Personal experience: how much does it cost to live in New York

The story of our move to New York could be a little book. It happened so strangely and so suddenly that everyone who hears about what happened laughs at first, and then laughs even more. We received my husband's work visa (for the whole family) and had to be in California, in Silicon Valley in the spring of 2014, where my husband's office was located. All the expenses for the move were promised to be paid by the host side, they also gave money for housing - for the first time.

But. In the first days of the new year, my friends and I walked along Deribasovskaya Street, talked “for life”, sipping spicy mulled wine, and somehow in between times someone said that right now there were big discounts on flights to New York. We came home, my husband sat down at his computer to check his mail and 10 minutes later said that it happened - he bought tickets: “On January 31 we are leaving. We will spend February in NY - we will go to museums, see how the city lives, and in the spring we will move to California, as planned. ”

We had no special savings - we borrowed money, rented an apartment in NY through airbnb - in a familiar area of ​​Brooklyn, not far from where my dad lives. We distributed our belongings, moved out of the rented Odessa apartment and - flew away!

The first month in the States was perfectly awful. A week after our arrival, the whole family fell ill with the flu - we didn't really have time to see the city, but we knew for sure the range of all pharmacies in the district. After the first round of flu, the second went. We had tourist insurance, and we did not understand where to attach it. We did it ourselves. They were afraid for the children - not the right word, but somehow it carried.

Somewhere in the middle of our stay, it became clear that in March they were not expecting us in California - problems began in the company in which my husband worked, and they postponed our move. We could no longer go back - there was neither money nor energy for it. It was necessary to come up with something on the spot.

The apartment was found a miracle. Schools too. My personal experience is like get kids to school in new york read here. To find out about parents' reviews about schools, I used sites. Greatschools, Zillow, Schooldigger.

It was necessary to decide how to survive in New York on her husband's Odessa salary. Fortunately, we ended up where we were. In Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. The Chinese have already called this once Italian place the new Chinatown. And thank God - not for the nickname, but for the fact that they settled here.

Because now there are many Chinese shops with inexpensive vegetables, fruits and meat - they saved us in the first six months of New York life.

Unlike Odessa, where fruits and vegetables are cheaper in markets than in supermarkets, market greens are expensive in New York. To be precise, prices at this farmers' market near Rockefeller Center are 2-2,5 times higher than in a Chinese store near our house. But! Farmer's 100% natural and, overwhelmingly, very tasty.

Despite the fact that these pictures were taken in August, in the winter and during the holidays, prices for vegetables and fruits do not increase.

Of course, I had to remember all the recipes from the times of perestroika - from the category “buy chicken, cook broth from it. Make soup on the broth, and catch the chicken and garnish with some potatoes. "

In general, it turned out that if you didn’t buy anything other than food, a family of 5 people, three of whom are teenage children, can survive on $ 10-15 per day.

And if you don't get hysterical, it's not even very sad. It's just that life becomes like a “club of the cheerful and resourceful”. We found out that if you come to the market in the evening, you can grab a whole bag of apples, oranges or bananas for just a dollar. Yes, it will be slightly unpresentable fruits, but quite good ones - not rotten there or anything else, just not the most beautiful ones.

Another important advantage of New York is 99 cent stores. Almost everything that is sold there is of extremely poor quality. But it's affordable. And for the first time it saves.

Сplacemats and pans $ 10, plates $ 1 and forks spoons 50 cents. All this has already served and went into the garbage in the “Recycling” department, but then we considered (literally!) Every penny ...

Now, when the need to keep the family budget so tightly within an extremely small (by local standards) amount has passed, we still continue to go “to the Chinese” for food. And not just out of gratitude ???? Dishes, however, bought normal.

Trips to big supermarkets, like Costco or Bj's - where everything is sold in large portions and cheaper than prices in stores in the district, - have shown that bulk purchases are only conditional savings.

Due to the fact that everything looks cheap and “see what a cool thing”, checks from there go out more than the total cost of checks from retail stores.

In general, the costs of our life in Brooklyn look like this:

Accomodation - $ 1500 (we include utility bills in the rental price), this is rare, but it happens. On average, today a 2-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn will cost you about $ 2, including electricity, gas and water. In general, if you have a lot of uneconomical family members and you have to pay for electricity, you need to rely on an amount of $ 250-300 - in any case, these are the numbers called by all our friends who pay the bills separately.

Insurance for 5 people - $ 490 (this is only part of the amount, the rest is paid by the husband's employer).

Phone for 5 numbers - $ 137.

Internet - $ 70.

Food - an average of about $ 30 per day.

Wash - about $ 50 per month.

Apparel - I will not say, because I cannot count. Three teenage children are faced with the need to update it regularly, but we buy something, give us something.

Transport - about $ 100. In general, living in New York means that you are more likely to use public transport more often, even if you have a car. One metro or bus ride costs $ 2.75. But even then there are options. Free return bus travel for 2 hours. If the road involves the use of the metro, and then the bus, the transfer also does not deduct money from the card. Also on the website of the transport company MTA you can order a metro card, which will be automatically to replenish. Actual gasoline prices can always be clarified at Online. Today it is an average of $ 2.30 per gallon.

Restaurants and cafes. We hardly spend money on outings - I cook decently. Sometimes we go to Astoria - to eat Greek food (which I love very much). A dinner for two costs about $ 100-120. However, there is also no top bar, especially if you like to eat in restaurants with Michelin stars ... Coffee for two costs usually less than $ 20.

Hairstyle and nails. A haircut in New York is a purely individual concept. You can go to the nearest Chinese (yes, they also opened hairdressers) and get a decent haircut for $ 10, you can go to Brighton and “renew” for $ 50-60, you can go to a familiar master in Manhattan and get high on $ 200. I found a lovely Ukrainian salon and get my hair cut for $ 26. The men's haircut also costs $ 16.

It turned out that the first time was not to go for a manicure, so I bought the tool ($ 20 and somehow I learned how to do it myself. At first there was “horror as bad” and jagged fingers, but then it turned out. In general, in Chinese workshops this pleasure costs about $ 10-15, about $ 25 for a pedicure. I haven’t found the top bracket yet.

Cultural leisure - the school where the children study participates in the Broadway for Children program, so we go to musicals for $ 10 per ticket. Some amounts are spent on children's guitar lessons and paint (the eldest daughter is in an art class), and sometimes we become victims of sales. But this is already difficult to predict in budget planning.

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