NYC budget

[rupertpenny]

As I'm planning a move to NYC I'm trying to get a feel for how much we need to budget for certain expenses. I have a good idea about rent, childcare, transportation, and health insurance, but am having trouble getting an idea for some other things. So can anyone tell me how much you typically spend on:

Utilities
Internet/Cable/Cable replacements
Cell phones
Groceries
Housecleaning
Any other fixed bills I'm forgetting

Thanks!

AndyCohen
Jalapeñomel
brooklyn
Velar Fricative
drruth
hocus2

[brooklyn]

We live in an apartment with steam heat where utilities are included in the monthly rent. We do pay an additional $50 surcharge each month (even in winter) for our two air conditioners to compensate for our increased electric use. That is still much cheaper than when we paid for utilities in our Brooklyn apartment (averaging between $200-400 a month, ouch)

We were paying about $150 a month for a Verizon fios cable/internet bundle. We just canceled cable and now do just internet, and use YouTubeTV via our Roku stick. YouTube TV is $40 a month.

We spend about $150 a week on groceries, but also order in a lot. I don’t track that spending as much as I should!

I don’t have a house cleaner (I wish I did!) but going rate seems to be about $80-100 for 2 hours/2 bedrooms in our neighborhood. I’m a SAHM so I haven’t been able to justify that cost yet. I do send out our laundry (family of 3) for about $40 a week.

My cell phone (Verizon) is about $90 a month. My husband gets his paid through work.

[drruth]

Feb 20, 2019 19:34:42 GMT -5 rupertpenny said:

As I'm planning a move to NYC I'm trying to get a feel for how much we need to budget for certain expenses. I have a good idea about rent, childcare, transportation, and health insurance, but am having trouble getting an idea for some other things. So can anyone tell me how much you typically spend on:

Utilities
Internet/Cable/Cable replacements
Cell phones
Groceries
Housecleaning
Any other fixed bills I'm forgetting

Thanks!

AndyCohen
Jalapeñomel
brooklyn
Velar Fricative
drruth
hocus2

I’m super cheap and don’t have cable. Our spectrum bill for high speed internet is about 100 dollars a month. Our utilities are super cheap during the winter, but can climb really high in the summer.

Fairway and instacart are my lifesavers for groceries. I’ll pm you more details.

[brooklyn]

I do almost all our grocery shopping on amazon fresh or amazon prime now, which shops from Whole Foods and Westside Market.

[rupertpenny]

Groceries sound cheap so far! We don't track closely but I would say we spend AT LEAST $1500 a month now for 4 people. My H thinks this will be more expensive in New York, but I don't think there is anyway we will spend close to $400 a week, especially if I can meal plan and do grocery delivery.

[AndyCohen]

I’m looking at last year to make this easy.

Electricity:
Looking at last year, lowest bill was $108 in June, highest was $262 in August. Our apartment has HVAC heating/cooling. We also pay extra for energy from green sources.

Phone:
Our cell bill is typically around $130/month. We don’t have unlimited data so sometimes we go over. We have a discount left over from my old job.

Cable:
$180ish/month. We have HBO. This is cable tv and Internet.

Cleaning:
We pay our cleaning lady $100/week. We have 1400 sq ft and she only does the bathrooms every other week.

Food:
Groceries we did $6k but $22k at restaurants. This is thrown off because my H has food issues and eats completely separately from us so he orders food for himself for most meals. Trader Joe’s is actually pretty cheap so I try to buy as much as I can from there. (This is for a year. Monthly is too hard for me to break down right now.)

[Velar Fricative]

Feb 20, 2019 19:34:42 GMT -5 rupertpenny said:

As I'm planning a move to NYC I'm trying to get a feel for how much we need to budget for certain expenses. I have a good idea about rent, childcare, transportation, and health insurance, but am having trouble getting an idea for some other things. So can anyone tell me how much you typically spend on:

Utilities
Internet/Cable/Cable replacements
Cell phones
Groceries
Housecleaning
Any other fixed bills I'm forgetting

Thanks!

AndyCohen
Jalapeñomel
brooklyn
Velar Fricative
drruth
hocus2

This may not help but I’ll put it out there. We own a home in SI so some may not apply to you.

Utilities - Just under $200/month for electric, $100 for gas, $60 for water.

Internet and Cable - $170/month with Spectrum. We ended up getting cable again after cutting it because the price was about the same after we factored in better internet speeds and all the channels we wanted. We are going to call soon since our intro rate went up to see if they could being it down to about $100 a month.

Cell phones - $170/month with Verizon for two lines, lots of data. This is another bill I really want to decrease but Verizon coverage is best here.

Groceries - Oof. We are just starting to track this better and last month we spent $1k before eating out, because we are both losing weight and cooking way more often (and DH is doing keto, so lots of meat). This is almost exclusively with delivery via Fresh Direct. The SI supermarkets suck and FD has phenomenal customer service and fresh foods. I think as we develop our eating habits and meal plan better, we can get that down more. We also spend a few hundred a month on eating out. You will want to have money for eating out because it’s NYC.

Housecleaning - $140 ever 2 weeks for 2000 square feet.

Others - In case you plan to have a car, insurance is expensive here so factor for that if necessary (plus car maintenance, parking if you need to pay for it, etc.). You’ll pay for mass transit, which also varies a ton.

[AndyCohen]

Oh yeah, on the cable the intro rate is usually around $140/month for the first year and then they raise it. But if you call and threaten to switch to Verizon or something else they will usually give you the low rate for a year again. We’re just awful at getting around to doing it.

[fryjack2]

AndyCohen your food spending breakdown is so NYC

[AndyCohen]

Feb 22, 2019 11:51:49 GMT -5 fryjack2 said:

AndyCohen your food spending breakdown is so NYC

Hah! Before kids we used to order in every meal. I actually make dinner for me and the girls 5 days a week but it’s pretty cheap from Trader Joe’s. Although I just realized that me getting take-out (Just Salad or Chipotle) for lunch everyday isn’t the norm.

[Gato]

I've never been a New Yorker but my brother has been for a long time. One big expense if you live in a doorman building is the Christmas tip. My brother tips around $1K to each of the three main guys, plus some more for his super.

Also, I know he pays about $55K a year for a nanny.

[maloney]

Mar 4, 2019 17:07:43 GMT -5 Gato said:

I've never been a New Yorker but my brother has been for a long time. One big expense if you live in a doorman building is the Christmas tip. My brother tips around $1K to each of the three main guys, plus some more for his super.

Also, I know he pays about $55K a year for a nanny.

Ummm. That’s a lot of money to tip. I’m in an outer borough and we do not tip nearly that much.

[Gato]

Mar 4, 2019 18:02:21 GMT -5 maloney said:

Mar 4, 2019 17:07:43 GMT -5 Gato said:

I've never been a New Yorker but my brother has been for a long time. One big expense if you live in a doorman building is the Christmas tip. My brother tips around $1K to each of the three main guys, plus some more for his super.

Also, I know he pays about $55K a year for a nanny.

Ummm. That’s a lot of money to tip. I’m in an outer borough and we do not tip nearly that much.

Maybe it was $1K for all three?  IDK, I remember it as $1K each and yes it did seem like a lot! 

[rupertpenny]

Mar 6, 2019 16:46:39 GMT -5 Gato said:

Mar 4, 2019 18:02:21 GMT -5 maloney said:

Ummm. That’s a lot of money to tip. I’m in an outer borough and we do not tip nearly that much.

Maybe it was $1K for all three?  IDK, I remember it as $1K each and yes it did seem like a lot! 

That is crazy. We give our doormen money for Chinese New Year, but like $10 each. I doubt we will end up in a doorman building though, at least not at first. 

[georgeharrison]

Feb 20, 2019 19:56:42 GMT -5 brooklyn said:

 I do send out our laundry (family of 3) for about $40 a week.

I have a question about the laundry.  Do you send your underpants and everything out?  

[drruth]

Mar 7, 2019 11:53:01 GMT -5 georgeharrison said:

Feb 20, 2019 19:56:42 GMT -5 brooklyn said:

 I do send out our laundry (family of 3) for about $40 a week.

I have a question about the laundry.  Do you send your underpants and everything out?  

Yup.

At first I didn’t, but I got over that really quickly. I wash my bras by hand at home though.

[brooklyn]

Mar 7, 2019 11:53:01 GMT -5 georgeharrison said:

Feb 20, 2019 19:56:42 GMT -5 brooklyn said:

 I do send out our laundry (family of 3) for about $40 a week.

I have a question about the laundry.  Do you send your underpants and everything out?  

Yes. Anything delicate I wash myself, but most of my undies get sent out without issue.

[janegold]

Mar 6, 2019 19:59:27 GMT -5 rupertpenny said:

Mar 6, 2019 16:46:39 GMT -5 Gato said:

Maybe it was $1K for all three?  IDK, I remember it as $1K each and yes it did seem like a lot! 

That is crazy. We give our doormen money for Chinese New Year, but like $10 each. I doubt we will end up in a doorman building though, at least not at first. 

It’s definitely a thing in fully staffed buildings, at least in Manhattan. From what I’ve heard from friends, it tends to be about $1000 depending on the size of the building/staff, and there is often a standard hierarchy of tipping ($200 for the super, $150 for each doorman, $50 for each porter, $30 for each maintenance guy, or whatever - I’m making it up.)

[needsomehelp]

I live in Manhattan and pay $2300 for a 620 sq ft 1 bedroom in a fully staffed building. Utilities are fixed at $65/month. Was lucky to snag this deal.

Do my own laundry (shared basement, $1/load), clean my own place, don't have cable, pay $110/month for FIOS internet, and about $300/month on groceries for 2 (Trader Joe's & Whole Foods). My work provides lunch, so that saves us $. We spend $150/month eating out on average (mostly due to my husband eating out for lunch). The 2 doormen each get a $50 tip each year, which is the amount they recommended we tip. No kids. We both walk to work (1 mile each way / person) so don't take the MTA. We spend $20/month average on books and $500/month is ear-marked for travel (2-3 trips a year).

Unexpected expenses: spend more on clothes and grooming than we used to ($100/month on average). We felt like we had to up our fashion game (compared to when we lived in the California Bay Area) and that mean buying new clothes (mostly at sample sales, Nordstrom Rack, TJ Maxx, etc..), paying more for haircuts (even with Groupon), and more on skin care.


Total expense: $3700/month (for 2 people), which is half of our net income. We save, invest, and donate the rest (in equal proportions). Already have a large nest egg in savings and an e-fund, so are less aggressive about saving than we used to be.

[Deleted]

Not a New Yorker, but since brooklyn mentioned it, unless your building has laundry, I would seriously consider wash and fold service for your laundry. Laundromats are just such a pain when you’ve got other shit going on.