8 ms·

The author refers to himself as a member of the underclass and that's a bit over dramatic, but I do get where he's coming from. When I moved to NY, a friend to

The author refers to himself as a member of the underclass and that's a bit over dramatic, but I do get where he's coming from. When I moved to NY, a friend told me that to live an approximately middle class lifestyle in Manhattan, you needed to have two earners each pulling in $100k/year. My significant other and I are now well past that ($400k+ combined albeit with ~$1500/mo student loans) but we still don't feel well off in Manhattan. There's another set of obstacles once you're making money: - We pay ~$3000/mo for a one bedroom apartment (in a fairly convenient area, but with the amenities OP was missing). We could mathematically afford more but we were both raised middle class and have recoiled at anything above that $3k line. We're paying her parents' mortgage + my parents' mortgage nearly twice over. - We've been talking seriously about kids but even at 5-10x median American family income we're not sure we can afford to have kids in Manhattan. It's absurd. At $400k+ we cannot afford to both have a kid, maintain our not extravagent lifestyle, stay in our neighborhood and save well for retirement. - There's a sense that we need to make hay while the sun shines. We're not living in NY forever, so we try to save as much money as we can while we're earning money we won't earn outside NY.

lordnacho 8y ago
How much of that 400K do you have left after tax? Seems crazy to me that you don't think you can afford kids. I'm going to check it out myself next week, got family there who are in a similar position.
tibbon 8y ago
Same, but in the slightly cheaper city of Boston. While I do well as a developer (140k+), my partner is an artist and more often makes 10-20k a year. We're still very well off income-wise compared to the average in America, and yet my relatives and friends living in smaller cities, suburbs or rural areas seem to have far easier access to basic amenities. They probably view me as rich (and to a degree they aren't wrong), but my apartment is smaller than their 2 car garage, costs more than their mortgage (my rent is 3x my mother's mortgage, and double my sister's in NC), and has fewer basic amenities. I don't have a car, and the costs of having a reasonably reliable one overall are just too high. The idea of us affording two of them is a joke. I'm saving for retirement, but my partner isn't able to - she can barely afford health insurance. The thought of having kids in this place is laughable. I could rant about all of this for a bit. We're looking at moving to Salem, MA, Berlin, or maybe somewhere else entirely. I lived in Ohio for a few years and it drove me up a wall - so I am hesitant to just go "anywhere cheaper" though.
gurusarepeople 8y ago
Do you find that you're saving a lot more than if you just moved to a cheaper place and took the lower salary to begin with? Why not just make the move now? I've met people that do the "we just wanted to experience living in New York, but we know we'll leave soon" and I've never totally understood it. I moved to New York because I can't imagine living anywhere else in this country. I've been here for more than 10 years and sure, sometimes you get fed up with the city, but that generally just means I need a vacation and should jump on a plane to Latin America.
geebee 8y ago
400k is a little high, but not out of the question, I'd say you're a bit above the threshold for "can't" raise kids (but I'm basing this on SF, not NY, so might not fully apply here). I'll run the numbers for SF. Kids in cities are brutally expensive now, but I do think $400k would work. A remodeled 3br/2ba house in a safe but unfashionable part of SF (which is where I live) south of 280 near bart will run you about 1.5 mil. You could go a bit lower if you got something more worn, but it would only save you 200-300k. Monthly mortgage and taxes on that will be about $8500 a month. Then you have daycare expenses for kids, which is high, if you want the kind that allows you to work from 8:30 to 5:30 year round (that's the best you'll do, you might be able to stretch it 30 min on one direction or the other, but not by much), budget $30k each kid. so that'll be 60k, or another 5k a month (the numbers are bad here, but this isn't way off, and I'm erring on the side of expensive). So we're at $8500 + $5000 = $13.5k a month, for $162k a year. Some of this is deductible, not all. Yeah, you should be able to swing this on $400k a year, though taxes will take a bite, and I'm not saying it's easy. Often, one spouse will sacrifice (generally her) career progress to remove the non-deductible 30k per kid, since multiply that by two and it eliminates the first hundred thousand in salary. So $300K with one parent working is far more valuable than $400k with two parents. That's how it goes out here. It's horrendous, but still, you should be able to swing it on $400k. I have noticed some people in the $400k range claim they can't stay with kids in SF but do look down their noses at our south of 280 address... I will agree it's pretty shocking what you get at that income range, but they could stay if they were willing to live where I live, which really is fine. There's a better life out there, though. I have lots and lots of family in SF proper, grew up here, so it's a different equation for me. I want to be sure I'm not coming off as a PNW "you wouldn't like it here, don't move here" type, really, SF's percentage of families with kids is collapsing and we tend to be very welcoming (we get clingy, honestly, and we don't mind when families from outside SF move here, we hate it when they move out!) I just can't say that living in SF with a family is an easy option relative to the other options out there with a straight face, that's all. I mean, you'd be more than welcome here, but I'm not going to act like there's some problem with you if you say "not for me".
zjaffee 8y ago
The fact that you say this, even though I already know it to be the case will never stop being crazy to me. I grew up in Greenwich Village, with parents who made just under half what you do now in todays dollars. Growing up I had a private baby sitter for my brother and I, lived in a building with a doorman, the apartment was okay (faced the back on a lower floor, and only had washing in the buildings basement). Apartment was 2 bed/2 bath with an additional loft. My family could afford to go out and do all sorts of things, in addition to still save aggressively. I did go to public school. The fact that a couple in a much better financial position can't even come close to having the above today is insane.
ryanwaggoner 8y ago
Something doesn't add up here :) $400k gross is roughly $20k / month take-home. So $17k after rent, and $15.5k after student loans. I live in a nice 2-bed on the UWS and have a kid in private school. I'm confused as to how your extravagant lifestyle is eating up $15k / month?
- ryanwaggoner 8y ago
  EDIT: meant to say "not-extravagant"

lordnacho 8y ago

How much of that 400K do you have left after tax? Seems crazy to me that you don't think you can afford kids. I'm going to check it out myself next week, got family there who are in a similar position.

tibbon 8y ago

Same, but in the slightly cheaper city of Boston. While I do well as a developer (140k+), my partner is an artist and more often makes 10-20k a year. We're still very well off income-wise compared to the average in America, and yet my relatives and friends living in smaller cities, suburbs or rural areas seem to have far easier access to basic amenities. They probably view me as rich (and to a degree they aren't wrong), but my apartment is smaller than their 2 car garage, costs more than their mortgage (my rent is 3x my mother's mortgage, and double my sister's in NC), and has fewer basic amenities. I don't have a car, and the costs of having a reasonably reliable one overall are just too high. The idea of us affording two of them is a joke. I'm saving for retirement, but my partner isn't able to - she can barely afford health insurance. The thought of having kids in this place is laughable. I could rant about all of this for a bit. We're looking at moving to Salem, MA, Berlin, or maybe somewhere else entirely. I lived in Ohio for a few years and it drove me up a wall - so I am hesitant to just go "anywhere cheaper" though.

gurusarepeople 8y ago

Do you find that you're saving a lot more than if you just moved to a cheaper place and took the lower salary to begin with? Why not just make the move now? I've met people that do the "we just wanted to experience living in New York, but we know we'll leave soon" and I've never totally understood it. I moved to New York because I can't imagine living anywhere else in this country. I've been here for more than 10 years and sure, sometimes you get fed up with the city, but that generally just means I need a vacation and should jump on a plane to Latin America.

geebee 8y ago

400k is a little high, but not out of the question, I'd say you're a bit above the threshold for "can't" raise kids (but I'm basing this on SF, not NY, so might not fully apply here). I'll run the numbers for SF. Kids in cities are brutally expensive now, but I do think $400k would work. A remodeled 3br/2ba house in a safe but unfashionable part of SF (which is where I live) south of 280 near bart will run you about 1.5 mil. You could go a bit lower if you got something more worn, but it would only save you 200-300k. Monthly mortgage and taxes on that will be about $8500 a month. Then you have daycare expenses for kids, which is high, if you want the kind that allows you to work from 8:30 to 5:30 year round (that's the best you'll do, you might be able to stretch it 30 min on one direction or the other, but not by much), budget $30k each kid. so that'll be 60k, or another 5k a month (the numbers are bad here, but this isn't way off, and I'm erring on the side of expensive). So we're at $8500 + $5000 = $13.5k a month, for $162k a year. Some of this is deductible, not all. Yeah, you should be able to swing this on $400k a year, though taxes will take a bite, and I'm not saying it's easy. Often, one spouse will sacrifice (generally her) career progress to remove the non-deductible 30k per kid, since multiply that by two and it eliminates the first hundred thousand in salary. So $300K with one parent working is far more valuable than $400k with two parents. That's how it goes out here. It's horrendous, but still, you should be able to swing it on $400k. I have noticed some people in the $400k range claim they can't stay with kids in SF but do look down their noses at our south of 280 address... I will agree it's pretty shocking what you get at that income range, but they could stay if they were willing to live where I live, which really is fine. There's a better life out there, though. I have lots and lots of family in SF proper, grew up here, so it's a different equation for me. I want to be sure I'm not coming off as a PNW "you wouldn't like it here, don't move here" type, really, SF's percentage of families with kids is collapsing and we tend to be very welcoming (we get clingy, honestly, and we don't mind when families from outside SF move here, we hate it when they move out!) I just can't say that living in SF with a family is an easy option relative to the other options out there with a straight face, that's all. I mean, you'd be more than welcome here, but I'm not going to act like there's some problem with you if you say "not for me".

zjaffee 8y ago

The fact that you say this, even though I already know it to be the case will never stop being crazy to me. I grew up in Greenwich Village, with parents who made just under half what you do now in todays dollars. Growing up I had a private baby sitter for my brother and I, lived in a building with a doorman, the apartment was okay (faced the back on a lower floor, and only had washing in the buildings basement). Apartment was 2 bed/2 bath with an additional loft. My family could afford to go out and do all sorts of things, in addition to still save aggressively. I did go to public school. The fact that a couple in a much better financial position can't even come close to having the above today is insane.

ryanwaggoner 8y ago

Something doesn't add up here :) $400k gross is roughly $20k / month take-home. So $17k after rent, and $15.5k after student loans. I live in a nice 2-bed on the UWS and have a kid in private school. I'm confused as to how your extravagant lifestyle is eating up $15k / month?

ryanwaggoner 8y ago
EDIT: meant to say "not-extravagant"