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I am currently living in San Antonio, Texas. A really neat company in New York offered me a job. The pay is only $45,000. Am I an idiot to take it? I think it's a great opportunity but I am scared. Any advice is greatly appreciated. &
Be sure to have a savings account, and little or no debt.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lyrael
I am currently living in San Antonio, Texas. A really neat company in New York offered me a job. The pay is only $45,000. Am I an idiot to take it? I think it's a great opportunity but I am scared. Any advice is greatly appreciated. &
I am currently living in San Antonio, Texas. A really neat company in New York offered me a job. The pay is only $45,000. Am I an idiot to take it? I think it's a great opportunity but I am scared. Any advice is greatly appreciated. &
I say go for it!!! If it's really a great company they love you as much as you love them, yeah...you might have to live in a tiny studio to make ends meet, but we only live once!!! I sometimes wish I could have experienced New York during the years I didn't mind being poor. Instead I lived in San Francisco, which was also nice, but...who knows, sometimes making moves like this enriches your life forever and opens new doors to opportunity you'd have otherwise missed! I say GO FOR IT!
Well, you are coming from one of the cheapest areas in the country to one of if not the most expensive, so it will probably be tough, but if it's a job you really are intereted in and an experiance you'd like to have; why not? If you are leaving your family behind that can be tough; but hey, nobody said this was going to be a permanent or even long term move right?
You're not an idiot at all. You only live once. Take the opportunity while you're young (I'm assuming) and can afford to just go someplace new and try things out for a bit, seeing how you like NYC. You should be able to survive on 45K just fine. You won't be able to rent a spacious one bedroom in Greenwich Village and go out to eat every night by any means, but you can certainly survive. Just do your research beforehand on the cost of living so you can be certain to budget yourself accordingly.
The most cost efficient thing to do as others have said would be to find a roommate in one of the outer boroughs.
There's good and bad in the greatest city on earth. Living in a dense city can be expensive and inconvenient to get around, but at the same time, about anything you'd wanna do you can find in your neighborhood. Parts of Central Park (and other parks) are beautiful and peaceful, but at the same time, on any given day, there are all kinds of festivities going on all around.
You got the NY Public Library, tons of incredible theatres and museums, cool people, crime is so much lower in NYC than it was 25-30 years ago. You really can do anything there. One cool thing is you could walk down the street naked with a bundt cake on your head and nobody would look at you twice.
It can get to people, though, living shoulder to shoulder with millions of other people and their traffic.
But if you're young and interested in it, it will be an adventure and it doesn't have to be permanent. And it won't kill you. You only live once and there is only one NYC!
I am currently living in San Antonio, Texas. A really neat company in New York offered me a job. The pay is only $45,000. Am I an idiot to take it? I think it's a great opportunity but I am scared. Any advice is greatly appreciated. &
I would call you crazy!
Consider the promotion potential of the job you are looking at, the experience you are going to get.
If this is going to be a job with no advancement possibilities, I would consider the future - what happens when you have a girlfriend? A wife? Kids? Because then you will have no means of giving them a good life at that salary.
I am concerned that you will not be able to make ends meet. No fun to be housebroke (or apartment broke)- and NYS has the highest state tax in the country, you will get taxed pretty hard as a single-0 dependents.
You're not an idiot at all. You only live once. Take the opportunity while you're young (I'm assuming) and can afford to just go someplace new and try things out for a bit, seeing how you like NYC. You should be able to survive on 45K just fine. You won't be able to rent a spacious one bedroom in Greenwich Village and go out to eat every night by any means, but you can certainly survive. Just do your research beforehand on the cost of living so you can be certain to budget yourself accordingly.
The most cost efficient thing to do as others have said would be to find a roommate in one of the outer boroughs.
No you won't -- not in the NYC metro area. On a $45,000 a year salary, you are looking at sharing an apartment in the far reaches of Queens or the Bronx.
Housing is prohibitively expensive if you make less than $100,000 a year anywhere outside Manhattan or on Long Island.
Maybe you can find something in south eastern Queens near JFK around the Belt Parkway or in the North Bronx near the city line.
Don't forget about the huge taxes, outrageous utility rates, atrocious supermarkets (unless you are rich enough to spend $200 a week at Whole Foods), high parking fines with the until recently 'even on Sunday' parking meters.
Sure, you can 'budget' so carefully that you live like an indigent, commute 2 hours each way to work, hand over close to 30% pay for payroll witholding taxes, never eat out because you can't afford it, but more importantly 'don't look the part of the crowd'
And of course, EVERYONE is judgemental & extremely status conscious of others and what they are wearing & driving even in Queens & Brooklyn..
I make $75,000 a year and drive a 2001 Altima with 50,000 miles. My rent is $840 for a studio in Flushing. If I wanted something bigger I would need to make over $100,000 a year and pay close to $2,000 a month for the same neighborhood. I don't see how a single person can survive on anything near $45,000 a year here unless you choose to have no 401k plan, no health insurance, no car, never see a doctor, and share an apartment in the far reaches of Queens, Brooklyn or the Bronx forever.
There are plenty of people making 45K and less surviving in New York. Lest we forget, there are taxi drivers, waiters, housekeepers, pizza deliverymen, supermarket cashiers that live in New York as well and they are able to survive. They may not live the ideal life but they're able to scrape by at least.
Lyrael, you can make it work if you want to. Especially if you are young and are only financially responsible for yourself.
I think I explained this better in a previous thread:
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