Scrambling to get by on $400K/Yr in NYC

[dex]

My Dinner with Andre - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This is a good movie that partially explains NYC.

fUSION Anomaly. My Dinner With Andre
i think that New York is a new model for the new concentration camp, where the camp has been built by the inmates themselves, and the inmates ARE the guards, and they have this pride in this thing they built, they built their own prison, so they exist in a state of schizophrenia where they are the both guards and prisoners, and as a result they no longer have, having been lobotomized, the capacity to leave the prison they made or to even see it as a prison.' then he went into his pocket and he took out a seed for a tree. he said 'this is a pine tree.' he put it in my hand, and said 'escape, before it's too late'. see actually for 2 to 3 years now, Chiquita and I have had this very unpleasant feeling that we really should get out.. that we really should feel like Jews in Germany in the late 30's... get out of here.. but the problem is, where to go, because it seems quite obvious that the whole world is going in the same direction. [...] now, of course Bjornstrand, feels that there is really almost no hope, and that we're probably going back to a very savage, lawless, terrifying period...


"Now I'm 36 and all I think about is money"

YouTube - My Dinner With Andre part 1

Here is some of it.
YouTube - jacksorengan's Channel

[CuppaJoe]

I had no ambition to retire at all (until I could), I just wanted to live within walking distance of work, in a big city. Blame it on the movies(?)

“Nadine, bring out the hounds, we’re going for a walk... on the Avenue, Fifth Avenue....”

YouTube - Easter Parade song

YouTube - Gene Kelly Frank Sinatra - "New York, New York"

[Gone4Good]

Quote:

Originally Posted by NW-Bound However, the nearest one is in NJ, and just a few miles away.

Silly suburbanite.

Did the article mention whether they even have a car? For the privilege of driving "a couple of miles" to Wal-Mart you can expect to pay $400 / month on a parking spot.

[NW-Bound]

Quote:

Originally Posted by . . . Yrs to Go Silly suburbanite. Did the article mention whether they even have a car? For the privilege of driving "a couple of miles" to Wal-Mart you can expect to pay $400 / month on a parking spot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by NW-Bound Either our Manhattan dwellers have to take expensive cabs to go to Walmart, which explains their further financial shortcoming, or it could be that they have to walk from their apartment to Walmart and back, struggling uphill both ways.

The article says that they are going to rent a car to drive to Vermont for a simple vacation.

[CuppaJoe]

Quote:

Originally Posted by . . . Yrs to Go ... you can expect to pay $400 / month on a parking spot.

and those $400/month spots are passed down like inheritances, people watch to see who's moving, try to get on the wait list....

[mews]

Well, as a long-time New Yorker, I have to say they made choices they can't support.

There are areas in Brooklyn where they could have gotten a lot more housing for their money - and some good public elementary schools, too.

I make about 10% of their gross, own my own apartment, and am ok. (To be fair, no kids to support, either.)

ta,
mews

[NW-Bound]

You don't have to pay the monthly fee, if you own the spot.

For that, you may need a mortgage!

From a Web site:

If you live in one of the condos at 246 West 17th Street, New York NY and you need a parking space in the basement best would be to have $225,000.00 at your disposal and to get your name on the waiting list as the world's most expensive parking spaces are sold out.

However, if you are really desperate you may want to up the anti and buy out one of the parking spot owners who doesn't live there, but just bought the spot as an investment.

[LOL!]

I'm laughing at the Fou article and have absolutely no sympathy for them. I lived on Long Island for many years near NYC. I learned that almost everyone in NYC has some kind of angle that makes things easy for them there.

The Fou's just haven't figured it out. If everyone in Manhattan were like the Fou's, the City would have long ago collapsed. The fact that it hasn't suggests that the reporter really gave these folks a delightful sucker punch. Since reporters usually make much less annual income than a dentist and a PhD from MIT, I'm sure there was a little bit of tension when doing this article. The reporter had some fun with these hapless city dwellers.

[NW-Bound]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dex I think that New York is a new model for the new concentration camp, where the camp has been built by the inmates themselves, and the inmates ARE the guards, and they have this pride in this thing they built, they built their own ... "Now I'm 36 and all I think about is money"

We have been to NY twice, and stayed in the Crowne Plaza in Times Square to be in the middle of it. That experience is enough; we do not see ourselves wanting to live there, even if we were rich and could afford a condo overlooking the Central Park.

I am 52, and all I think about is FIRE!

Well, not all the time as I do take time off to think of and plan some travel.

[haha]

Quote:

Originally Posted by F4mandolin They choose to live there....they must need the kick it gives them. On a side note....haha.....I kind of consider myself a person who has got around a lot. Brought up in WA....13+ year in the UK....10 years Germany...5 years Okinawa.........but there are some of you out there who just aren't "normal"....how the hell would somebody living in Seattle know which line in NY goes where? Some of you are like "Jason Bourne"...just kind of like icebergs.....some of you have done so much that it is a bit scary. The only time I was in NY....I would have killed little old ladies (and possibly a few small children) to get the hell out of there......some people actually think it is heaven....

It was a joke. AS far as I know, there is no O-line.

[donheff]

Quote:

Originally Posted by LOL! I'm laughing at the Fou article and have absolutely no sympathy for them. I lived on Long Island for many years near NYC. I learned that almost everyone in NYC has some kind of angle that makes things easy for them there. The Fou's just haven't figured it out. If everyone in Manhattan were like the Fou's, the City would have long ago collapsed. The fact that it hasn't suggests that the reporter really gave these folks a delightful sucker punch. Since reporters usually make much less annual income than a dentist and a PhD from MIT, I'm sure there was a little bit of tension when doing this article. The reporter had some fun with these hapless city dwellers.

+1 I love NY but everyone I have known who lives there has something going - a great rent controlled place, a good deal across the bridge in Brooklyn, something - that let's them survive on a lot less than the Foouls. But I understand the desire to live in the city. DW and I plan to stay on Capitol Hill in DC. It cost us a lot to live here the last 25 years but it won't be bad in retirement. The house is paid for, we get a homesteader break on real property tax, and our income taxes are way lower now. And, like in NY, the house is a valuable asset in an area that never seems to get hit like other areas of the country. We don't see the house as an investment but the kids do

[M Paquette]

Quote:

Originally Posted by haha It was a joke. AS far as I know, there is no O-line.

Oh, heck. I think everybody go that. We all know you just take the 320 bus to Secaucus. Leaves from the Port Authority terminal, and stops right at the WalMart. Runs every 15 minutes or so.

[Cattusbabe]

I looked at the video. What a smacked A$$.

[soupcxan]

As Mr. T would say, "I pity the Fou!"

[WhoDaresWins]

I lived in Manhattan for a couple of years in the late '70s as a grad student. I enjoyed it then as it was so different for a small town girl from western PA. I was blown away by all the cultural things to do...plays, museums, foreign films, ballet(the universities have cheap or free tickets for students). I don't think I would have wanted to raise a family in Manhattan due to living space issues, COL, needing to choreograph everything related to the kids, etc. I would never keep a car in Manhattan either. It is difficult to get in and out of the city, and even if you could afford a week-end place on Long Island or in Connecticut or NJ, traffic is a nightmare. They don't call the Long Island Expressway the longest parking lot in the world for nothing. This couple has options and they must like this lifestyle otherwise they could easily move an hour out of the city. Real estate in Manhattan even now has not fallen as much as in the rest of the country so they could likely sell an apartment easily. People in NYC don't have the Wal-mart shopping mentality by the way. They shop more like Europeans...you pick up a few apples at a fruit stand, you go to Gristede's and buy a little of this and a little of that, a baguette at the bakery. No room to store masses of things in tiny apartments anyway.

[tuixiu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by donheff DW and I plan to stay on Capitol Hill in DC. It cost us a lot to live here the last 25 years but it won't be bad in retirement.

DC is often overlooked when people think of really expensive places, but man the whole area from Georgetown to Dupont Circle to Eastern Market can be insanely expensive. It's hard to find middle ground in DC you're either paying a fortune or living in an area fearing for your life.

[rkser]

I was born & raised in India, and have lived in Pittsburgh, Buffalo NY, Miami & presently am an established suburbanite near Orlando, Fl. I have & continue to visit NY city every 3 months for a complicated knee reconstruction for Dr follow ups.On these visits, after my medical stuff is taken care of, I usually keep a day or so for going around & essentially loafing around the city, visiting with some long term friends. I enjoy every bit of it !!!!!, I do find & understand the city is pretty expensive even for anyone with some means.

I think the opportunities NY city provides to a educated professional for further education & training are limit less. It is a place where you can rub shoulders with the best & worst of / in people. It turned out the best for my complicated knee replacements at least after being operated at many hospitals in the central Florida area.This is the place where you find many Maddoffs, the bankers who lost our billions, charlatons & also the place where a lot of philantrophy to the tunes of millions & billions is seen

There are many places in the city who will take a chance on an immigrant, because the culture of taking risks, banking on something new, to a different way of doing things, looking for a different idea is very much ingrained in the psyche of New Yorkers much more than in many other cities.The competition is intense, the survival of the fittest is very much the rule, your hunger for achievement (whatever the goal maybe) & the work you put into it, will decide the final result more than any pedigree, color of the skin or an uncle X. These are much more pronounced than in other places.

Many successful people in other places have at some stage in their lives been at the doorstep of, got what they came for & left the City for the comfortable less costly places around the country. When People all over the world think about & take the risk of putting their comfortable lives on line for a chance at success in USA, many times they do not think of other cities but NY in the country.

Then after they get(achieve) what they once came for, they miss the place of most collective brains & the competition(More is learned from one another) in other cities & suburbs & some return to the City(as some of my friends did). They do not want to loose their professional skills which made them what they are today & try to gravitate to places where they can find more of the same of & more often than not the road leads back to the city(for the self imposed rejects from the suburbs)

When I saw the Video, of a MIT (A very competitive school) schooled Oriental Man & a dentist wife with 2 kids, I think some of the above reasons may apply to their lives.

I do not think they are ignorant of the fact, that they CAN AFFORD on 400K a very comfortable lifestyle, with less crime, a house with much more room, afford the best of area schools, a couple of nannies, a garage full of cars in hundreds of places around the country. I think their brains are wired differently, they will miss the above aspects of the NYC. They must be thinking about the insipid life of cutting the lawn(Gee what is this green stuff ), going to the homeowner's meetings, not finding any aspirations left in their neighbor who is scared about loosing his comfortable present, no museums, not enough of diversity or their Ethnic stuff they are used to in city, no scientific/technical library close by or more so nobody to discuss their stuff with at their level ... etc....They are scared about the suburban decay setting in.

This is by no means stating that NY city life is better than a life in suburbia, it is JUST AN OPINION of what people like these may look for in a place. I am a confirmed suburbanite like many of us on the forum, but do have long term friends in these situations whom we visit with on occasions like when I visit NY city, & like in many situations we think they are/and they think we ARE CRAZZZZZYYYYYYYYY .

To each their own, I guess

Warm regards

[tuixiu]

Ironic, given the trend of people in the US traveling to India for knee/hip surgeries.

[haha]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rkser To each their own, I guess Warm regards

Very nice post. I think on a retirement board we tend to find what by other standards is extreme risk aversion. (Except in one area that is a puzzle to me- riding motorcycles!)

Ha

[LOL!]

rkser, I don't believe what you wrote applies to the Fou's. They come from Houston and Dallas which are essentially large tracts of suburbia right up to the front steps of the skyscrapers in those cities. They are totally different cities than NYC in this respect.

And about that Wal-Mart bus: There is a bus to Wal-Mart in Beijing. It goes from near the Olympic site out to the 'burbs where the Wal-Mart is located.