Live a comfortable Manhattan life on a budget
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NYC is one of the most expensive cities in the world. Manhattan is the most expensive borough of New York City. The conclusion is simple. You must have a lot of money to live in Manhattan. And that is pretty much true. But you don’t have to be extremely wealthy. At least 50% of Manhattan inhabitants are not too wealthy people. They are just smart. All you need to do, if you’re not wealthy, and you still want to live in Manhattan, is to learn how to live a comfortable Manhattan life on a budget. It’s not that difficult at all. It just takes a little planning upfront. And sticking to a plan. If you manage to do that, you’ll be happy to enjoy The City without emptying your pockets. We’re here to give you some ideas on living a comfortable Manhattan life on a budget.
But we must say some things before we throw you those suggestions. That is not the actual Manhattan life, the one you see on a TV. At least not at the beginning. Neither it is the kind of life you hear the stories all of the time. There are no millions of wealthy people in Manhattan. So what do you think, is it really possible that everyone you know lives the wealthy Manhattan life? Leave those boastings aside and let’s learn together some smart ways of living a cozy Manhattan life on average salary. Making the most out of the given budget is the smartest thing one man can do. We want to be smart and use almost all the advantages of the NYC borough of Manhattan not earning a fortune.
How to be smart in NYC:
Living a comfortable Manhattan life on a budget
In order to prepare for moving to Manhattan, you got to know some facts. And those facts were that, in order to move to Manhattan, you need to have money. A lot of it. So you prepared for that. You searched for and hired affordable Manhattan movers. That reduced the costs of your relocation to NYC. Now, after you managed to relocate to Manhattan without splashing out your savings, you need to learn how to live in Manhattan saving your money. To do that, our recommendations are not to spend too much money on the things you don’t have to after moving to Manhattan. So you can save money in these areas of your life in The City:
- Housing- Rent an apartment in Manhattan that doesn’t cost a fortune, or get a roommate/s.
- Transportation- Move smart, use all the advantages of Manhattan public transportation.
- Food- Reduce food costs preparing the food by yourself, this helps you the most trying to live a comfortable Manhattan life on a budget.
- Amusement- Find the ways to have fun that is free of charge or not too expensive. You can do it easily in NYC.
Look for the affordable housing in Manhattan
There are options in Manhattan. It’s true that there aren’t as many cheap apartments as you probably got used to wherever you might live before. But still, it’s not like you don’t have options at all. You truly can enjoy all the benefits of Manhattan with an average or slightly above average salary. Here are some ways to reduce the costing of renting an apartment in The City:
- Get a roommate! It’s a lot easier to share the expenses than to pay everything by yourself. Having a roommate does reduce your comfort, but it reduces the costs more than it reduces the comfort. And that’s what you want! You can live comfortably in Manhattan sharing an apartment. So many people do that, and it’s not such a big deal as you might think.
- Get the apartment you can afford. Don’t look for the luxury if you won’t be able to afford it only two-three months after you relocate to Manhattan. Would you prefer to live a modest and comfortable Manhattan life on a budget and enjoy all the opportunities you have in NYC, or to live a luxury life for a couple of months and then be forced to leave Manhattan because you don’t have enough money anymore?
- Check if you’re able to use NYC housing connect. It depends on your income if you qualify for this program. If you do, it’s more than great. This is a program where you can search and apply for the affordable housing in all of New York, therefore in Manhattan too.
Use Manhattan public transportation or the alternative ways to move
Living a comfortable Manhattan life on a budget takes some waivers, it’s true. Classy transportation is one of them. But you can run the gauntlet of having not so pretty transportation if you get to live in Manhattan on a budget, can’t you? Here are some tips on how you can save money using different kinds of cheap Manhattan transportation:
- Purchase an unlimited ride pass. You could buy it for something above 100 dollars for a whole month. That is less than 4 dollars a day, If you commonly use the transportation, this is more than a good way of saving money.
- Ride a bike. Besides you could save money, you could also save time and live a healthy life! This is free training, free transportation, and you can get on a bike right after you finish your job or lectures. There’s no need to walk to the subway or some other kind of transportation.
- Walk. If your job or school isn’t that far away, this is also a good way of transportation. And the advantages of it are similar to riding a bike.
- Share a taxi. If you must use a taxi, it’s too expensive to use it alone. Being that a single ride costs 10-20$. But you have an option to share it. That way you could reduce the cost down to 3-5$ per ride!
- Get an unlimited Uber pass! This is as cheap as subway, or even cheaper, and the ride is much more comfortable.
Cook your meals to save money in Manhattan
If you know how expensive Manhattan is in global, you can suppose that the meals here are too expensive for someone earning an average income. The solution for this is to cook your own meals. Does it really matter where you eat, if you can save money and make your Manhattan life affordable by eating at home? Besides, you can buy groceries for a week, and then plan the whole week meals upfront, planning your budget for the food. To do this, you can use grocery delivery services. Being that you’d be pretty difficult to bring all those groceries for the whole week in your hands. Yep, you won’t have a car after you move to NYC, it just doesn’t make sense.
If you truly care to eat outside once in a while, choose lunch to be that meal. Because there are commonly specials in Manhattan restaurants for lunch. That way you can have your little pleasure of eating in a restaurant, not having to spend too much money on that.
You need to reduce your costs for entertainment in Manhattan
If you want to make your ends meet, you need to know your priorities. Living in NYC offers you so much. But it takes a lot of money to have it all. So you just need to decide what’s the most important to you (in case you’re not as rich as the king), and then reduce other expenses. For example, to have a comfortable Manhattan life on a budget probably takes to reduce the costs of having fun. So you’d want to choose cheaper or free of charge ways of your entertainment. And guess what? Living in New York you’ll have the opportunity to do that with no troubles! Here’s what you can do to have fun not spending a lot in manhattan:
- Visit the museums
- There are hundreds of galleries just waiting for you
- Bronx zoo
- New York aquarium
- Free concerts (particularly during the summer)
- Get discount tickets for the Broadway
- Visit Governor’s island taking a free ferry
- Go to a public library of New York
- …
There are even more ways to amuse yourself not paying too much, we picked those we thought would be the most interesting to you. As you can see, although NYC is an expensive city, you can have so much more free of charge fun than in other cities. Use the benefit of living in, as some would say, the best city in the world, Manhattan, and have fun even if you’re not rich! If you want to feel the classy lifestyle of Manhattan, there’s more than rich nightlife here.
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