Personal experience: how much does it cost to live in New York

Photo by Julia Gorodetsky

The story of our move to New York could fill a small book. It happened so strangely and so suddenly that everyone who hears about what happened first laughs, and then laughs even more. We received my husband’s work visa (for the whole family) and in the spring of 2014 we were supposed to be in California, in Silicon Valley, where my husband’s office was located. The host party promised to pay all moving expenses, and they also provided money for housing - for the first time.

But. In the first days of the new year, we were walking with friends along Deribasovskaya, struggling for life, drinking spicy mulled wine, and somehow, in passing, someone said that right now there were big discounts on flights to New York. We came home, my husband sat down at the computer to check his email and 10 minutes later he said that it had happened - he had bought tickets: “We are leaving on January 31st. We’ll spend February in New York - we’ll go to museums, see what life is like in the city, and in the spring we’ll move to California, as planned.”

We didn’t have any special savings - we borrowed money, rented an apartment in New York through airbnb - in a familiar area of ​​Brooklyn, not far from where my dad lives. We handed out our belongings, moved out of our rented Odessa apartment and took off!

The first month in the States was absolutely terrible. A week after our arrival, the whole family came down with the flu - we didn’t really have time to see the city, but we definitely knew the range of all the pharmacies in the area. After the first round of flu came the second. We had travel insurance and we didn’t understand where to put it. We managed it ourselves. They were afraid for the children - not the right word, but somehow it got through.

Somewhere in the middle of our stay, it became clear that we were not welcome in California in March - the company where my husband worked started having problems, and they postponed our move. We could no longer go back - we had neither the money nor the strength to do so. We had to come up with something on the spot.

The apartment was found a miracle. Schools too. My personal experience is like get kids to school in new york read here. To find out about parents' reviews about schools, I used sites. Greatschools, Zillow, Schooldigger.

It was necessary to decide how to survive in New York on my husband’s Odessa salary. Fortunately, we ended up where we ended up. In the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn. The Chinese have already nicknamed this once Italian place the new Chinatown. And thank God - not for the nickname, but for the fact that they settled here.

Because now there are many Chinese stores with inexpensive vegetables, fruits and meat - they saved us in the first six months of New York life.

Unlike Odessa, where fruits and vegetables are cheaper in markets than in supermarkets, market greens are expensive in New York. To be precise, prices at this farmers market near Rockefeller Center are 2-2,5 times higher than in the Chinese store near our house. But! Farm food is 100% natural and, in the overwhelming majority, very tasty.

Photo by Julia Gorodetsky

Photo by Julia Gorodetsky

Photo by Julia Gorodetsky

Despite the fact that these pictures were taken in August, in the winter and during the holidays, prices for vegetables and fruits do not increase.

Photo by Julia Gorodetsky

Photo by Julia Gorodetsky

Photo by Julia Gorodetsky

Of course, I had to remember all the recipes from the times of perestroika - from the category of “buy a chicken, cook broth from it. Make soup with the broth, catch the chicken and serve it as a side dish with some potatoes.”

In general, it turned out that if you didn’t buy anything other than food, a family of 5 people, three of whom are teenage children, can survive on $ 10-15 per day.

And, if you don’t get hysterical, it’s not even very sad. Life just becomes like a “club of cheerful and resourceful people.” We found out that if you come to the market in the evening, you can grab a whole bag of apples, oranges or bananas for just a dollar. Yes, these will be slightly unpresentable fruits, but quite good ones - not rotten or anything, just not the most beautiful.

Another important advantage of New York is the 99 cent stores. Almost everything sold there is of extremely poor quality. But it is affordable. And for the first time it saves.

Сplacemats and pans $ 10, plates $ 1 and forks spoons 50 cents. All this has already served and went into the garbage in the “Recycling” department, but then we considered (literally!) Every penny ...

Now, when the need to keep the family budget so tightly within an extremely small (by local standards) amount has passed, we still continue to go “to the Chinese” for food. And not just out of gratitude ???? Dishes, however, bought normal.

Trips to large supermarkets like Costco or BJ's - where everything is sold in large portions and cheaper than the prices in stores in the area - showed that bulk purchases are only conditional savings.

Due to the fact that everything looks cheap and “see what a cool thing”, checks from there go out more than the total cost of checks from retail stores.

Photo by Julia Gorodetsky

In general, the costs of our life in Brooklyn look like this:

Accomodation — $1500 (we include utilities in the rental price), this is rare, but it happens. On average, today a 2-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn will cost you about $2 thousand, including electricity, gas and water. In general, if you have a lot of uneconomical family members and you have to pay for electricity, you need to count on an amount of $250-300 - in any case, these are the figures cited by all our friends who pay their bills separately.

Insurance for 5 people - $490 (this is only part of the amount, the rest is paid by the husband’s employer).

Phone for 5 rooms - $137.

Internet - $ 70.

Food - on average about $30 per day.

Wash - about $50 per month.

Apparel - I won’t say because I can’t count. Three teenage children make it necessary to update it regularly, but we buy some things and give us some as gifts.

Transport - about $100. In general, living in New York City means you'll likely use public transportation more often, even if you have a car. One trip on the subway or bus costs $2.75. But even here there are options. You can take a 2-hour return bus ride for free. If the route involves using the metro and then a bus, the transfer will also not charge money to the card. You can also order a metro card on the website of the MTA transport company, which will be automatically to replenish. Actual gasoline prices can always be clarified at Online. Today it is an average of $ 2.30 per gallon.

Restaurants and cafes. We spend almost no money on going out - I cook decently. Sometimes we go to Astoria to eat authentic Greek food (which I really love). Dinner for two costs about $100-120. However, there is no upper limit here either, especially if you like to eat in restaurants with Michelin stars... Coffee for two usually costs less than $20.

Photo by Julia Gorodetsky

Hairstyle and nails. A haircut in New York is a purely individual concept. You can go to the nearest Chinese (yes, they also opened hairdressers) and get a pretty decent haircut for $10, you can go to Brighton and “upgrade” for $50-60, you can go to a familiar hairdresser in Manhattan and get high for $200. I found a wonderful Ukrainian salon and get my hair cut for $26. A men's haircut costs $16 there.

It turned out that the first time was not to go for a manicure, so I bought the tool ($ 20 and somehow I learned how to do it myself. At first there was “horror as bad” and jagged fingers, but then it turned out. In general, in Chinese workshops this pleasure costs about $ 10-15, about $ 25 for a pedicure. I haven’t found the top bracket yet.

Photo by Julia Gorodetsky

Cultural leisure — the school where the children study participates in the “Broadway for Children” program, so we go to musicals for $10 per ticket. Some amounts are spent on children's guitar lessons and on paints (the eldest daughter is in an art class), and sometimes we become victims of sales. But this is already difficult to predict in budget planning.

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