You used to make gazillions. Now you won’t even make an honest, old-fashioned million. What to do?

That thought could have flashed through the minds of people accustomed to a lot of zeroes in their paychecks after President Obama announced his plan to place income limits on executives who work for companies that receive federal bailout money. The plan includes a $500,000 cap on compensation for senior officials and new restrictions on other kinds of megabuck payouts, like severance pay.

It was enough to raise the obvious question: What if your salary were capped at $500,000 a year?

Time to look up a couple of people who have made more than that, and ask, when was the last time they had made that little? (It’s still a lot of money by almost any measure.) And, how did so much money change their lives?

“It would take me back to ’91 or ’92,” said Mary Rodas, who made big money when she was a teenager as vice president for marketing of the company that made Balzac, a ball-in-a-sack toy that became a top seller at F.A.O. Schwarz.

In those days she rode around in a limousine (“I was too young for a driver’s license,” she said) and did her market research at the private school she attended, trying out product designs and colors on younger students.