One of the biggest villains on Season 8 of 90 Day Fiance isn’t even part of the show’s official couples.
She just loves inserting herself into her adult son’s life and making his decisions for him … and for his fiancee.
Betty Gibbs doesn’t see herself as the bad guy, but her mother knows best lines aren’t working on fans who want to see Brandon break free.
But will Brandon ever be able to achieve financial independence? What does he even do for a living?
Finances are a major factor in the story of Brandon Gibbs and his engagement to Julia Trubkina.
He somehow managed to spend whatever savings he had and get $10,000 in debt between travel to Europe to see her and any “support” that he offered her.
So now that she is in the United States with him, Brandon is totally broke … and absolutely at the mercy of his mother and her absurd rules, to her delight.
Brandon’s family runs a farm. If their skin didn’t tell you that, the tour that they gave Julia of all of her mandatory new chores certainly did.
But in addition to his duties on Hummingbird Acres Farm, Brandon also has an actual, paying job.
After all, we saw him get up at 4:30 in the pre-dawn darkness to get up for work … and not return home from work until dusk.
Brandon has a full-time job as a pest control technician.
Parts of this were unclear on the show — as we were not told whether or not this gig is full-time.
Pest-control workers can make anywhere from $20,000 to $40,000 per year. He’s not going to get rich killing roaches, but a job is a job.
Brandon has expressed that he loves his job as an exterminator.
According to him, it beats being “stuck in an office” all day, which of course others might prefer. It takes all types, as you know.
He also enjoys the travel and seeing different buildings, apparently.
Specifically, Brandon works for Houchin’s Pest Control.
This company has been serving residents and businesses in that area of Virginia for over 50 years, and has a reputation for professionalism.
Online estimates of net worth can be dubious, especially with brand new reality stars, but including things like his car, Brandon’s net worth is estimated to be somewhere a little below $100,000.
Apparently, the real money is in the farm itself, which Brandon stands to inherit from his overbearing parents one day.
That could elevate his net worth into the millions one day.
Farming contributes to food production, but it is often a way of monetizing land as it increases in value and can be sold as civilization expands to encompass more and more rural areas.
Unfortunately, this may be part of why Brandon has not simply gone no-contact with his mother after her intrusive, controlling behavior.
From his perspective, if he is patient and tolerates this truly unacceptable nonsense from Mommy Dearest, he can one day reap major dividends.
Of course, another factor is likely that controlling parents tend to be emotionally manipulative, molding their children into people who are so accustomed to defeat that they just accept their lack of control.
Unfortunately, this is to the detriment of Julia Trubkina’s experience in the US.
As we saw in a preview for Episode 7 of this season, his parents are going to escalate — wanting to increase Julia’s workload on the farm.
As if it weren’t vile enough that they are forcing the two into separate bedrooms and trying to micromanage Julia’s medication, they also want to extract more labor from Julia. Can any fortune be worth that?