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I wonder what it would be like for myself and my family if we lived in a $1 million house in New York City with a $2400 a month mortgage payment on a 30-year mortgage.
This would mean I would already have about $550,000 of equity in the house, and my mortgage amount would be $450,000 based on an interest rate of 5%. Then again, the numbers would change depending on when I bought the house.
I never thought about a situation like that. Interesting.
I would rent it out. Rentals in NYC are very high in demand. Its a business/financial world center. There are a lot of business people who are looking for short-term living arrangements (on the order of months) assuming the property is easily accessible to transport. The same business people that don't necessarily have the time or resources to "shop around" nor have the need to purchase.
For my occupation,i know for sure i will not make over 20/hr in Alabama.
Its kinda hard to normalize every situation into a discussion that is worth it. I've had this discussion numerous of times....
For some, the paycut will translate to an advantage if the cost of living is cheap enough. That is the case by my calculations if I moved back to my home state of Texas. I'm in technology and Texas has enough technology centers couple together with reasonable COL areas that I could take a 10s of thousands pay cut and still be on the plus side. I don't go back to Texas for different reasons that are unrelated to financial.
For some (its seems like you are in this boat), the paycut would be so great the cost of living difference wouldn't make up for it.
BUT
I will say this. The commonality I have found in this type of discussions is around the availability of reasonable and affordable areas. For every city I have lived in Texas, I can find a reasonable and affordable place to live AND reap the benefits of the lower COL (lower taxes too). In certain areas like the tri-state NYC area, its a delicate balancing act between reasonable and affordable. The more affordable you go, the less reasonable it becomes; higher crime, lesser schools, longer commute. The more reasonable then the less affordable it becomes; higher property tax, higher COL, higher price of housing. New Jersey is very weird. You can have two towns right next to each other with completely different dynamics. Rich safe wealthy right down the street from a slum. Furthermore, Northern NJ has a completely different spread from central and south new jersey. North new jersey is more like a suburb of NYC rather than part of the state of New Jersey.
I think most people in the NYC area will agree with you. The city and suburbs surrounding the city has a high cost of living. Everything is SO expensive, 175k does not get you very far in this area. It's hard to post on a forum like this because most people do not have any clue how much it costs to live near NYC and how hard you have to work to make enough to live. It's very competitive here too, so you pay through the nose for pre schools, activities, summer camps, and lessons for kids.
People love to say, just move! But the sacrifice is moving away from family/ friends, a New Yorker will stick out anywhere else in the country, education is very strong here ( hard to move away from that) A big reason we won't leave, chances are your kids will want to move/ work in NYC.
It's sad, I know many people don't go for kid # 3 because of the expense. Commuting costs are insane as well. From my area, 2 people commuting into the city would cost 700+ a month to take the train in. That's 10k a year! Ridiculous. We shoulder a huge tax burden that most of the country can not even imagine. Utilities, taxes on utilities, income taxes, city taxes, property taxes, school taxes !
To the people saying the median salary is 65k in NYC, do you know how many families are on public assistance/welfare/not working? That figure is very misleading. Someone has to pay for all of these people.
There are many families in your position
Last edited by newmommyq; 04-09-2014 at 09:12 AM..
For my occupation,i know for sure i will not make over 20/hr in Alabama.
With all due respect, Ma'am, there are nurses here- in the South- with seaside homes. I think you'd be pleasantly surprised how nice of a life people in the healthcare field have down here.
It's hard to post on a forum like this because most people do not have any clue how much it costs to live near NYC and how hard you have to work to make enough to live. It's very competitive here too, so you pay through the nose for pre schools, activities, summer camps, and lessons for kids.
It is not hard to explain at all if the OP would just come clean about his total expenses & taxes and stop hiding the ball in his posts. There is nothing esoteric about this. It is just numbers and math.
It would be simple enough for me spell out my own situation like that. Then again, I went through a home loan modification last year, so I have it figured out already for the most part.
By the way, he already said he puts $18,000 a year towards his 401K and IRA. That's a very good situation financially in my book.
This thread is useless without more information from the O.P.
If money is so tight, why is his wife unemployed?
A nanny can cost 3k a month, easily. Plus you pay for all the food nanny eats. The second income creates a heavier tax burden. Daycare for one child here is 1900 a month for a lower end daycare. For some families ( especially children close in age) it doesn't make sense to keep that second income.
This is why you never ask these types of questions on this forum ESP is you live in NJ and NYc.
People in Alabama and Kansas JUST will not understand,period.
Then you will get all these silly little answers that do not make sense.
I love the "get up and move crowd".
i know for me,when i did move outta Jersey my income dropped by...$60,000.
Was making 104,000 and dropped all the way down to $43,000.
Doing the same job with the same title...RN
Please everyone in the Northeast and the "rich" states...VOTE FOR THE VAT TAX!!
Stick it to the poor states,so that those residents pay their FAIR share!
My income of $100,000 has the same buying power of someone making $55,000 in Kansas,so why should their kids qualify for free lunches and someone in NJ making the $100,000 doesn't?
Otherwise,we will ALWAYS be on the losing end.
I totally agree. Posting here from the north east or west coast cities is pointless.
Two posters have already mentioned this, but I will join in:
The OP should post his budget. There are people here who can show him ways to live better on his current income.
That's if he's even interested in changing anything.
That's the thing. People like the OP just complain so they can blame taxes and those evil liberals. Never mind the guy saves $50K a year based on what he posts and could save even more if he cut out things like $1,500 a year for lawn care so it's not like he is not living a fine life.
It is not hard to explain at all if the OP would just come clean about his total expenses & taxes and stop hiding the ball in his posts. There is nothing esoteric about this. It is just numbers and math.
It would be simple enough for me spell out my own situation like that. Then again, I went through a home loan modification last year, so I have it figured out already for the most part.
By the way, he already said he puts $18,000 a year towards his 401K and IRA. That's a very good situation financially in my book.
That is only 10% of his income! not that great.
Someone mentioned $400 a month grocery bill, not possible in this area. Maybe OP realized it doesn't make sense to post this here. A NYC site would be better for this type of post.
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