Comment by cletus | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cletus | Hacker News Reader

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Let me help you with this.

New York can be a very expensive place to live. It can also be a cheap place to live. 10 grand, done right, will last you a long time in New York.

My advice would be:

- If you have a car, get rid of it. Do not, under any circumstances, bring it to the city. This alone will save you a ton of grief (parking, tickets, rules about which side of the street you can park on and when and so on) and money (insurance in the city I believe is higher) and you simply don't need it;

- Get rid of your stuff. You need a suitcase of clothes, a computer and, well, that's about it. The more of the rest you can get rid of the better;

- There are decent parks of Brooklyn and Queens you can find a room for $1000/month or less. Ideally you want to find a room and not sign a lease right away. It's more flexible;

- You can live out of the city and commute in for job interviews. This will save even more money.

I live in New York and love it. New York is the kind of place where attitude matters. You have to decide to like it. If you do you'll love all the great things: the energy, the proximity, things going on, etc. If you decide to hate it you'll notice the bad things.

Good luck.

>Get rid of your stuff. You need a suitcase of clothes, a computer and, well, that's about it. The more of the rest you can get rid of the better;

Don't deal with the hassle of selling it on craigslist, just take it all to Goodwill and make a large tax deductible charitable donation.

If you have any electronics, books or video games you want to get rid of, you can try Amazon's trade in program.

Just one tip about finding rooms on Craigslist. Listings usually get ~50 responses within the first couple hours of going up, so there's fierce competition. What this means is you'll need to stand out somehow as a good choice in the email, but primarily that you'll need to respond to them as soon as possible after they go up. So prioritize brand new entries over ones that look nicer but are a couple days old.

Try to line up a ton of them because most are going to "interview" a bunch of people and choose one among them.

    If you have a car, get rid of it. Do not, under any circumstances, bring it to the city.

Ah, I have a small truck and wanted to drive it there, so I could bring my bed, and then sell it when I get there. I guess I need to decide if I can sell a small truck in the Austin area for enough more than in New York to cover the cost of a new bed.

I talked to my insurance company; insurance is more than 3x what it was in NC. Ditch the car.

And yeah, it is fairly easy (and fun!) to pick up inexpensive furniture here. And, of course, the size of bed (desk/chair/sofa/etc) will depend on the apartment you get.

(Someone else mentioned $500 bucks for a nice bed. That is some one-percenter bedding right there, if you ask me!)

I had packed six boxes, and my parents shipped them to me when I finally found a place to live. Turns out those boxes are still unpacked (and taking up space in my room!)

It may be obvious, but don't buy a used mattress from someone you don't know in NYC. The bed bug risk means that it isn't worth it.

And I don't think that $500 for mattress + bed frame is ridiculous, given that you spend roughly 1/3 of your life on it.

Some unconventional alternatives to a mattress and bed frame:

- if your floor is warm enough, a sleeping bag on the floor (or perhaps on a foam mat -- the kind used for camping) might work

- try a hammock (some are sold with special suspension intended to be used indoors)

- a couch or futon

Another New Yorker here. Just sell the car in Austin. You can get a bed & mattress at the Ikea in Brooklyn for $500 or less and they'll deliver it. You're not going to want the added hassle of trying to sell a car in a new and huge city while you're trying to get settled. Plus, you will get parking tickets. It's almost unavoidable.

You can also get a bed from somewhere cheaper - all these places deliver. I don't remember how much I paid, but I'm pretty confident it was <$200.

It depends how much stuff you have other than the bed. Renting a vehicle one-way is crazy expensive. So is flying with more than one or two suitcases.

My hunch is, driving the small truck ALMOST all the way with your stuff, then ditching it before you get there would be the most cost-effective approach.

If necessary, get a storage locker (way outside the city) for the first month (Public Storage has "first month free" offers) until you get settled in.

I would recommend looking at rooms/shares and finding a furnished sublet. There are a lot of those at a reasonable price, and that's a much better option when you know you'll be moving in a few months. I tried this and it worked really well for me.

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