How can people possibly afford to live in one of the most expensive cities on the planet? It’s a question New Yorkers hear a lot, often delivered with a mix of awe, pity and confusion.
We surveyed hundreds of New Yorkers about how they spend, splurge and save. We found that many people — rich, poor or somewhere in between — live life as a series of small calculations that add up to one big question: What makes living in New York worth it?
Tyson Watts spends every day trying to make enough money to eventually leave New York City.
He wants to live somewhere where life is easier, and more peaceful. “I don’t think there’s anything left for me here,” he said. So for now, his life revolves around his work.
Mr. Watts, 28, spends his days traveling across the city, cleaning homes as an employee of Well-Paid Maids, a local service that guarantees its cleaners $27 an hour. He makes about $2,000 a month and picks up as many overtime shifts as he can.
Mr. Watts lives with his mother in Rockaway Park, Queens, and he gives her about $600 a month to help pay for groceries and utilities in their shared apartment. Since his mother does not work, he is encouraging her to take a job as a cleaner, too.
A step toward independence, then moving back home
Mr. Watts knows there is something special about being able to afford your own apartment.
After he moved to New York City from California as a child, he bounced between apartments and homeless shelters with his mother and brothers, before moving in with his uncle.
Mr. Watts started working right out of high school, taking home about $1,000 a month from his job at a children’s clothing store, and soon started paying his uncle $700 a month for his share of the rent.
A few years ago, when Mr. Watts moved out of his uncle’s place and into an apartment in Flatbush, Brooklyn, he felt like he was taking his first big step toward adulthood.
But he had to break the lease when his roommate was unable to keep up with his half of the $1,900 rent and ended up back with his mother, who by then had secured her own apartment.
“If you do have an option to live with a family member that will be there for you, to help you save and want to do better with yourself, take advantage of that until you’re really, really good,” Mr. Watts said.
Everyone needs a side hustle
In the early days of the Covid pandemic, Mr. Watts took up a new hobby: making Caribbean food in his mother’s kitchen and spending hours in quarantine watching YouTube cooking videos.
In the summer of 2020, he typically woke up at 5 a.m. and started cooking oxtail and fried chicken before it got too hot outside. Then he took his creations to sell at nearby Rockaway Beach. He called his business T.U.P.S., with the tagline, “a savory taste away from heaven.”
It could be stifling sitting on the beach all day, but business was brisk, and he could make $400 on good days.
The only problem, he said, was the high cost of ingredients — about $200 a day — even at the wholesaler where he shopped.
He needed a more reliable job until he could make his cooking business more profitable. After applying for about 100 jobs online, he got hired at Well-Paid Maids last summer. He hopes that one day he’ll be able to turn his cooking side hustle into his primary source of income.
“I believe my business will flourish,” he said. But for now, “I believe this job will help me save and learn how to invest into myself, and not just be a knucklehead.”
Taking two buses to the cheapest grocery store
Every month, Mr. Watts sets aside $50 for a transit card, which he uses to commute to his cleaning gigs across the city. He also taps his card once or twice a month when he boards the Q53 bus with a stash of grocery bags, then transfers to the Q60, on his way to the Aldi in East New York, where he scouts for deals on groceries.
There, he spends about $150 on ground beef, salmon, nuts and other essentials, some of which he shares with his mother, on top of the money he gives her each month. A single grocery visit can last him two weeks. He brings homemade breakfasts and lunches with him to work and rarely eats at restaurants.
He spreads his expenses over three credit cards and is assiduous about paying them in full each month, and about making sure he spends less than 10 percent of his spending limit on each of them. He is trying to improve his credit score, which is now 740, in the hope of being able to eventually rent his own apartment.
Mr. Watts treats himself to a few days off each month, riding the subway to Central Park for a walk or taking one of his three younger brothers to the American Museum of Natural History, which has a pay-what-you-wish option for New Yorkers. When he goes to the movies, he makes sure to eat before he gets to the theater, but the trip still costs about $50, between train fare, a movie ticket, and a meal at Chipotle after.
He works out regularly, and found a deal at his local gym for seven months of access for $200.
But mostly, he keeps his head down and works, dreaming about a day when he can own his own home, settle down and have children who can live in comfort.
“I want to make a big family knowing that I came from a small one,” he said. “That’s why I work hard every day. This is what I have to work my butt off for. This is my American dream.”
We want to hear from you about how you afford life in one of the most expensive cities in the world. We’re looking to speak with people of all income ranges, with all kinds of living situations and professions.
Source: Elections - nytimes.com
