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Yeah, look... it's an impossible problem.

On one hand you put your finger on it. Your life in place A is completely different then your life in place B so trying to so that you are paying x% more per sqft and therefore you arre y% poorer is obviously nonsense. Same goes for inflation calculators. This week you spent your money on iPads, international foods, air travel, divorce lawyers and antidepressants. 200 years ago you could have taken that money and bought this many slaves, that much bread and a weekly leaching. Therefore $1 in 1804 is worth $349 in todays money.

On the other hand there obviously is such a thing as inflation over time and cost of living variances. You can tell because you can live in a house, eat food and drive a car with a certain amount of money in one place but you can't pay for a the smallest apartment in another place with the same amount.

When it comes to food, I disagree that NYC isn't significantly more expensive. It is true that you can find cheap street and fast food in the city, but there's no way you could stand eating that all of the time just like any fast food. Groceries are more expensive than other parts of the country and you are often dependent on several stores for getting the kind of goods you want unless you live in Manhattan near a big store like Whole Foods (a store which is expensive). In terms of salary, only white collar and union jobs have any kind of salary adjustment that helps with the cost of living.

I wasn't just talking about street foods, I specifically mentioned the markets that have cheaper produce and meat than what I paid in Maryland. For household items there's dollar store type places with pretty cheap general products. You do have to shop around more. As far as whose salary is adjusted, I thought we were only discussing developers.

I've lived in NYC for 15 years, and the only market that's relatively cheaper is Chinatown. However, it has a limited selection and it's only accessible if you live around it, i.e. in some of the most expensive areas of Manhattan. So yes, you could save a few dollars a month on baby bok choy, but you'd be living in a $3k a month studio apartment and paying a 20%-80% premium on everything else - electric, cable, non-chinese food, etc.

The only things that are cheaper in NYC are international flights (and only because you don't have to pay for connections) and immigrant labor (such as apartment cleaning). Other than that, to say that anything in NYC is cheaper than Maryland is just plain untrue.

And all this "willing to live in the right place in New Jersey" so you can have a 30 minute commute is propaganda. What it really means is, ghetto-living with an hour and a half commute, and that's only if you work 10 hour days because the commute around 9-to-5 is actually 2 hours. I've done it, and it's not worth it. (Unless of course, you are actually poor and simply have to).

Working 10 hour days and commuting 3 more is work+sleep, not living. Yes, you have your weekends, but when you are in NJ, let's face it, you miss out on all the spontaneous things that people do, which is the whole reason you've moved to NYC in the first place.

And all this "willing to live in the right place in New Jersey" so you can have a 30 minute commute is propaganda. What it really means is, ghetto-living with an hour and a half commute

No, it's really true. The right place is Jersey City near one of the PATH subway stations, particularly Journal Square. That really is under 30 minutes from either the downtown or midtown commercial areas of Manhattan, and hardly ghetto at all. Other options are Union City or North Bergen along one of the many bus lines into Manhattan 42nd street. Or Hoboken a bit more upscale but still significantly cheaper than Manhattan.

I've lived in these areas of New Jersey and commuted to Manhattan for my entire professional life. It really is the best solution for a Manhattan commute. You don't need a car if within PATH subway range. Weekend access to NY is still just as easy. Grocery stores abound, both big chain and ethnic speciality. NJ sales tax is a bit less than NY, and you dodge the NYC income tax.

It's unclear if you meant you actually lived in NJ yourself. Did you, and where and what commute?

Anything near Path (or along those illegal van routes in West New York for that matter) is not cheaper, just slightly nicer (newer and bigger) than comparable lower priced Manhattan apartments. The parent could not have been talking about that though:

Sure, rent is expensive. That's about it, and even then if you're willing to live in the right part of Jersey you can still be 30 minutes from work and have very cheap rent.

Very cheap rent is not available until your commute gets well outside of 1 hour on a good day. Which means an hour and a half on a real day. The bus/non-Path rail system is an abomination. The wait times are unpredictable, the buses regularly miss their scheduled route (meaning you wait an hour for the next one), and the drivers hate and routinely abuse the passengers.

If you want a specific example, I've lived in Teaneck NJ for under a year. People like to say that it's 15 minutes from NYC - which is true, if you have a car and make the drive at 1am on a Tuesday (plus you have to figure in around $30 for parking). At a reasonable hour and no car, it takes an hour and a half, plus the bus wait time. And Teaneck is not cheap, merely cheaper than NYC. But you still won't find much under a $1,500 a month. Of course, you must add the monthly bus pass at ~$150.

The prices drop off as you get farther into the outer boroughs. Even a token crossing of the East River saves you about $500 a month in rent. (I live in Brooklyn Heights. It's overpriced, but not Chelsea overpriced. And it's only 15 minutes to commute to Chelsea.)

I think a lot of people lower their standard of living when they move to expensive places. For instance, I live in the mid-west in a 5-bedroom, 3-bath house with a 2-car garage. My wife and I own 2 reliable cars, and we eat at mid-level restaurants almost every day. If we tried to live a comparable life in NYC, I'm certain the cost-of-living argument would apply.

My whole point was that my standard of living went up compared to Maryland. I'm making more and my bills didn't increase as to offset that. I have more money for vacations, going out, etc. It's true that the big house and car lifestyle may be more expensive, but even talking about those things IN NYC is ridiculous, obviously it makes much more sense to living in NJ or Long Island, where a develop salary can definitely get you a house and a few cars. I'm pretty sure cars are the same price most places and NJ has the cheapest gas in the country as far as I know.