Could Tim 'The Toolman' Taylor Afford THAT House on a Local TV Host Salary? (Home Improvement)

How did Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor afford that Detroit-area house on a local cable host’s salary? We run the real 1991 numbers behind the Taylor family from Home Improvement. Tool Time wasn’t the national hit we remember. Tim himself called it Michigan’s fourth-highest-rated cable tool show. So we priced it out: what a Binford salesman turned TV host might have earned, what a suburban Detroit house cost in the early ’90s, the mortgage math, the hot rod and the impulse spending. Then there’s the line almost everyone missed. In “Arrivederci, Binford,” Jill reveals who really paid for the house, and it changes the whole question. We also convert the Taylors’ costs to today’s dollars, print the full Receipt of their yearly budget, and look at the $50 million Tim Allen turned down for a ninth season. Next up: How did Ray Barone afford a Long Island house on a sportswriter’s salary? Did the Taylors seem rich to you, or just comfortable? Tell us in the comments. Rerun Receipts runs the real numbers behind your favorite sitcoms from the ’80s, ’90s and 2000s. Subscribe for a new episode every week. Salary and cost figures marked as estimates are our own calculations, not numbers from the show. For entertainment and pop-culture history only. #HomeImprovement #RerunReceipts #90sSitcoms #TimAllen