Bill and Hillary are ordinary people just like you. Sure she scores $200K per speech and he takes home $500K per speech, but that’s just because they were broke and trying to make ends meet.

Hillary Clinton, who recently raked in $5 million dollars in speaking fees in 15 months, recounted to Diane Sawyer the sad tale of her former destitution, telling her, “We came out of the White House not only dead broke but in debt.”

According to Clinton, she and her husband, who has made over $100 million since leaving the White House, “struggled to, you know, piece together the resources for mortgages for houses, for Chelsea’s education, you know, it was not easy.”

But, as Clinton’s story goes, the two hard-working, middle-class millionaires somehow managed to put food on the table in their multiple houses, even though they “had to make double the money, because of, obviously, taxes, and then pay off the debts and get us houses and take care of family members.”

Taxes. Those suck, don’t they.

Right out of the White House, the Clintons bought a $1.6 million Dutch colonial mansion in Westchester for $1.7 million and a $2.85 another colonial mansion on Embassy Row in Washington.

Interestingly enough that home had been listed at $3.5 million, but the Clintons always have a way of getting a “good deal”.

It had five bedrooms and 7.5 bathrooms. (The New York one only had four bathrooms.) Just the sort of thing working people pick up on the side so that Hillary would have a place in D.C. to write her memoirs. (Her other memoirs, which she also didn’t write.)

Bill and Hillary made a down payment of $855,000. Just like broke people do. They made a down payment of $350,000 on  their first home.

The Clintons did leave the White House with huge debts, but they also had large sources of wealth including a blind trust that was making all sorts of interesting investments.

For instance, the blind trust managed by Citigroup was heavily invested in overseas companies, including $30,000 to $100,000 in two Asian companies — Hong Kong and China Gas, and Hutchison Whampoa. The latter was involved in a controversy last year because of it received a U.S. contract to scan some U.S.-bound ships for nuclear material. Some lawmakers worried that the work could allow China to gain access to sensitive U.S. technologies because Hutchison Whampoa executives have business connections to the Chinese government.

Money from the blind trust helped buy their homes, along with a timely loan from a good friend.