Oh, you poor rich people. Why do you have to suffer so in an economic downturn? We dare to whine about stupid things like “having to choose between heating the house or buying food,” when socialites are languishing in their penthouses, fretting over whether the guests will notice they’re serving domestic champagne. But there is an upside to the downturn. Rich people wrote this week’s top five for me. I’m not making these up. These are actual ways rich people are responding to the recession, taken from newspaper and magazine articles:

5. Cutting their 17-year-old daughter’s allowance back from $100 a week to $60 a week.

4. From the daughter: not getting take-out sushi for lunch every day.

3. “Letting Yolanda go, which means I’ll have to learn to iron my own shirts.”

2. From an article describing an elegantly-dressed woman approaching a shopper using coupons: “Oh, I’ve heard about those things. Where does one get them?”

1. From the same article: “Instead of paying $250,000 to take the private jet to Singapore, I flew commercial for $20,000.”

Speaking of money, I bought a lottery ticket in Kalispell the other day. So yesterday Dean says there was a $200,000 winning ticket sold in Kalispell. I checked the numbers and hey, I’m a winner! Of four dollars. On my five dollar ticket. Guess I’ll still be ironing my own shirts. Or would be, if I ever ironed anything.