Y Ted K .com

"None of the family had any idea how much money they had or what anything cost. To be a Kennedy means never having to ask 'how much?' " - A family friend

"The Kennedys were not giving people. They paid the staff just above minimum wage and were miserly with raises." - Kennedy employee

- A Kennedy never carries cash and rarely pays for anything.

- As President, Jack Kennedy often attended mass with his great friend Lem Billings and would borrow $10 from him for the collection plate.

- When Teddy Kennedy realized he was in dangerous water on Chappaquiddick and placed an urgent call to a female friend, he had to borrow the dime to call her collect.

- An Aspen caterer had to sue Ethel Kennedy to collect on a bill.

- Noelle Fell, who worked for Ethel for six years, recalls stepping out to help her boss carry her bags from a taxi - just in time to see Ethel let the cabbie have it across the face with a stinging blow. "She roared: 'That fare is outrageous! You people are always trying to take advantage of the Kennedys. I refuse to pay!' It was only $12 or $13 - the standard fare from the airport."

- If you are Congressman Joe II, a designated aide holds your wallet and pays your dinner check. Once Joe II tried to write a check in a bakery and wound up yelling at the cashier, "Don't you know who I am?"

- When he lived on New York's Upper West Side, John Jr. was habitually late with his rent checks.

- According to Barbara Gibson, Rose's longtime personal assistant, it was nothing for the younger generation to borrow money from the chauffeur and the nanny, but it somehow slipped their minds to pay it back.

- "The Kennedys were not giving people," says Noelle Fell. "They paid the staff just above minimum wage and were miserly with raises. Ethel kept promising me a raise but I never got one."

- "When she went on trips, she'd always tell me she bought me a gift. But I'd never see it. It was always a new excuse, like her suitcase was missing, the gift was being shipped, or she left it with someone else. It was funny to see what thin excuse she'd come up with next."

- Eunice was known to arrive in Palm Beach for the weekend needing a new dress to wear to a cocktail party. She would then go to Martha's, an exclusive Worth Avenue dress shop, buying an expensive dress which she proceeded to wear to the party. Then, on Monday morning, on her way to the airport, Eunice would drop off the dress at her assistant's office, telling her to return it for full credit.

- Kennedys also try to save on help. Rose Kennedy's homes were notoriously understaffed, even when she had nine children at home. Eunice, well-known for her work with the Special Olympics, was said to occasionally use the retarded in her home as unpaid domestics. "She either did not pay them, or else she paid them far less than she would have to pay for someone else to do the identical work. She justified it as some sort of on-the-job training. Everyone else just saw her using cheap help."