The financial affairs of the Tsarnaev brothers

Here’s a rundown of information available so far about Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s financial situations:

Revenues

• U.S. News reports that “The larger Tsarnaev family ended up living on public assistance in Cambridge, Mass,” which in context of the article was probably around 2010.
• Dzhokhar Tsarnaev received a $2,500 scholarship from the city of Cambridge in May 2011 to pursue higher education.
• Tamerlan Tsarnaev was unemployed, but his wife, Katherine Russell, was working long hours as a home health care aide.  During their last conversation, Tamerlan told his uncle that he fixes cars, but he did not say whether he was earning wages.
• Patimat Suleimanova, the Tsarnaev brothers’ aunt, said that “the brothers had stumbled upon money problems” in 2012, and that their father Anzor Tsarnaev “would send money from here when he could.”
• Dzhokhar Tsarnaev withdrew $800 from Bank of America an ATM card stolen from the Tsarnaev’s carjacking victim on the night of April 18.

Expenses

• Tamerlan Tsarnaev studied accounting part-time from 2006 to 2008, incurring probable tuition expenses.  U.S. News says he dropped out for financial reasons.
• Tamerlan and Katherine Tsarnaev’s daughter was born in 2010, incurring probable medical expenses.
• Dzhokhar was a student at UMass Dartmouth, where annual tuition, room, board, and fees cost approximately $22,255 for Massachusetts residents.
• Tamerlan Tsarnaev travelled to Russia from January to June 2012 (where airfare normally runs at least several hundred dollars).
• During his Russia trip, a neighbor described Tamerlan Tsarnaev as a “dandy” and that he “he dressed in a very refined way.”
• Bombs like the ones used at the Boston marathon may have cost about $100 apiece to make.
• During an interview with CNN, Cambridge auto mechanic Gilberto Junior said that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was wearing $900 shoes while visiting his repair shop just days after the bombings.  Junior also described Dzhokhar’s friends, who describe themselves as being Turkish, as the owners of “high-end cars.”  Junior told the New York Times that the brothers themselves also had a taste for expensive cars.

Indirect information

• The Tsarnaevs’ mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva quit her job working at a spa within the last few years.
• Investigators have been reexamining the 2011 murder of a former roommate of Tamerlan Tsarnaev.  Thousands of dollars in cash were left at the crime scene.
• Dhzokar Tsarnaev once described his personal priority in life as “career and money.”
• In June 2012, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva was arrested for shoplifting $1,600 worth of clothes from Lord & Taylor.
• During his good-bye call to his uncle Alvi Tsarnaev, Tamerlan asked “Did you pay your mortgage?”
• Katherine Russell Tsarnaev’s parents are selling their home, and have listed it for $467K.
• In his initial court appearance on Apr. 22, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was asked “Can you afford a lawyer?” He answered, “No.”