Thursday, July 21, 2005
"For exercise we drank sloe gin and smoked Lucky Strikes."
New York is kicking my bank account's ass. How do people live in this city??
To be fair (and I can hear J-Wo's stern, financially disciplined voice in my head as I type), I could radically cut down on my cost of living by subsisting on carrot sicks, coffee, and staying home all the time. It would be a fabulous diet (the equivalent of going nuclear on the Ass Crisis), but I'm pretty sure I'd get scurvy or something rather quickly. And I didn't move to New York to sit at home like a nun and twiddling my thumbs. Obviously part of the problem is that the lifestyle I was used to in DC is far more expensive to maintain in New York.
So how do I cope? Barely. Even regular groceries (eg, not from Whole Foods) are significantly more expensive than their counterparts in DC. Now I know why everyone eats out -- in the end it's only marginally cheaper to cook your own food and thus providing little financial incentive to go grocery shopping. And what really pisses me off is that it's more expensive to eat healthily. Does. Not. Make. Sense.
$1.50 for iced coffee, $76 for a monthly subway pass, $20 here, $20 there. It all adds up and I can barely cope on my current salary.
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5 comments:
I know this will sound pathetic coming from me but...have you tried entering you spending into Quicken or a similar money management program? I hear what you are saying about the over-all higher cost of living, but perhaps a money management program will help you see where you could cut back (lychee martinis say).
La
I have Quicken. It's not a matter of not knowing where the money goes, it's a matter of everything being significantly more expensive from milk to produce to going to the movies.
And for the record, the lycheetinis are $4 a pop. A bargain in any city.
Ha! My "L" pass is only $75, I'm saving a whole $1 a month on my transportation costs you sucker ;)
Yes, nyc is expensive, almost absurdly so.
Oh you Chicagoans, so smug ; ) You can buy me a can of PBR next time we see each other.
you come and visit again, I'll buy you a case ;)
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