Money in NYC: It's Never Enough

Our case of the Mondays got worse when we read New York's feature on how much we'll need to never run out of money. There are various calculators and examples offered to figure out, given your lifestyle, how much will be enough so you can winter in fabulous places or think about just spending money on shoe soles to get where you're going. The sad thing is that if you are a middle-class New Yorker with modest expectations, there's no way you're living in Manhattan and living an exciting life. We felt as though the article was telling us, "Get thee to a nunnery in Queens or Staten Island!" And if anyone knows about a surefire pyramid scheme, you know where to find us.

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By Jen Chung in Arts and Events on October 24, 2005 9:33 AM

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Wolf

I can live off of $20,000 a year, have a 7 bedroom brick house, on half an acre, fully-fenced, with a 6 car garage. I bought the house for about $30,000, and pay about $4000 in taxes per year on it in the city of Syracuse NY. i've picked up more modest houses for about $12,000 in he last few years, with half the taxes. I suppose someone earning $100,000 can't do that in NYC.

Wolf

Syracuse, NY

seoulo

I live in Chicago after having tried to live in New York City (Park Slope, Brooklyn) and thereabouts (Bergen County, NJ), and I knew that on my 45K per year salary, I'd be hard pressed to own a home just about anywhere in the metropolitan area. I make a little more now in Chicago, but now live in my own 2-bdrm. condo in an up and coming part of the city, close to downtown Chicago (the Loop).

I miss New York a lot, but this article just confirms how frustrating it can be for middle-class folk to live in the city that never sleeps. Just about everywhere else in the contintental U.S. is more manageable, financially speaking. But I suppose people keep keeping on in New York because of those special things unqiue to it.

Anyway....

Samantha T

I'm all for simple pleasures, but I'm curious if RoseFox's and MissPinkKate's tunes will change when they attempt to purchase a house in or around NYC. For the rest of the country, that's a middle-class, modest aspiration. It's close to impossible in many parts of the five boroughs.

Jean

Not too seem a little yuppie, but outside of working independently as an artist/writer or freelancing, what satisfactory jobs can two adult people have and still make less $45K? I am racking my brain but all I see is Rose Fox and her fiance cashiering my books at B&N. Most entry level jobs in the media and publishing start higher and if you are making less and working for a company, you are getting screwed majorly.

Also, do you really enjoy riding the Fungwah bus and buying cheap wine at your wonderful local wine store in Inwood.

Gimme an Fing Break!

kbc

Inwood is the key word in RoseFox's post, folks. Inwood.

MissPinkKate

Amen, RoseFox. NYC is a great place to be rich, but it's still great if you're not.

Rose Fox

The sad thing is that if you are a middle-class New Yorker with modest expectations, there's no way you're living in Manhattan and living an exciting life.

What nonsense! Life is as exciting as you make it. My fiance and I together make maybe $45K/yr, and our lives have plenty of excitement. The Chinatown bus gets us out of town for cheap, Freecycle furnishes our apartment for, well, free, our Inwood apartment is low-rent and lovely, and the bargains at Fairway and our local farmer's market leave us plenty of cash for occasional splurges. Why pay absurd prices to sit in noisy bars and drink overpriced well booze when we could get a great $16 bottle of wine at a local shop? Why empty our wallets for highfalutin' meat-and-two-veg when we could drop $20 on raw ingredients and cook a fabulous dinner for our fabulous friends? Our life is plenty exciting and we love every minute of it, and none of it requires extravagant shelling out.