Quality of life to expect in NYC (cheap apartment, rent)

[bellakin123]

Originally Posted by gen2010

Just wonder how much does it cost to have a cleaning lady, let's say two hours a week? How much does it cost to hire a nanny to take care of the kid? Or NYers just use day care instead

My cleaning lady comes once a week or every 2 weeks (depending on my schedule) and she charges $80. She's there for like 3-4 hours though and my house isn't very big nor is it dirty. She's just slow . There are services like Molly Maid but I don't know what they charge. I used one many years ago and it was $110 for 4 hrs. They ended up sending 2 ladies and got it done in 2 hrs but still charged $110.

As for a nanny, some NY'ers prefer a live-in, which involves extensive research and can be quite costly and you'll need an extra room for her. Some prefer daycare. My daughter went to daycare and back then we paid about $800 per month. She stopped going 6 yrs ago. All depends on your preference but some nannies are just "baby sitters" and may not teach. My daughter's daycare was also a preschool so she was reading a little and writing by the time she was 3 yrs old. There is no "right or wrong". It's what you prefer.

[Alkonost]

I think you may be looking at a quality of life downgrade. $90k is a very comfortable amount for a single person to live well, but to raise a family on that amount in NYC will put you in a middle-class lifestyle. Child care very well might cost you half of your salary to start, child care is expensive and hiring a full-time nanny is even more costly. With child care being such a large potential expense, you'd have very little left over for housing/food/maid/etc...

Will your wife be working? If so her income could help the situation.

[bellakin123]

Originally Posted by gen2010

True, the term quality of life is quite vague. I definitely understand that the living cost in NYC is extremely high as compared to shanghai, china, where I live now. Interestingly, the cost of living survey done by some consulting firm does rank shanghai way ahead of NYC.

I expect to live comfortably at least. A 3 bedroom apartment or house is minimum, though it does not need to be in Manhattan. My wife and I are expecting kids and my parents will visit me from time to time. that is why I need a big space. I do not expect a full time maid in NYC. but I do want to have some cleaning services once or twice a week, and have a nanny after the child is born. I just wonder how tight is it with a take home salary of 7500.

If you buy a condo or co-op, there are monthly maintenence fees and some can be quite hefty depending on the neighborhood and if it's a luxury building. If you're ok with taking out the trash, shoveling the sidewalk and overall maintaining a property, you might want a house. Have you given thought to Long Island? The taxes may be less than Westchester and the LIRR commute is not that bad (depending how far out on LI you live).

[varan]

One other thing: how are you sure you're going to be taking home $7500 a month? Maybe it's an international job that is immune from taxation or some such, but it's worth testing your assumption. It may in fact be lower take-home than you think due to tax, health care, or something else.

EDIT: Also, I don't think you will be doing nearly as much saving on 90K take home as you do now. However way you slice it, it's a tight budget for the amount of space you seem to want.

[gen2010]

Originally Posted by bellakin123

If you buy a condo or co-op, there are monthly maintenence fees and some can be quite hefty depending on the neighborhood and if it's a luxury building. If you're ok with taking out the trash, shoveling the sidewalk and overall maintaining a property, you might want a house. Have you given thought to Long Island? The taxes may be less than Westchester and the LIRR commute is not that bad (depending how far out on LI you live).

I was just amazed by the amount of common charges for those high end apartments. The property price in manhattan is not that unreasonable, as I am used to the multi million price tag in my country. But we pay just a fraction (100 USD a month on a 1 million USD apartment) here for a similarly priced apartment under common charges.

[gen2010]

Originally Posted by varan

One other thing: how are you sure you're going to be taking home $7500 a month? Maybe it's an international job that is immune from taxation or some such, but it's worth testing your assumption. It may in fact be lower take-home than you think due to tax, health care, or something else.

EDIT: Also, I don't think you will be doing nearly as much saving on 90K take home as you do now. However way you slice it, it's a tight budget for the amount of space you seem to want.

yes. I work for international organization. so i do not need to pay tax at all. the take home salary is after all the pension contribution and health insurance deduction. Another benefit is that i can bring a nanny from my country if the local service is too expensive.

[Alkonost]

Originally Posted by gen2010

I was just amazed by the amount of common charges for those high end apartments. The property price in manhattan is not that unreasonable, as I am used to the multi million price tag in my country. But we pay just a fraction (100 USD a month on a 1 million USD apartment) here for a similarly priced apartment under common charges.

A lot of it is taxes and insurance costs, and I think most building service jobs are unionized which can keep labor costs high. Also some of the new condos might be leasing the land that they sit on, this is another reason why some have very high maintenance costs- if possible I would avoid any condo or coop sitting on a land lease. Newer buildings have higher taxes because the city assess their value much higher than older buildings. You may want to look into an older condo that is well maintained to find lower maintenance costs.

[gen2010]

Originally Posted by Alkonost

I think you may be looking at a quality of life downgrade. $90k is a very comfortable amount for a single person to live well, but to raise a family on that amount in NYC will put you in a middle-class lifestyle. Child care very well might cost you half of your salary to start, child care is expensive and hiring a full-time nanny is even more costly. With child care being such a large potential expense, you'd have very little left over for housing/food/maid/etc...

Will your wife be working? If so her income could help the situation.

it is feasible to hire a full time nanny for 2000 a month?

[Alkonost]

Originally Posted by gen2010

it is feasible to hire a full time nanny for 2000 a month?

Part time? Sure.

But full time, probably not. $24,000 is a VERY low salary for the NYC area, there are a lot of low level jobs that pay more then that and offer full health insurance benefits. At that price level I'd be suspicious about the qualifications of the nanny. One of my best friends was a full-time nanny and she was paid much more then that outside of NYC. While I don't have children I have known a few couples that paid close to 40k in child care expenses because neither parent wanted to be a stay-at-home spouse when their children were too small to attend school. Both couples earned a lot more than $90k so they were able to invest a lot of money in their child care, but I'd still consider them to have a middle class lifestyle.

Perhaps other people can comment on the child care cost issue, maybe there is a way to get the costs down, but I personally wouldn't know where to start.

[bellakin123]

Originally Posted by gen2010

yes. I work for international organization. so i do not need to pay tax at all. the take home salary is after all the pension contribution and health insurance deduction. Another benefit is that i can bring a nanny from my country if the local service is too expensive.

If you already know a nanny and trust her, then I would suggest bringing her rather than having to do all the research in finding another.

Originally Posted by gen2010

I was just amazed by the amount of common charges for those high end apartments. The property price in manhattan is not that unreasonable, as I am used to the multi million price tag in my country. But we pay just a fraction (100 USD a month on a 1 million USD apartment) here for a similarly priced apartment under common charges.

A lot of people say the maintenance is just as high as the mortgage. In that case, I'd rather have my own house if possible. I've seen a few shows on tv where buyers in the U.S. were looking into Shanghai and Singapore. The cost of luxury apartments was so much less than here in the states. You can do it. If you have a sizeable down payment, you can most likely buy a house. In the boroughs your taxes won't be nearly as much as Westchester or Long Island. My take home salary combined with my husband's is just a bit more than what you are taking home. I pay a mortgage (taxes are included), utilities and other expenses and we have some money saved. We do small vacations and entertain at home. We're not living in luxury but we're ok.