On wedding bells and world aid

[ziasudra]

1.
It's official. Both my housemates are now engaged. The first one got asked the question a couple of months back, and has already set a wedding date in late September. Roommate A was engaged Thursday night. She came home squeeing and bouncing while Roommate D's already-high voice jumped up another octave in cooing. I'm definitely happy for them, but you won't hear high-pitched cooing from me ;)

This means at some point over the next few months, I'm going to have to look for another place to live in. I could technically stay at my current apartment and become the pseudo-landlord. But I'm reaching the point where I'd really just want a place of my own. Housemates are good for short-term living arrangements, but my introvert meter (think Sims, with that little meter thing floating on top of my head) has been drained almost to empty over the last few years.


2.
As a follow-up to my last post, I've been doing some research on who to give aid to in response of the Myanmar cyclone. I got an email from MoveOn.org the other day, urging people to donate to avaaz.org, a group that's "raising funds for the International Burmese Monks Organization, which will transmit funds directly to monasteries in affected areas."

After looking through the reasoning behind the campaign -- that monks are the only ones already established in various communities to start giving out aid right away -- I'm inclined to give this group a try. Unless any of you have heard negative things about Avaaz or this campaign (I'm all ears, since potential aid money is at stake here). Maybe I'll split my donations between this group and something more reputable like the Red Cross. This way, part of my money can start going into immediate relief while the other part can eventually be used toward long-term rebuilding under the hands of an internationally established organization.

Comments

[lynkemma.livejournal.com]

Just random curiosity on my part: how much does an independent living-space-unit cost in your part of the world? I understand it depends on the area of town, and so on, but I'd just like an idea of it.

And I totally understand your introvert concerns. I don't think I'd ever be able to share my living space with someone I wasn't married to, and even then, it'd be a problem, sometimes.

[countouttheday.livejournal.com]

You didn't ask me, but I'm going to chime in anyway with my personal experience. This is pretty Manhattan-centric, though the most desirable neighborhoods of Brooklyn (Williamsburg, Park Slope, Brooklyn Heights, etc) aren't much cheaper.

If you're living alone and don't make six figures, odds are you'll be in a studio. I had a studio in Murray Hill (very convenient, nice neighborhood but neither super fancy nor particularly cool) that was just under 1800/month. This was a year or two ago. When I was looking at that, I saw a bunch of other things and it seemed like a liveable downtown (village, soho, east village) studio (walk-up building, small but big enough for one, within a 5-10 minute walk of the subway) ran in the 2000 range. I did see a TINY east village studio for 1350, though). I recently heard a story of someone finding a studio for 1400 or so in yorkville (east 80s/90s, east of third avenue. this was way over by york).

The farther uptown you go, and the farther east on the upper east side, the cheaper things are. I have a friend who had something under 1500 on 79th street, which is very cheap for the uws, but she didn't have a stove and just moved out to live in a nicer apartment further uptown with a roommate.

One-bedrooms tend to have nicer kitchens and bathrooms, but I don't know anyone who lives alone in them. Ours is kind of a steal, and most of the other couples I know who lived in one bedrooms in Manhattan got fed up and moved out when the rent got too high.

The other thing is most landlords will require that you make 40x the monthly rent in annual salary. If you don't hit that level, you can get a guarantor, but they need to make 80x rent and sometimes live in the tri-state area.

[lynkemma.livejournal.com]

I see - thank you for explaining! At the risk of imposing on you too much: I find myself wondering what the average (or a common/usual) level of wages would be in NY? The prices you pay for rent sound about the same that people pay in my part of the world, but I have a suspicion that the wages are higher here.

[countouttheday.livejournal.com]

It depends a lot on industry and experience. Finance tends to pay the best, though a lot of the higher salaries end up being in bonus money. I'd say 40-50K entry level finance stuff unless you're doing ibanking or luck into something that's more than basic back office/customer service rep. ibanking slaves make, like 100-200K a year, I think. But they work 100+ hours a week doing mostly grunt work. I have a friend who through a combination of experience and really good connections (and being a pretty smart kid) managed to get an actual arbitrage analyst job right out of school. No idea how much he makes, but I'm sure it's a ton.

Other industries are different. Entertainment and publishing jobs are really desirable but tend to start at 25-30K per year. I think advertising is a bit more. Really, outside of finance, salaries are a bit higher than other places, but don't pay for living here. I think people make do through some combination of 8 roommates the landlord doesn't know about, credit card debt, the Bank of Dad, or sucking it up and (back when the industry was booming) getting a finance job. I think 75% of the people I know in New York work for one of the big wall street firms. (and that doesn't include the people I know at work, since that's just not fair)

Of course, a lot of people live in Brooklyn or Queens, which is cheaper. Some neighborhoods there are as pricey and ritzy as Manhattan, others are cool and a bit cheaper. There's still some (relative) deals to be had in the outskirts of the major brooklyn neighborhoods, astoria or long island city in queens, north of 96th street in Manhattan. Basically people like me are suckers for paying the rent we do, but living with a significant other (and only needing one bedroom for two people) can really help.

[ziasudra.livejournal.com]

Thanks. You gave the most thorough answers :)

[ziasudra.livejournal.com]

This (http://www.swivel.com/data_sets/spreadsheet/1007883) might be of interest to the income question. The numbers seem to be taken from 2005 data, so I'd assume the numbers have gone up in the past 3 years.

[ziasudra.livejournal.com]

Hehe, I believe countouttheday already answered your question much better than I could ;)

My two housemates and I have been paying $2,600 per month for the apartment, rent prorated among the three of us. Our rent is an anomaly, though, since Roommate A was college friends with the current owner of the building, who's working in China and needs tenants to house-sit for her and so is willing to charge really low rent. An apartment similar in size and location as ours (2 BR, Greenwich Village, Manhattan) would be closer to $3,500-$4,000/mo. at market rate.

New York City is definitely more expensive than surrounding areas (and within the City, Manhattan being the most expensive of the five boroughs). When I lived in NJ the two years after undergrad, I rented out a room in New Jersey for $300 a month -- and that included food. That was definitely on the low end, since the family just wanted to rent out the extra room in the house. I'd say rent in NJ ranges from $400 to $1200 a month, depending on the area, size, ease of transportation, etc.

Lesser populated states (i.e., rural areas in land-locked states in the middle of the U.S.) probably have lower average rent, but then people in those areas tend to live in houses rather than apartments/flats.