Moving to NYC – How's my budget?
Hey guys!
I am moving to New York City next year and wanted to get an idea of how realistic my rudimentary budget is. I am making $100k as base with a $10k signing bonus (and 10-20% performance bonus at the end of the year). For the sake of the budget, I just used the $100k figure.
After tax and after a $19,500 401k deduction (I assumed 0% employee match just to remain as conservative as possible with my budget), I got an after tax income of roughly $55,239, which comes out to $4,603.25 per month.
Here's how I estimate my monthly expenses to go:
Rent: $2000
Phone: $50
Food: $600
Transport: $200
Roth IRA Contribution: $500
Entertainment: $750
This gives me roughly $503 per month left at the end. Is there anything I am missing from this budget, or is there any figure you guys suggest I try to reduce/increase?
Thank you all!
Are utilities included in your rent estimate? Do you have potential roommates or are you living alone? Furniture cost? Laundry may be a little if you don’t have one in unit. Transportation may vary depending on the location of office but could also possibly be comped.
Thanks for the reply! The furniture cost was going to come from my signing bonus (and I do have a lot of extra stuff I was gonna bring anyways). In regards to utilities and laundry, those aren't things I thought of but I definitely will include them, thank you. I am not sure if I am going to have roomates, however I want them for sure.
Office is right in midtown so I was planning to get a monthly MTA pass and keep some slack for the occasional Uber.
If you wanna PM me you’re more than welcome since I’m also in the process of moving and figuring everything out. Have you found an apartment?
600 on food is only $20 per day - seems kind of low, especially if you include restaurants and possibly dating.
I’m gunna take a stab and guess that the entertainment fund probably covers a bit of that
I figured entertainment is the bar/club.
Yea I estimated only $600 as it's pretty typical for consultants to have lunches or even dinners paid for when they are on an engagement and are on-site. I expect this to be relatively common which is why I only estimated $600.
Ok - consulting isn’t always on site though - but if your division is mainly on client site, then yeah per diem will decrease your monthly spend on food.
I'd put food closer to 1500.
why?
how do you rent an apartment in nyc for 2000? i barely found any good ones with 3800/month
You can only do it if you have roommates and that’s even a stretch, but then again, location is a major factor.
The max I can legally pay anyways is $2500 (most places mandate that gross income needs to be atleast 40x of rent). I figured getting a small/shitty studio or having roomates should alleviate this.
That is exactly my issue, the 40x minimum makes it impossible
This is extreme I know but before I moved to NYC, I sold my car at Carmax for $21K and then spent all of that in NYC at bars and clubs over 3 months. I was going out nearly every night. It was crazy.
Clubbing is dangerous.
The first club I went to in NYC was Pacha NYC when I was a senior in college. It was a finance and investment club trip and an alum was a part owner and bought us a couple tables. Our only job - get the chicks. It was so easy to get chicks to bottle service and it blew my mind in the club scene. It was a crazy night and the alum paid for all of it.
My jam was Cielo in meatpacking for a while until they closed. I always had a good time there.
pics or it didn't happen.
That's insane haha. I am currently trying to find some sort of sustainable side income that I can use as my "going out" expense.
Even if you are taking the occasional uber, transportation will probably cost you $300-$400 if you have any semblance of an active social life. It will probably cost you about $500 / month in groceries if you cook all of your meals so you might want to make that $750 to account for the occasional dinner out and fast-casual (unless you count dinner out as entertainment). Would lower rent budget by $200 and Roth by $200 and then if you are meeting your budget you can add more to your Roth. I have had night outs in NYC that were well over $1000 and ubers over $100. NYC can be very expensive if you are not careful and you will spend more than you plan.
Insurance? 401k?
So the $55k~ after-tax income I quoted was after a $19,500 deduction which would be what I put into my 401k. In regards to health insurance, my employer luckily covers it haha
This is probably bad advice but don't kill yourself on retirement contribution and spend that $500ish enjoying the city. Terrible town to be penny pinching in and sadly you gotta sacrifice something. Maybe find some roommates and lower that rent cost to around $1500? For disclaimer, when I first started work, I lived like a total hermit crab loser maxing out retirement and don't like seeing young bucks sacrifice their youth just to put a bit away.
NYC is such a joke. Doesn’t matter how you justify it. Kid makes 100k and barely has anything left to save each month. Let’s just keep normalizing this so we all work our lives away for 40 years. Wake up people seriously.
OP is putting away 19.5k in retirement savings though before even accounting for up to 500 monthly savings and additional 10-20% bonus that could be saved. You have fresh college grads with zero experience being able to save 30%+ of their six figure salary, live/experience NYC, etc. and you consider that to be a "joke"?
To be fair, I am choosing to live this lifestyle. I can easily find a place in Brooklyn or Queens that will be 30-45 minutes away which would be a lot cheaper. And of course I can spend much less on entertainment.
FYI, employer match doesn't matter for your budget. Employees can contribute a max of $19,500, and anything the employer contributes goes towards a separate cap.
There are some other nuances around it, but you don't have to worry about them just yet.
Oh fantastic! Thank you. I am Canadian, so the concept of 401k is still fairly new to me. In that case, I can drop my IRA contributions a little bit and use that money for something else.
You will want to max out both your 401k, as well as your (Roth) IRA contributions. The only reasonable justification for not maxing out both is if you cannot afford to, and that is not a factor in your case.
Why are you throwing 19.5K into 401K? Do you not need to spend money in NY?
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