<p>How much of a salary would you need to live comfortably (i know its relative, but apply it to the majority) in New York City.</p>
<p>I would assume around 200k-300k.</p>
<p>I'm guessing you mean Manhattan?</p>
<p>If so, yes, about 200-300k. But comfortable is relative. If you have a couple of kids in private schools, you will not be rolling in dough. Neither would you if you had a large mortgage and maintenance. In the boroughs you could live very well on that money.</p>
<p>It's all very relative and the term "New York City" isn't specific enough. If you want to live in midtown Manhattan then yeah you'll need to be loaded. But the cost of living drops of quite dramatically as you fan out into the other boroughs of NYC and beyond into the surrounding counties (where you can easily take the train into NYC).</p>
<p>My D lived in Brooklyn with no family help on <25,000. Depends on what you think you need.</p>
<p>"My D lived in Brooklyn with no family help on <25,000. Depends on what you think you need"</p>
<p>True that. I was thinking of the upper-middle-class, middle-aged family life of kids, mortgages, maintenance and private schools. Without those things you'd need less money.</p>
<p>And of course, hundreds of thousands of families are living in Manhattan on a fraction of 2 or3 hundred K.</p>
<p>See the following link: Starting Salaries but New York Tastes</p>
<p>To the OP: Are you a student? Are you a parent? Do you have kids to educate? What part of New York City are you talking about: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Staten Island? Do you want to live in a house, a coop, a condo, or rent? How big a place do you need? A recent grad living in a studio in Queens will need a heck of a lot less money than a 40-year-old with three kids.</p>
<p>thanks for the NYT article link.
read it from beginning to end before forwarding it to my daughter, who graduates from northwestern in a month, after which she plans on going to nyc, where she was offered a paid internship with the magazine she interned with this past spring, for TEN DOLLARS and hour!!!
r we biting our lower lips and trying to shut up?
yep.
but she thinks she will wait tables or something to supplement until an actual job can be procured.
so she graduates with honors from medil, one of the top journalism schools in the country, so she can go starve.
well, u r only young once, right?</p>
<p>Sher, does she have a roommate lied up></p>
<p>SherBear,</p>
<p>It can happen. She sounds a lot like a roommate of my S-1. She had just graduated in journalism from a good place in Virginia (ah, sorrry, it's skipping me now, Franklin Marshall perhaps? Randolph Macon? It had a double name. Anyway, she was rightfully proud of her journalism degree).</p>
<p>She came to NYC without even the internship your D has in hand! She roomed with others, waited tables. After a year of constantly applying, she got an entry level job with a blog section of an established magazine, because she had Youth. She had to open up her idea of what it meant to work in journalism. She stopped saying, "I was trained in college to write real news articles."</p>
<p>Lots of new graduates put up with a lot of speedbumps in order to live in NYC, because it's just too much fun. If they don't like it, they go home after a year, but if they get a foothold, they can stay put. </p>
<p>It's a shock to go from that fun Spring trip to NYC with the college friends, staying in a hotel together, to living there full-time on their own money, paying rent and buying groceries. They all understand the journey, though, and nobody's alone in it. </p>
<p>But what's the worse that can happen, really? They'll learn the value of a dollar, have a great early adventure in their immediate post-college years, and perhaps decide to continue on there. </p>
<p>As parents, just set it up as a win-win. She's brave, not stupid, to try for a $l0 an hour job. And you'll be amazed with how resourceful people become.
My S, for example (boast, boast) doesn't spend money at clubs; he makes money at clubs, doing photography there cold sober and selling the pictures to half-drunk college students. </p>
<p>They stop going to Broadway shows for $l00 but discover that Off-off-broadway tickets cost $l0 - $l8. For a bigger night, Off-broadway costs around $35-65. </p>
<p>The girls stop shopping when they realize their closets won't hold any more. In my S's first apartment, the kitchen and dresser were underneath a double loft bed, and there was a recliner and ottoman. Period. He was in Manhattan heaven, and never had to sweep a floor because there wasn't any visible.</p>
<p>^^ as long as she as a roof over her head and food to eat, most of the rest is gravy. Manhattan is one of those rare places on earth that people will scrounge to stay in. it's one of those places you either love or hate (no matter how much money you have). </p>
<p>My son is living in a dorm with a kitchen (moved from freshman dorm 2 weeks ago). First time in his life he's responsible for buying and preparing his own food. He was so proud of himself for buying 3 pieces of fruit for a dollar. A dollar he earned.</p>
<p>Upper East Side (if all the credit checks turn out okay). Any special things to eat, do, see in that area? I don't know exactly where the apartment is located.</p>
<p>Their attitude is this is the best time in their lives to do something like this. Fortunately they all have real jobs lined up.</p>
<p>The Upper East Side is home to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim, the Frick, and the Whitney (in other words, many museums) and has some of the most expensive shopping in the world in the boutiques on Madison Ave. It used to be the most coveted place to live, before downtown got very trendy, and is still home to most of the wealthiest New Yorkers. It can be a bit boring for young people, but it's a very safe and beautiful area of the city.</p>
<p>I would feel comfortable about my child getting a place on the Upper East Side. Just as Booklady said, it's beautiful and safe.</p>
<p>You can visit the United Nations headquarters.</p>
<p>Location: Look on a map: Between First Avenue and the East River ("Avenues" run north to south), and between from East 42nd Street and East 48th Street ("Streets" run east-to-west).</p>
<p>So that's not "Upper" East Side, but more "Middle" in a neighborhood called Turtle Bay.
Ha. It's the Middle East.</p>
<p>The two biggest issues for those who live in the NYC area are housing costs and temptations. It is much more difficult to find safe housing in the NYC area for costs comparable to other parts of the country. The other problem is that there are so many temptations out there to spend more money. You can feel awfully poor here when you see so many indulging and enjoying what's here. </p>
<p>If you have a family, those issues are exacerbated since housing means finding a place with good education options for your family. Private schools tend to be more expensive here so a good public school is important if you are trying to live frugally. Then you have the kids exposed to families that have so much, which again puts the monetary pressure on high. It can hurt when your peers and your children's peers have so much more.</p>
<p>When I lived in the midwest, housing options were more plentiful, and a nice house in a safe area with a pretty decent school district could be found within an hour's commute from a major city. There were many, many families in our neighborhood and our kids' schools that were in similar economic situations as we were, and it made it easier to economize. As an example, when our son was going to an athletic event that necessitated several nights away, and it meant that parents who wanted to come would have to stay at a hotel, it was no big deal that a bunch of us moms would share a hotel room. Or if it was each parent with a kid, I would share with another mom and a kid, which really brought the $$s down low, low , low. We would also stock pile food which made things cheaper. Here, no way. And bringing too much food along makes you stand out. </p>
<p>Because of the very high housing costs here, there is a big economic gap between those who got their houses a while ago and those who bought them in the last 10 years or so. Given the same jobs, assets, etc, that housing cost makes a huge difference in what discretionary income is availabe in households. Being relative newcomers to this area with no family to help out, we have to pay full freight on everything here, which makes it more difficult than those who have family here. Yes, it's the same everywhere, but the numbers are just so much higher here that it can really hit harder. </p>
<p>For singletons who find a roomshare that is reasonably priced, they will have less space most of the time, which again makes those temptations more tempting. You are not as likely to cook as much or bag a lunch when your peers eat out all of the time, and all of these, oh so yummy places are everywhere in Manhattan. It's tougher to stick with those old midwestern values that I had instilled in me. It's hard to go against the flow of your peers.</p>
<p>As others have mentioned, the salary needed is dependent on whether you're planning to live in Manhattan and on your family structure -- single versus married with children.</p>
<p>For someone who is single and right out of school, I'm going to say that to live comfortably in Manhattan (meaning -- no roommate, doorman building, paying off school debt, not living on credit cards, and not having to watch every dollar of expenditure), you'd want to be making close to 100k. Obviously, this isn't always realistic for college grads, so most people have to weight the need/desire to live in NYC against the type of lifestyle they want and decide what they're willing to compromise on. </p>
<p>I agree that there is a certain amount of lifestyle pressure in Manhattan. Sure, you can opt not to go out clubbing all the time, avoid taking cabs etc, but there are certain things that people just don't do. For example -- bagging lunch -- it's perfectly acceptable way to save, but you tend not to see it amongst the professionals/college grads in many offices, so if you do it, you may feel like you're sticking out.</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
For example -- bagging lunch -- it's perfectly acceptable way to save, but you tend not to see it amongst the professionals/college grads in many offices, so if you do it, you may feel like you're sticking out.
[/QUOTE]
</p>
<p>Oh, I don't know about that. I'm a lawyer who's worked in midtown Manhattan, on the East Side, ever since I graduated from law school in 1979, and I bring lunch to work and eat it at my desk almost every day!</p>
<p>The monthly rent I paid for a one-bedroom apartment in a new building at 72nd and 3rd in 1979: $688. The rent that one would probably have to pay for a similar apartment in that area now: maybe $3000, or even more?</p>
<p>There's the Upper East Side, and the Upper East Side. You're not usually going to find recent college graduates (unless they're wealthy) living in the 60's and 70's and even the '80's, between Fifth and, say, Lexington. Further east, and further north, up in Yorkville or what used to be the Czech and Hungarian neighborhoods in the '70's, yes. Sharing an apartment with a roommate or roommates, often. Sometimes, though, the location isn't so convenient for people who live as far east as First or York. It can be a very long walk on a cold day, or carrying a heavy bag, to the subway on Lexington! </p>
<p>But I'm no expert anymore. I grew up on 67th and Lexington, where my father still lives, but I haven't lived in New York City since 1987, when I got married and moved to New Jersey. I'd love to move back within the next couple of years, after my son is settled in college, but am not sure I can afford it. I certainly couldn't afford to live on the Upper East Side anymore! I probably would need $200-$300K per annum, and the ability to spend, say, a million dollars on an apartment. And I'm sorry to say I don't have either!</p>
<p>Donna</p>
<p>I grew up on the Upper West Side, which used to be the UES's cheaper cousin, before it became completely gentrified. The first apt. I had on my own was in Greenwich Village: a studio on Bleecker (betw. 10th and Charles) that was a whopping $350/month, roaches included (this was in the early 80's). It was paradise. :) I left the city in 1985, and H and I sometimes talk about getting a little pied-a-terre there, but unless prices drop drastically that's not going to happen, alas.</p>