Affording The Big Apple
To begin, I want to address a question I’ve received far more than once: why move to NYC now, if entertainment is shuttered and you’re working from home? What this question is really asking: why are you paying rent when you can live at home for free?
Understandable. For many, the thought of a life in NYC conjures neon dollar signs. But when I chose to come to NYC, I wasn’t choosing financial instability. I was choosing independence. (And yet, more often than not, the two are one.) I moved here fully aware that my credit card bills were about to gain another digit and that living without a couch for a month was necessary to afford a bed. And though home had my parents, it didn’t have sidewalks, co-ed soccer leagues, or fabulous Indian food in walking distance.
The ability to make your own monetary decisions is a hallmark of adulthood. And while I don’t consider myself an adult yet (and likely won’t for at least a decade), it was time to start learning about money. Spending it, saving it, earning it, and determining whether extra for guac is worth it.
Tonight, for example, I was feeling lazy from a day of doing not much and considering take-out sushi for dinner. But I cooked instead. Bam! Adulthood. It’s as simple as that—affording The Big Apple means convincing yourself you cannot afford that yam tempura roll even though you can. It means denying yourself what you can have in order to afford what you need. It might also mean finding a Trader Joe’s nearby, because that place is a miser’s godsend.
What comforts me is that many have come before. Many twenty-somethings have ventured into the unknown with light wallets, low-paying jobs, and a background of financial coddling and survived to tell the tale. It is possible to keep yourself fed, sheltered, and clothed while still getting another Angry Orchard Rosé when you go to a bar to watch the Steelers pummel the Browns.
One thing I have learned that helps is keeping your limit in sight. That is, get an app that will tell you what you’re worth, what you can afford to hemorrhage each week, and what you need to lay off on. If you know what you’ve got, you know what you can afford to lose. It seems plain and simple, but the plain and simple things tend to be the forgotten things. And always keep a little padding for what my mom calls Fun Money, the definition of which is up to you.
It may come down to saving that ice cream cone for a week with only one laundry load. Balancing these little things is a learning process and a large part of living an independent life. Maybe one day I will be wealthy enough to clean colors and whites and splurge on a waffle cone in the same week and not feel guilty about it. But for now, that’s a luxury I cannot afford.
It’s easy to stare wistfully into the glowing windows above Park Ave and imagine a world in which money is just a noun. But learning to spend wisely is a big reason for moving to the city at all. Most people don’t hang around here forever, so I found myself asking what this rite of passage is for.
City life is a single stage in the test of maturity, teaching you how to give George, Abe, Thomas, and Alexander (and sometimes Ulysses and Ben, if grandma’s in town) the respect they deserve. It’s about choosing the subway over Uber, even in a pandemic. And it’s about understanding that an unusually high electric bill isn’t the end of the world—it’s just the end of chain store coffee runs.