My girlfriend and I just moved into the middle of Manhattan from the suburbs, and I simply don't buy these numbers. First off, what exactly does 'cost of livin

My girlfriend and I just moved into the middle of Manhattan from the suburbs, and I simply don't buy these numbers. First off, what exactly does 'cost of living' mean? My old apartment was $1400 a month in rent, and we put at least $300 a month towards gas, insurance, and maintenance for each of 2 cars. (excluding depreciation or car payments, we owned both cars outright). So a minimum of $2000 in car & apartment costs. We had a 3 bedroom condo with 2 and a half bathrooms - for 2 people. We had almost half of the place entirely empty, but it was hard to find anything smaller of the same quality. Crappy apartments were $1000, so it didn't really make sense to move. Now we are paying $2500 a month for a 1 bedroom apartment. It is really nice, in a doorman building, with a rooftop patio on the 20th floor with big city views, a nice kitchen, family room, eating area, walk in closets, etc. On a per square foot basis, it is probably 3x as much. But we sold the two cars, so we are really only about $500 a month higher than before. And instead of having 15-20 minute commutes in the car, we both can walk a couple of blocks to work. Then there are a few more wrinkles. The old apartment was all electric, and my utilities were from $100 in the summer to $250 in the winter. This apartment has steam heat and chilled water cooling included in the rent. I no longer have to pay for water. I'm paying less for TV & Internet than before. Groceries are a little more expensive, but Fresh Direct delivers to my door and costs about 10-15% more than the suburbs at most. The biggest increase in cost is going out to bars & restaurants, but that is a totally discretionary expense. Overall, I would say a conservative estimate is that our cost of living went up a total of $1000 a month. We needed a combined extra $20,000 salary to pay for that. Our raise was multiple times that amount.