wear isn’t as important.” Ambrosio has a positive attitude about the future of jobs in the financial industry. “I think it’s getting better from what it used to be,” he said, “It’s not too bad wearing what I already have as long as I don’t grow or shrink.”