What makes living in New York worth it?<\/a><\/p>\nIt has never really occurred to Marian or Charles Wade to live anywhere but the city where they were born and where they raised their children.<\/p>\n
New York is in their bones. \u201cWe have our roots here, and our families enjoyed life here before us,\u201d Ms. Wade said.<\/p>\n
And they feel lucky. Between Mr. Wade\u2019s pension, earned after more than 40 years as an analyst at the Manhattan district attorney\u2019s office, and his Social Security benefits, along with Ms. Wade\u2019s work as a physical therapist at a psychiatric center, they bring in about $208,000 a year.<\/p>\n
Still, it\u2019s hard for the couple not to notice how much the city has changed as it has become wealthier.<\/p>\n
About 10 years ago, Ms. Wade, 65, and Mr. Wade, 69, sold the Morningside Heights apartment they had lived in for decades. The Manhattan neighborhood had become more affluent, and tensions over how their building should be managed and how much residents should be expected to pay for upkeep boiled over between people who had lived there for years and newer neighbors.<\/p>\n
They found a new home in Harlem, large enough to fit their two children, who are now adults struggling to afford the city\u2019s housing market.<\/p>\n
All in the Family<\/p>\n
Ms. Wade knew it was time to leave Morningside Heights when she spotted her husband hiding behind a bush outside their building, hoping to avoid an unpleasant new neighbor. They had bought their apartment in 1994 for $206,000, using some money they had inherited from their families, and sold it in 2015 for $1.13 million.<\/p>\n
The couple found a new apartment in the Sugar Hill section of Harlem for $811,000, and put most of the money down upfront. They took out a loan with a good rate for the remaining cost, and had a $947 monthly payment. They recently finished paying off the mortgage, but they have monthly maintenance payments of $1,555, as well as two temporary assessments to help improve the building, totaling $415 a month.<\/p>\n
Their two children each moved home shortly after graduating from college.<\/p>\n
The couple\u2019s son, Jacob Wade, 28, split an apartment with three roommates nearby for a while, but spent down his savings and moved back in with his parents. He is searching for an affordable one bedroom nearby and plans to move out later in the year. Their daughter, Elka Wade, 27, came home after college but recently moved to an apartment in Astoria, Queens, with roommates.<\/p>\n
Until their daughter moved out a few weeks ago, she and her brother each took a bedroom, and Mr. and Ms. Wade slept in the dining room, which they had converted into their bedroom with the help of a Murphy bed and a new set of curtains for privacy.<\/p>\n
There is very little storage space. A piano occupies an entire closet in their son\u2019s bedroom, because the family has no other place to fit it.<\/p>\n
The setup is cramped, but close quarters have their benefits: When their daughter, a classically trained cellist, was living there, she often practiced at home in the evenings. \u201cI love listening to her play,\u201d Ms. Wade said.<\/p>\n
Three Foodtowns and a Thrift Shop<\/p>\n
The Wades do what they can to keep their costs low. They\u2019ve decided against installing new, better insulated windows in their drafty apartment. They don\u2019t go on vacations, instead visiting their small weekend home in rural upstate New York. And they\u2019ve pulled back on takeout food and retail shopping.<\/p>\n
Instead, Mr. Wade surveys the three Foodtown supermarkets near their home for the best deals, preferring one for produce and another for meat. The weekly grocery bill has been around $500 with both kids living at home, and the family usually orders delivery twice a week, rotating between Chinese and Indian food, which typically costs $70, including leftovers.<\/p>\n
For an occasional splurge, they love Pisticci, a nearby restaurant where the penne with homemade mozzarella costs $21.<\/p>\n
The couple owns a car, which they park on the street for free. But they often use public transportation to avoid paying the $9 congestion pricing fee to drive downtown, or when they have a good parking spot they don\u2019t want to give up. They have a senior discount for their transit cards, which allows them to pay $1.50 per subway or bus ride, rather than $3.<\/p>\n
Ms. Wade stopped shopping at the stores she used to frequent, like Eileen Fisher and Banana Republic, years ago. Instead, she visits a thrift store called Unique Boutique on the Upper West Side. She was browsing the aisles a few months ago, before a big Thanksgiving dinner, and spotted the perfect dress for the occasion for just $20.<\/p>\n
But she has one nonnegotiable weekly expense: a private yoga lesson in an instructor\u2019s apartment nearby, for $150 a session.<\/p>\n
Elka Wade, a cellist, often practices at home, to the delight of her parents. Bess Adler for The New York Times<\/p>\n
Swapping Mortgage Payments for Singing Lessons<\/p>\n
For every member of the Wade family, life in New York is all about the arts.<\/p>\n
The children each attended the Special Music School, a public school focused on the arts. Their son, an actor, teacher and director, works part time at the Metropolitan Opera and the Kaufman Music Center, a performing arts complex in Manhattan. His sister works in administration at the Kaufman Center.<\/p>\n
Mr. Wade is still close with friends from high school who are now professional musicians, and the couple often goes to see them play at venues like the Bitter End in Greenwich Village, where shows typically have a $12 cover and a two-drink minimum.<\/p>\n
The couple has cut back on going to expensive concerts \u2014 they used to try to see Elvis Costello every time he came to New York, for example \u2014 but have timeworn strategies for getting affordable theater tickets.<\/p>\n
They recently splurged on tickets to \u201cOedipus\u201d on Broadway for themselves and their daughter, who they treated to a ticket as a birthday gift. The seats were in the nosebleed section, but still cost $80 apiece.<\/p>\n
The couple has a $75 annual membership to the Film Forum, which gives them reduced price tickets to movies. They occasionally get discounted tickets to the opera through their son\u2019s work, and when they don\u2019t, they pay for family circle passes, which are usually $47 a head, plus a $10 fee.<\/p>\n
Ms. Wade, who grew up commuting from Flushing, Queens, to Manhattan to take dance lessons, sometimes takes $20 drop-in ballet classes during the week at the Dance Theater of Harlem, just a few blocks away from the apartment.<\/p>\n
Recently, when the couple paid off their mortgage, Ms. Wade celebrated by giving herself a treat: weekly private singing lessons, for $125 a session.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How can people possibly afford to live in one of the most expensive cities on the planet? It\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":140848,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5286,59471,75,84,83,9,24,56,63],"class_list":["post-140847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-budgets-and-budgeting","tag-harlem-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-ny","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}