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Comment by missedthecue | Hacker News Reader

A single person will have $6700 a month after taxes on 120k in NYC. Manhattan studio rent is about $1800. That leaves almost $5000 a month in disposal income after housing, which is higher than the US median income before housing costs!

Sure rent is pricy in Manhattan relative to other places in America, but I just don't get how that type of life is depicted as such a struggle online.

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It's because it's not unless you're wildly outspending your limits. Having personally done it, living in Brooklyn was fine around 90k right in Carroll Gardens a pretty nice area with a 1 bedroom. Living in Manhattan was fine at about 120k and very easy when I was making about 150k. I have high student loan debt too. I haven't lived in a non luxury type building for years now at this point and only had a flat-mate once by choice while being able to save thousands a month. The narrative of the poor struggling highly paid engineer doesn't really jive with me.

I moved to Jersey City last year to have cheaper rent but I did that because I don't care for NYC much and am migrating out in general but it wasn't like I was struggling as an individual engineer before hand.

$1800 is the very very low end for Manhattan (and likely a reflection of COVID price drops): https://streeteasy.com/studios-for-rent/manhattan

Also: there's the Manhattan people typically think of, and then the reality that it's a large island with a wide variety of housing. Most folks who aren't from NYC think don't realise that world continues past 110th st (or, let's be honest, past 86th).

Sure, but you’re trading accessibility/entertainment/<something else people value and typically accept as a given for living in Manhattan>. At a certain point, it makes more sense to leave Manhattan to one of the other boroughs, go across the river to New Jersey, or move further up to Westchester/ Long Island. Your money goes further there (housing, groceries).

My point was that looking at median rents while dreaming of Midtown or Tribeca is not a realistic way to assess the realities of living in Manhattan.

We can argue exactly what one would pay for Manhattan rent but

1. $1800 isn't that far off for studio rent, multiple listings on apartment.com show that right now

2. Most New Yorkers don't live in Manhattan anyway. I purposely overstated New Yorker's rent costs to prove my point.

Splurge for 2.5k studio in midtown and you still have enough spare cash.

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