Working in consulting with no home possible?
Excuse my ignorance on this topic, but seeing as the 3-4-5 is the standard in management consulting, it seems like a waste of money to rent/own a place? Why not just use airbnb.com and book affordable places to stay, whether you would prefer to stay at the client site for the weekend or go back and book a place in your home city? Of course, downside would be that you essentially would live out of a suitcase and have no "home", but assuming that you are always on the go and that you are rarely on long assignments in your home city, you could save a ton of money right?
With 3-4-5 it's theoretically possible but will likely be more trouble than it's worth. The simpler option is to get a cheap-as-f*ck room instead of an apartment. Just to illustrate, an apt in NYC can easily be $2000/month, but you can get a room in Hoboken or Jersey City for $600/month and have a place of your own to crash when you're back in town.
I feel like not having a true "home" to decompress in during weekends and day off would be draining. One of those subtle stresses that would wear you out after a while.
1st years in consulting generally make more than enough to cover a modest place in manhattan, it becomes way more trouble than its worth. If you do it, you'll just end up with a heap ton of cash, and no home? Doesn't really make sense.
Having a home benefits you way more than you think because people start to take shit for granted.
If you don't care about family/friends it is very possible, and also if accumulating cash is your end goal regardless of how you get there.
If you are on a Mon-Fri project, you can technically take a room Sunday night and leave Friday morning, which leaves you with 2 nights to figure out. You could pay out of pocket, use your points, or stay at a cheaper hotel/motel/airbnb.
Now, that's assuming all your projects would require travel. I know a kid who started doing this until he got staffed for 6 months on back-to-back local projects. He ended up renting a cheap place.
You all make good points. Thinking about it a bit more, you're right, it's important to have a home even if it's just a cheaper place. There's always the chance you land a local project and then you'll definitely need a place when that happens. Family and friends is another factor.
It's definitely possible and I know several colleagues who do so. While it's not a permanent solution, not paying rent is a great way to quickly build a large cash reserve without sacrificing any fun from your lifestyle.
The easiest way to pull it off is by keeping personal items in a few locations across the states and alternate where you nest for the weekend (i.e. parent's house, sibling's house, significant other's apartment, etc.).
It might sound like it is a bit emotionally draining not to have a home, but so is paying $200+ nightly for your apartment (if you only count nights that you're actually home). An alternative would be to airbnb your apartment when you're not around - and I'm about to explore this option when I move to a new place at the end of the month. I want to figure out if the hassle is worth the cash flow.
Other thing is this: you can get cheap, small apartments in NYC for 700-800 per month. I saw an article on micro apartments in the West Village this weekend, I think the rate was $755 which is going to be cheaper than paying $150+ for a decent airbnb room every weekend. They're 90 square feet, which would be unbearable every day, but that's fine if you just need a place to sleep on weekends and store some of your belongings.
If you really want to save cash, you could also find a friend in your home city that will let you crash on their couch and then just pay them a few bucks and buy them beer...
The Airbnb option only works well if you have a Doorman or someone who can let the people in and out and arrange cleaning etc... For a high priced apartment it would surely be worth it though, since you often times can command 150$+ a night. And the Summer/Winter fluctuation is not as high as in other cities, since there is always a lot of people visiting!
You can definitely do it. Don't throw your money away. Friday night you can hit the bar and choose a girl with whom you will go to her place and cook a nice steak. Worst case scenario: you're surrounded by whales, then you can rent a car and sleep in it comfortably. During the day on the weekend, you can hit the gym, shower, and go work on your things in a public library or Starbucks. Never stop making money and stop throwing it away on things like rent, utilities, trash surcharge, cable, internet, sewage surcharge, etc.
I did it early in my career for over a year. I wasn't a consultant and it was a more unique situation where I could leave a decent amount of my clothes in my office (where I never was so my assistant would literally send me underwear) and the firm paid for my weekend hotels but it was a pretty cool lifestyle. I typically stayed at the same hotel in each city around the globe and really got to know the staff there. I was practically family at the Connaught in London.
As an experience I'd say go for it if you can make it work financially. It was kind of a cool feeling to be without a home, like a rolling stone... It also keeps you from buying too much shit that you don't need when you're young so you can save on two fronts: no rent and you don't spend your money on useless stuff. And if it doesn't work for you it's easy to just rent a place.
Hm, maybe it's doable then, depending on what kind of projects you get. I'll play things by ear before renting a place then.
Also, keep in mind it's easier to live a nomadic lifestyle when you're secure on a longer term project, or have built a network within your firm so that you won't be unstaffed for extended periods of time. You don't want to have to airbnb every night for a month or more before you get staffed.
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