From a reddit article on “What is a good NYC salary”:
As long as you don’t commit rookie mistakes:
Then you’ll be fine.
This is ironic. Avoid all things which make quality of life better and you can live anywhere.
My kids actually do none of these things and are very happy. They both have cars, and drive to work. One drives 45-50 minutes each way. Neither buys coffee out daily, or cocktails once a week. Uber and Lyft are used to get to the airport because for them it’s cheaper than parking a car at the airport for a week.
One lives alone and one with her husband.
And both enjoy life a lot.
Agreed @thumper1 . My son happens to live in the county where he works, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have to drive a lot. Luckily he gets a car provided to him. He lives with his girlfriend and another friend in a 1250 sq/ft 2 bed/2bath apartment with a single car garage and 3 parking spaces. They have 4 cars between them. He might eat out once per week, and wouldn’t pay $20 for a cocktail if his life depended on it. They go to the local farmer’s market every week to stock up on fresh produce, then cook almost every night.
Buying overpriced cocktails in a bar is a quality of life factor?
Based on the young people I know, the ones with a high quality of life are out doing interesting things, meeting interesting people, volunteering for causes they care about, etc.
The lonely ones are out at bars, meeting strangers and “hoping” they’ll have something in common with the stranger besides “we both like to drink overpriced cocktails at bars” which is usually not a great starting point for deeper connection.
And then there are others that go to small batch bourbon tastings paired with small plates at an upscale restaurant . 
surrounded by coworkers - all having a blast.
I am not sure why we need to have alcohol for socialization 
You don’t have to, but if you want to that’s ok too. Entertainment comes in all shapes and sizes.
Yes it does. But young grads quickly learn that a cocktail habit might cost as much as a nice vacation when you add it up!
Haha, my daughter learned very quickly first year in college, drinks for everybody in the whole group was very costly. At least she got to enjoy grandma’s money that I saved for years. The drinking phase disappears slowly, they admit they can’t do a lot in the 30s. But that doesn’t mean zilch either.
Going out for a drink is one of the social things for young adults. If they can afford it and drinking doesn’t become an addiction why not
Not sure how we would define an addiction. But if you ask young people, that definition tends to be very elastic.
In 2019, 25.8 percent of people ages 18 and older (29.7 percent of men in this age group and 22.2 percent of women in this age group) reported that they engaged in binge drinking in the past month. Alcohol Facts and Statistics | National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)
My DD broke up with her previous BF because of his excessive drinking. He was drinking at home almost every day because he was stressed with job search during Covid. It was a huge red flag and we could not be happier when she broke up with him. So that is an addiction.
Hmmmm,
There’s a big difference between having a craft Manhattan after work with friends and hammering Jell-O shots till you pass out on some beach in Florida
And let’s stick to the topic please.
When your friends want to meet at a bar or go out to brunch or dinner, you often decide whether you’ll see them or save money. And in a city, this is often how friends get together. It becomes harder if many of your friends have better paid jobs or parental support or simply less time to spend money so are up for fewer, more pricey outings.
It’s great that some kids find ways to minimize these expenses but it can be very challenging. This is all part of the COL. And if you live in a very inexpensive place in an expensive city, you may have to go out to socialize - having friends over to the single room you share with two is not an option.
But this is life-- not just post-college.
I have friends who routinely plan weekends in someone’s ski chalet, think nothing of calling a ticket broker for “hard to get” tickets for a show (with the obligatory dinner and bottles of wine), and many other activities which are not in my budget.
Learning how to navigate this at age 22 is good preparation for life. Yes, it’s challenging. But much more challenging when your friends are regularly asking you to buy 10K tables at THEIR favorite charity’s dinner, or that they are being honored by an organization they care about and the minimum ad in the “celebratory” journal is $2500 (and it happens not to be an organization YOU care about…)
Yes, real life. You learn to find ways to stay connected to people which fit your own lifestyle and budget-- and if those friends can’t or won’t- the friendships sort of dissipate.
I have a close friend whose constraint is caregiving for an elderly parent. You can’t just text spontaneously and say “Hey, we’re getting together for drinks tonight, are you in?” The issue isn’t financial- it’s that it takes a week to secure overtime for an evening or night nurse. The friends who “get it” are sensitive to this-and plan things that work. The friends who “don’t get it” are sidelined.
Adults have constraints and make choices. Pay back my loan this month or a new phone. Once kids come along- it’s “my kid needs braces or we take a nice vacation”. And once you retire you STILL have to make choices. Adulting.
@blossom - D2 (she’s 28) has several friends from high school that are trust fund “kids.” She still gets together with a few of them and they are very good about choosing places that the “non” trust fund friends can afford and enjoy. One of the friends D2 has known since they were 11, but D2 is kind of phasing out of this friendship because she just doesn’t have anything in common any longer with her. The friend is currently in online grad school, but mostly just spends her days riding her hunter/jumper horses and hanging out with the older women at the barn that have married (or divorced) well. D2 doesn’t feel she has anything to talk about with her since their lives are so different.
Yup, that happens. I have friends with mega wealth (earned, married into, inherited) and somehow we manage to do coffee/walks, meet for a quick bagel before work, one invited me to join her book club (which is now zoom and I LOVE seeing how her other high end friends live), and in general find things to do which are revenue neutral. Their lives are different than mine in some ways but in others- aging parents, relationships, books, TV/movies, we still have things to talk about and share.
Lots of lessons from my 20’s when my crummy walkup apartment could not compete with the doorman/elevator buildings that the trust fund kids started out in!
I was an intern at Harper’s Bazaar in the fashion department in the mid-'90s. Did almost none of those things (did eat out on occasion with friends). IIRC, my large bedroom in a shared apartment on 10th between 1st and Ave A was $800. I met one person who slept in a hallway’s cushioned bench seating in their shared apartment! One of the lower-level fashion department employees was 26 and already living in Brooklyn.
Rents I’ve seen in Detroit suburbs are close to $2k for a one-bedroom.
(Oh, and @blossom, I would’ve walked home with you!)