Why You Should Leave NYC After Your Analyst Stint
Truth: Regardless of title, you are a W2 employee living a middle class lifestyle.
As long as you're living in Manhattan, you will be confined to a sub 1200 sqft apartment for the rest of your life. Analysts are sharing 600 sqft apartments with 1-2 people, paying $2500 each. Seniors get to have the "luxury" of dropping $1-2mil on a 1000-1300 sqft apartment that is basically the same quality as many of the analysts' apartments except with a couple more bedrooms and space. Even if you splurge on a ultra high-end apartment, you will be, by no means, living in a 5 bedroom brownstone in the Upper East Side next to Central Park, per say.
At the end of the day, you are working hard at 42 years old to come home to a modestly sized apartment, waking up to the sound of car horns, looking from your bedside window at the wasteland of trash bags that occupy the sidewalk, all while paying 50% of your annual comp in federal, state, and city income taxes. And if you realize NYC is not worth the tradeoffs for the reasons listed above, you earn the "privilege" of spending 2 hours of your day commuting into the city - most likely either on a bus or subway since driving your own car would be a hassle. Also keep in mind, adding 10+ hours in weekly commute time is a surefire way to drain what's even left of your personal life. No time to eat dinner with your family. No time to see your kids. Just commute, work, commute, sleep and then cross your fingers that nothing blows up during the weekends. What a prestigious life you have!
Your currency as a senior is weaker than you think in NYC.
The relatively high concentration of generational wealth (F500 founders, inheritance money, and internationals) in the city will greatly devalue the strength of your paycheck (compared to other U.S. cities) and kick you to the curb in terms of what you can afford. Rather, you will forever be a risk-averse slave sweating 60+ hours a week so you can send your kids (who are growing up in a yardless 3 bedroom apartment) to private school while your own life voraciously passes you by. And even though you are making a lot of money "on paper", your responsibility has skyrocketed as you are expected to perform against likewise sweaty people who have sacrificed their own relationships, quality of living, etc., all for a relatively small amount of post-tax wealth compared to the city's top 1%. Yet it's too late to start your own business (and spend your time on more meaningful projects) or take a pay cut at a corporate job because you've already locked in your $3mil mortgage. Welcome to the rat race.
Take the Redpill and get out before its too late.
This could be partially avoided if banks would allow employees to work from home / remotely outside of NYC. But given the strong push to return to the office, I can't help but think there's a much better way to live life that doesn't involve "NYC" or "Wall Street". Sure, branding your resume with "Goldman Sachs" or "Blackstone" greatly helps build your credibility / earnings potential when you're 22-26 but what the hell are you doing here after that? If you still plan to be a W2 employee, go back to your hometown, be with your family and friends, live in a low cost of living city where every dollar you earn goes a long way. It's not how much you make, its how much you keep. Nobody cares who you work for. You aren't going to look back at the extra time you spent in the office to clear that marginally bigger bonus (of which you'll hedonically adapt to), you'll look back at the times you spent with your family and friends, so why are we not prioritizing that?
A little over the top imo. There are plenty of reasonable hours jobs on Wall St, and you can live in BK or Queens and have tons of space. Just need to find your niche rather than grinding away at BK or whatever
Quality areas in Brooklyn are the same, if not more expensive than Manhattan so that's a wash.
Queens can easily be a 50 minute net commute if you want ample space in a quality suburban spot.
And in both cases, you're left holding the bag paying an extra +6% of your annual wealth in city income taxes.
Extremely based post. I personally am in this situation commuting 50 minutes and paying extra taxes and am miserable given the commute but living in the city is also soul sucking on your wealth Thoughts on LIC? It’s about a 15 minute ride into the city
When you start referring to Queens as a "quality suburban spot", you've officially been living in NYC too long. Place is a shithole compared to most suburbs around the country.
I'm in my early 20s, and I definitely plan on moving out of NYC and settling down somewhere else by the time I'm in my early 30s, and hopefully I'll have a good amount of money by then to do so. I think NYC (manhattan) is one of the best places to be as a 20-something single guy in finance, for reasons that can be found anywhere on the internet, but definitely not a place to stay long-term. I don't mind renting out a sub-600 square foot place with a roommate paying 2k+ because tbh I'm barely in my apartment anyway, and it's great to surround yourself by people who are much better than you and hustle. But again, not a place you'd want to be after you've grinded your 20s away, fucked around, and now want a more calm and comfortable type of lifestyle
Edit: Also ofc depends on the type of jobs you can get in NYC. I was lucky enough to land a role at a company that pays well, offers free lunch, and very good wlb (20-30 hours/week)
Go to New York to get rich, leave New York to stay rich.
I’m only in my first year in my career and I’m already fantasizing about moving down south to the suburbs, getting a house so I don’t have to piss away money on rent, living in an area with good public schools so I don’t have to pay for private school, and reaping the benefits of lcol. I really hope these years I spend on the ib grind in nyc can really pay off.
Agreed with all except the public schools. Don't send your kids to the indoctrination camps no matter what
NYC is good when you have time and money. as an analyst, you don't have either, so you ain't living NYC life. it makes sense to spend your analyst years somewhere like Chicago and save some money, and then move to NYC in your 30s when you have savings and spare time to go out and have fun.
Not in investment banking, but this is exactly my plan haha. NYC is my favorite city in the country, but just can't fully enjoy it out of college. Really would prefer to start in chicago. Chicago has its issues (especially heightened after the riots), but still a great city where you can have a good quality of life out of undergrad.
Chicago is underrated on this site.
Tons of young people, tons of nightlife, tons of fun in spring/summer, much cleaner and more affordable/comfortable than NYC.
Is it NYC? No. Most people think that's a bad thing, but I've found it's a good thing.
Chicago is insanely underrated compared to NYC for analyst-associate years (maybe even beyond as well). I lived there for a year in a 700 sqft studio in a doorman building, full amenities (gym+pool) and paid around $1800/month. For that price point in downtown/midtown Manhattan right now, you'd be living in a 6th floor walkup with cockroaches. Can't understate how much this improves your quality of life. On a banking salary, you can afford to live very comfortably here your first year out of college. In NYC, I saw people throwing half their paycheck to live in flex bedrooms. The difference is really night and day.
Also, crime is a complete non-factor for any of the neighborhoods where finance professionals would live in Chicago (except for the Loop. The Loop is a shithole, and I can't understand why anyone would willingly live there). I'm certain that none of the people who perpetuate this myth online have ever lived in Chicago.
Or some people like nyc and accept the tradeoffs (some people don’t want a huge house, etc). Your views are a bit extreme, but in general I agree that being in a LCOL will help you build wealth faster and can be very beneficial for many (in addition to the fact that many people are blinded by the nyc lifestyle). It’s all about the reasons you chose a city (similar to a career, etc), you need to be realistic about what it is going to be like.
All that being said, there are many success stories and the finance path can (and does) lead to real wealth. I feel like I’m mentioning this more and more (usually have to go the other way) but the opportunities in finance are real and lead to real wealth. Sure you need to be a top performer, but for those who do well, the lifestyle you describe isn’t anything like what reality is. If I had listened to this advice I’d probably be in some smaller city pulling in $200k or so (that’s probably the path I was on when I was younger), instead I’m living in a city that I truly enjoy (and don’t want to leave) making many multiples. Even without the money, I enjoy the city, but I do admit it would be much tougher to justify (retirement/financial independence vs the city, I choose financial independence)
It is good to make sure people understand the reality of the city, but this isn’t black or white, people have preferences and many like city life.
how old are you
Mid/Late 30’s and life is nowhere near middle class (unless you have some very warped perceptions of the middle class).
Unfathomably based post
the only decent places (that have good schools), 30 mins on the train are Garden City and Manhasset really.
go see how expensive those areas are.
and garden city, which super nice, is bordered by hempstead. hope you enjoy paying 1.4 million to live right on top of a super ghetto area (forced to stay in your tiny upper middle class bubble town).
manhasset is even more expensive.
anywhere else on the island is like 45m plus train ride away (which makes it over an hour door to door) for the privilege to deal with insane weekend traffic that causes your 5 mile away errand to take 50 mins. need to leave the island? guess what, hope you enjoy driving the cross bronx expressway or crossing over staten island (2 of the worst drives in the country for traffic).
It’s unbelievable the amount of cope from some people. Every decision in life has trade offs. Living in NYC vs LCOL has both pros and cons. So many of my friends want to believe so hard that I’m constantly dealing with the cold, rats, and paying 8k/month for rent when it’s just not true at all and completely overblown.
The only cope going on here is trying to justify that working your life away as a W2 employee to fund a 1000 sqft apartment is a more fulfilling/happy life than the alternatives.
A wise analyst a while back once said "you are a loser if you can't land a job in NYC after you graduate but you're an even bigger loser if you never leave" and I think that's especially true to think about why NYC has such a high attrition rate.
NYC is certainly an incredible place to start your career and life experience in general but there's significant diminishing returns after 2-4 years in the city. If you were to extricate your pay and apply it to any other city (outside SF and LA), your quality of life would be volumes greater. Having high pay in a lower cost of living city is superior for building wealth and raising a family, neither of which are ideal in NYC.
Why do you think there are so many LMM PE shops in "Tier 2-3" cities? Why are seniors working fully remote in different cities? Do you really think you need to physically eat rent in NYC to have the same career opportunities these days?
Dude wrf are you going on about?
You have all this anecdotal evidence about people living in tier 3 cities and loving life. And you keep saying w2 employees, umm wtf do you call other people working in other cities?
You don’t work 100 hours after you make VP. No one slaves away at work anymore, especially if you’re intelligent and efficient and have a decent boss.
If you marry well, you’re gonna happy anywhere. If you have a good family and friends, you’re gonna be happy anywhere.
If you don’t like the city, you can live in Greenwich or rye or Scarsdale or Hoboken or anywhere else you want.
And if you really hate it, you can always bounce. But many people like living in tier 1 cities like nyc and San Fran and london and dubai and mumbai and tokoyo.
The only people who randomly bash people and places are the ones who are jealous, so the real question is why are you so jealous? Shouldn’t you love the people you detest are “suffering” in nyc lol?
this is so true.
I'm a senior associate in a great group. I have a ton of money saved from my pre MBA time.
I have a family so need to buy a home. Its so hard. every semi decent place with good schools is over a million and everyone is all cash (with either family money, or they are truly rich and arent a w2 slave). there's also so many immigrants competing to buy all these homes with their pooled together family money to buy a stakehold here.
and most of these home are door to door over an hour to get to midtown (40 min train, 20 mins of walking on both ends).
just miserable honestly. i barely even want to a buy a home around here due to traffic and commuting times. I used to live in the midwest before and I could drive 5 mins to the office to work. no public transit, just an easy chill drive to a nice safe home with a yard and garage.
thinking about saving a few more bonuses, and hoping we get a 2010 to 2014 bull market run. that might allow me leave the rat race, buy a 500k home for cash in the south/midwest and have enough saved to just get a chill job and relax
I dont think the folks who stay in NYC are 'risk averse slaves' as you say. If anyone is risk averse, it's the one who moves to a 2nd tier job/city and tries to convince himself and others that he really wanted to leave. Can't tell you how many friends of mine suddenly discovered a desire for a simpler life . . right around the time their jobs signaled to them that the next rung on the ladder wasnt going to be so easy to reach. What a coincidence! Suddenly my boy has discovered he always wanted a yard, how about that.
I am by no means saying the big city is what everyone wants. My dad wouldn't live in NYC if he had a billion dollars. All I'm saying is, I see this pattern a lot . . people kind of lying to themselves that they didn't want XYZ when in reality that choice was kind of made for them. Probably begins in the college admissions process, or maybe even earlier in life. I'd encourage people to be more honest with themselves. It pays off in the long run.
Some people can’t handle the city long term and it shows
Well yeah, who wants to handle dodging rats on the street and nutcases on the subway in your 40s? Nothing preventing people from living in Jersey or Connecticut or w/e and making the 1 hour commute, but moving your JOB away from NYC of course limits optionality.
People who respond with “you can’t handle nyc” are masochists
Make your money up north, spend it down south. I agree with OP, but you do have to understand that for some people, getting to live in a city like NYC is, in of itself, a luxury. Personally, I'd rather my 2-bedroom, >1,000 SF loft in Charlotte where the parking spot for my Tacoma is complimentary with my $2,200/month rent. But to each their own. For some merely living in NYC is a greater luxury than a big, suave apartment in a less expensive city. That starry-eyed feeling of "Woah...I'm on WALL STREET" only lasted a year or two for me. COVID was the death-knell. Living in NYC during that period absolutely ruined the magic of the city for me. I don't think I would go back for $1M a year.