A friend recently made a visit from Evergreen to New York. It was wonderful to see Sue's smiling face at my apartment door. We had arranged to meet for breakfast, but I wanted her to stop by the apartment so that she could see our new digs and report back to my book club on my living conditions. I hope she liked it and the review was good. $2,600 a month for my apartment is hard to swallow unless you live in NYC and have a handle on what rentals look like.
I gave Sue the tour of my neighborhood including a walk by St. John the Divine and Columbia University. We ended up at my favorite breakfast spot, La Monde Café. We spoke candidly about my experience in the city and Sue asked whether or not my lack of finances had actually hampered my original idea of what we would be able to experience in the city as residents. I think I answered with a pat answer of "we love the city and there is so much to do here that is either free or practically free to residents if you know the right person to talk to or the appointed day to go". And that is true.
But it's April. Tax time. And the Big Apple is giving our Colorado butts a serious kick this year!
Somehow my second job to make ends meet put us into a new tax bracket. Really? Really? Somehow Uncle Sam thinks we are part of the 1%, ok, not the 1%, but somewhere that I'm not.
I saw a news feed on MSN that gave the 10 states with the highest taxes. No surprise New York was numero uno - #1!. Sigh...
So back to Sue's question: after all is said and done can you afford what you wanted to do when you moved to New York City?
The answer is a resounding Yes and a humbled No.
There is a lot to do for free. Museums (entrance fees are for the most part "suggested donations), bike paths all over the city, free kayaking on the Hudson, Central Park, free days at the Zoo, free Shakespeare in the park, etc..., but every day living expenses will kill you. Metro prices just went up from $2.25 per ride to $2.50. Grocery store prices are high because all items are full price and name brand - nothing generic..
Jeff and I tried to pin point our largest expense that we have in New York opposed to life in Colorado. It was an easy answer. Eating out. Back home we ate out every weekend at Tokyo Joe's, Panera, Qdoba, etc... For holiday and birthdays we would go to places like Macaroni Grill or PF Changs. Because life in NYC is so confined to small apartments people tend to socialize in cafes and restaurants. You may have lunch in a café and linger over a coffee, passing the time of day people watching. It's just different. But financially it's a big difference. It's not something that we added to our budget when we were calculating things before our move.
I work from 8 to 3 Monday - Friday for HRPlus and I work at "un-named retailer" 30 hours per week. When I do have time off I don't want to sit in my apartment. I want to be out and about. Certainly in the cold winter months relaxing after work in a restaurant where there is no shopping to do and no dishes to clean up is a very desirable option. Hey, don't lecture me. I know it doesn't make fiscal sense, but what's the point of working two jobs if I'm not getting some reward for all of my hours of labor. Unfortunately, the tax man decided that between Jeff s salary and my two jobs we have become the elite bourgeois and we need to tally up. But... I'm not sure how to cut the fat without becoming the working poor.
It's getting harder to justify life in here in New York. I love the city, I love the people, I love my friends, and our community, but at what point do we decide that instead of taking a bite out of the Big Apple we are being eaten up ourselves.
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