9 Hidden Costs of Living in NYC
Everybody knows that living in New York is expensive af.
But when you’re young and naive, you think you can handle it. “Oh, well if I find a cheap apartment in a sketchy area of Brooklyn, I’ll be totally fine,” you think to yourself. Right?
No, wrong. Rent is expensive, there’s no doubt about that. But there are so many secret costs of living in NYC that you won’t realize until you settle the fuck in. Read this, and don’t say we didn’t warn you.
1. Cable and Internet
New York City may be the only place where it’s not cheaper to get a cable and internet bundle, which is why lots of people (myself included), just have internet — and internet alone is $60 a month for most people. Unfair.
But even if you just have the internet package to pay monthly, you probably live in an old ass apartment with plaster walls that don’t transmit internet signals, forcing you to pay for another router or pay for internet that basically doesn’t exist.
On the plus side, maybe your bad wifi will convince you to stop spending so much time on the internet! JK, it just means you’re going to go over your data plan. Fuck your life.
2. Every Fucking Pharmacy Product
If you purchased an Amazon Prime account and ordered all your pharmacy necessities online, you’d legit be saving money. Seriously, walk into a NYC CVS or Duane Reade for your regular purchases, and you’ll be shocked to find that your trusty Neutrogena make up wipes are suddenly triple the price. Cool.
3. After Work Drinks
The cool thing about moving to NYC is that so many people you know are also probably just moving there too. They also have no friends and want to get drinks, awesome!
Except it’s not awesome because grabbing drinks costs money, so does getting lunch. Sure, you could suggest getting coffee to save some dollas and still socialize, but knowing New York prices you’ll still spend about ten bucks on a cup of tea.
4. Figuring Out How Much Food to Buy
NYC produce is absolute shit. It goes bad by the time you get it home.
And even if you think your apartment is near a grocery store, you’ll probably quickly realize that it’s not like, a real grocery store. Maybe it’s a gourmet market that you cannot afford whatsoever. Or maybe it’s a grocery store that mysteriously only gets re-stocked every two weeks and doesn’t have Brussels sprouts or kale. Tragic.
When you do take the trek to Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods, you spend $50 on five things, then somehow end up getting food at work for free all week and all the stuff you paid for goes bad in three days. Nice.
5. So. Many. Food. Delivery. Options.
Since it’s tough to determine how much food to buy without it going bad, not to mention how expensive the food is, you give in to your lazy fantasies and start perusing the plethora of delivery options. Will you go for Seamless? Grubhub? Maple? Caviar?
Before you know it, you’re in a food-delivery blackhole and every meal you’ve eaten in the last five days cost $15. Oops.
6. Forgetting Your Metrocard
Getting a monthly Metrocard pass for $115 is the way to go if you use the subway everyday. But if you’re the type to forget your Metrocard more often than not, you just end up spending $10 on a new, smaller card each time you get to the train and realize you don’t have your pass.
Or you decide to take an Uber, which is even worse.
7. Being Forced To Get An Uber
Even if you don’t take an Uber to work when you forget your Metrocard, you’re bound to have that friend who insists on taking Ubers everywhere. That’d be cool if she was paying for it, but she always wants to split it. Ugh.
Not to mention that your Uber “estimated fare” is always wrong because a 10 minute ride turns into 40 minutes with traffic. See? This is why you wanted to take the subway!
8. You Never Actually Make Happy Hour
The idea of happy hours is to get drink specials. But by the time everyone gets off of work in New York it’s already 7 p.m. and either the specials are all done, or the specials were already so expensive that they might as well not be specials. You might as well just buy a box of wine in Jersey and drink at home.
