It’s what day now?
August 27, 2008
*looking around*
Is it really Wednesday? The last Wednesday of the month? Already?
Geez.
I feel like it’s been ages since I last blogged, and it’s probably due to the action-packed-ness of life. Let’s see. When we last met … oh, that was yesterday? Good grief!
Well, since yesterday I’ve:
~ discovered that I would need to make 81% more money than I do now to be “equally comfortable” in New York.
~ forced myself to go to a networking event in the downtown area (I hate driving in downtown, especially during high traffic), exchanged business cards with two people, and got out of the scary dark neighborhood safely.
~ met with NY friends who were in town for a couple days, and recommended that they try public transportation to get back to the airport. Happy to report that went smooth as silk, and they enjoyed not sitting in traffic greatly.
Spending since Friday?
~ we had a mandatory work event on Saturday so I combined a help-a-coworker-out situation with the work event so we could carpool part of the way: + saved on a little gas.
~ went to tea with a coupla the gals: – $14
~ visited a comic shop: priceless (and I didn’t spend anything): $0
~ bought ten pounds of pork shoulder ribs (that’ll last our family a good while, we cook it various ways and I like pork): – $10
~ did my “home”work at Borders: free air conditioning! and made money, of course.
~ brother actually paid a bit of money towards household bills: + $100
~ missed a friend’s 21st birthday party because my train was late: $0
~ went to the networking event at a bar: $0
~ went to another bar afterwards to meet up with my friends: $4 for a burger I bought before getting TO the bar. Tacky? Only if the staff were around. We hung out on the patio after 10 when drinks were no longer allowed outside so there were no witnesses, and their kitchen was closed by the time I got there anyway.
My car is being a brat and celebrating our fifth year together by falling apart in tiny ways:
1. The auto lock on the driver’s side doesn’t work.
2. The window on the passenger’s side doesn’t work.
3. The “cabin” light switch needs strange toggling to work.
4. The heater went out this morning.
Ugh, the increased cost of living is a pain. I live in one of the most expensive areas of the country and it’s annoying when all of my friends were able to afford houses and I can’t even get a 1-bedroom condo.
CNN has a similar money calculator, and they break it down by certain areas (housing, energy, food, etc.)
NYC is a very expensive city – I think its hard to compare living anywhere in the US to NYC especially if you want to live in Manhattan.
Old cars seem to take on personalities of their own – the little things that are wrong are often very quirky. My car has a habit of turning on the warning light for the airbag once in a while… and then it goes away for a couple months.
paranoidasteroid: I’m going to have to take a look at CNN’s calculator, perhaps it’ll be more helpful than this Doomsday version.
matt: I never thought I’d seriously make the comparison because I knew it was so expensive, but … preparation is everything, y’know?
Since my car’s on a 20 year contract (I’ve decided that pets and cars MUST stay with me for 20 years) I thought I had a little more time before she was “old.” Guess that was a little too hopeful.
Here’s CNN’s http://cgi.money.cnn.com/tools/costofliving/costofliving.html?step=form&x=48&y=17
And you can use this to see what your take home pay would be http://www.dinkytown.net/java/Payroll.html
I moved to a higher COL area (CNN says I need to make about 33% more) but I gained $300/mo since I no longer pay state and city tax.
Maybe you should read Escape Brooklyn’s blog before moving to NY. š
karen: Thanks for the links! I’ve compared salaries and ooof! I know they’ve got to take into account the cost of living difference but from crunching the numbers, I’d have to be asking for a LOT of money to make it possible to live and work there, and still support my family to any degree.
I do read Escape Brooklyn, actually, and she’s definitely a cautionary tale. I don’t have any illusions about being able to buy in NY, settling there is not my goal. Building a solid network is much more important, and I think that’s feasible.