A Week In Brooklyn On A $167,000 Salary

Refinery29

3 days ago

Welcome to Money Diaries where we are tackling the ever-present taboo that is money. We're asking real people how they spend their hard-earned money during a seven-day period — and we're tracking every last dollar.
Today: a data scientist who makes $167,000 per year and who spends some of her money this week on nachos.
Occupation: Data scientist
Industry: Transportation
Age: 36
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Salary: $167,000 and $15,000 in discretionary bonus.
Assets: Home equity: ~$250,000; savings: $40,000; checking: $7,000 (just had payday); CD: $5,000; I-bonds: $5,000; retirement: $280,000; investments: $267,000; HSA: $13,000.
Debt: Mortgage balance: $98,000; interest-free personal loan to my parents: $17,000.
Paycheck Amount (biweekly): $3,170
Pronouns: She/her
Monthly Expenses
Housing Costs: $1,356 for a one-bedroom coop I bought in 2013. Split between mortgage ($628) and maintenance ($728) which covers my share of hot water/heat/super salary/building taxes/building mortgage, etc.
Loan Payments: $388 (personal loan from parents for grad school and a kitchen remodel with 0% interest).
Utilities: $80-$170
Internet: $95
Spotify/Hulu: $10.99 (I signed up for a deal years ago and they haven't taken it from me yet).
Disney+: $9.99 (but I'll quit once we're done with Andor).
Donations: $180 to abortion funds, the park, and queer media.
Gym: $408 (specialty a powerlifting gym).
Pre-Tax: $1,960 to 401(k) (only a 3% match that I get end of year. I'll finish this up early, so my last few paychecks will be flush).
Transit: $100
Pre-Tax HSA: $337.50
Was there an expectation for you to attend higher education? Did you participate in any form of higher education? If yes, how did you pay for it?
Yes, I didn't know there was another option but I was ~academically gifted~ and am bad with my hands, so I would have gone anyway. In undergrad, I had a half-tuition scholarship, graduated a semester early due to lots of APs, and my parents paid the rest. I also did a one-year master's program, which I also had a $20,000 scholarship for and my parents lent me another $26,000 interest-free for the rest of the tuition. I worked part time to pay my living expenses.
Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have about money? Did your parent(s) educate you about finances?
My parents are super savers who taught me about the value of saving, the importance of investing in your 401(k), and how to be good at credit cards. I also learned quite a lot about compound interest from my AP stats class. My mother also strongly suggested I buy an apartment with an inheritance I received when I was 24 if I wanted to stay in NYC long term. I wouldn't have otherwise considered it, but am so so glad I did, as it would cost at least double to buy today.
What was your first job and why did you get it?
My mom had been working at the same very small company since she was 19, and she eventually put me to work filing and then processing accounts receivables when I was 12 or 13. I worked there intermittently in the summer and on school holidays (when she had little child care). At first, her boss would hand me an $100 bill, but eventually they cut me checks. My mom made me pay for my railroad ticket into the city and lunch, if I didn't want to eat the frozen pizzas she'd pack me. My first real job was at a movie theater so I'd have some money between freshman and sophomore year of college, as my mom finally rage-quit her job partway through my freshman year of college.
Did you worry about money growing up?
Not really. We were comfortably middle class and I knew plenty of people less well-off than we were since I grew up in, and then near, NYC. I also knew a lot of people who at least seemed better off than us, but in the end they got cars on their 16th birthdays and expensive Abercrombie clothes, while I graduated from an expensive private school with no student debt. In retrospect, I'm thankful for my parents' priorities. As I mentioned, my mom quit her job my freshman year of college, but my parents didn't tell me until she found a new job months later. I suspect there were other things they hid from me.
Do you worry about money now?
Not day to day, but the future of the economy and the job market as a whole weighs on me.
At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself and do you have a financial safety net?
More or less since I graduated undergrad. I've been paying my rent and for all normal expenses except my cell phone bill (though my mom is retiring next month, so TBD how much longer I get to ride this gravy train). That said, my parents also lent me a lot of money to go to grad school and more recently to redo my kitchen, even though in both instances I planned and expected to take out a real loan. At this point, I've had a good salary for a few years, plenty of savings and investments, and they are retired so I am my own safety net. In a pinch, my partner would help out but I have a long runway.
Do you or have you ever received passive or inherited income? If yes, please explain.
I received about $60,000 when my grandmother died. I withdrew enough for my down payment (I think it was $30,000 or so) and left the rest in my investment account, which has since grown to over $200,000 with only minor additional contributions.
Day One: Monday
7:15 a.m. — My partner, R., was out of town for a week and then we both had busy weekends in opposite directions, so I cajole him into a little morning date at our local coffee shop (we live four blocks apart). I get a bagel and an English breakfast tea. I wanted to walk in the park, but he reveals he has a morning dentist appointment. Plans dashed. We sit and watch some people play ultimate Frisbee. No clue what the rules are, but I love that these people are having fun on a Monday morning. $8.50
9:30 a.m. — My foster cat, P., has been with me nearly two weeks, so I let him out of the bathroom and into the bedroom in the hopes that a little casual attention will help him come out of his shell. He hides under the dresser while I clock into work from home and resume work on a medium-crisis from last week. It's an exciting project, but there is a lot of head banging.
1 p.m. — Lunch time! I have some leftover salad that I'd made this weekend with lentils, an apple, radishes, pumpkin seeds, and lettuce. It's fine. My summer CSA just started so I'm trying to lean into fresh cooking. I lay on the bedroom floor and coax the cat out for some pets, but he goes back into hiding when I go back to work.
6 p.m. — I lay on the bedroom floor and read, while trying to convince my foster cat that I am a friend. I've had him less than two weeks and my back can't wait until he loosens up. I flick a wand toy at him and he looks at me skeptically. 'All the cats love this,' I promise.
7 p.m. — R. comes over! We crack open a bottle of wine and make a dish with zucchini, white beans, and pesto with basil that we grew. I'm so glad I found someone who likes to cook as much as I do. We have a lazy TV night until it's time to put P. back in his bathroom quarantine and go to bed.
Daily Total: $8.50
Day Two: Tuesday
7:30 a.m. — I wake up and feed the cats, letting P, back into the bedroom. I scrounge around for breakfast and decide on a savory oatmeal. I simmer the oats with ginger and soy sauce, saute some cherry tomatoes, garlic scapes, kale, and turnip greens in sesame oil, and top it all with an egg and some chili crisp. So so good. I make the best tea (Harney & Sons, Paris) and settle back into bed for more reading until it's time for work.
3 p.m. — I was planning on eating after my standup at 1 p.m., but my boss adds me to a last-minute meeting that goes until 1:45 p.m. and then I have another 2 p.m. and my stomach is rumbling by the time I'm out. Much of my company is on the West Coast and, while I thankfully don't have a lot of meetings, the ones I do are often at lunchtime. I don't have time to cook, so I go to the nearest quick lunch place where I get a burger topped with avocado and fries. It is not that good relative to the price. $18.22
7 p.m. — It's our primary season so I go out and vote. I really can't take another election where the worst possible person wins. R. is busy tonight so I alternate between video games, cat socialization, and reading. The little guy strongly considers playtime and bats at the wand a little with his paw. He's still decompressing from being in a cage for a few weeks, poor thing. We also have a positive interaction with my other cat, A., where they eat Churus together. My eating schedule is out of whack because of my late lunch, so I don't get hungry until 10:30 p.m., at which point it's bedtime, so I don't eat anything.
Daily Total: $18.22
Day Three: Wednesday
7:15 a.m. — Gym time! It's a deload week so my workout is pretty mild, which is great because I did not eat dinner. I grab an egg everything bagel with scallion cream cheese on the way home, per usual. I take a quick shower and then clock into work. $6.25
2 p.m. — Another day with too many lunchtime meetings. I open a new jar of miso that I started fermenting six months ago and it's weirdly wet. It tastes really good though and I don't see mold so YOLO. I start boiling water for pasta while heating up some butter with miso, zucchini, and scapes. The zucchini cooks down to a nice sauce that I thicken with nutritional yeast and, bam!, lunch time. I love working from home so much.
6 p.m. — I take another shower because we're officially in the two showers a day part of summer. R. comes by and we do some cat socialization together. We should eat dinner but I am unfortunately out of dish soap so all of my dishes are dirty from the last two days of cooking, and so we cannot cook for a third day. One day, I'll learn to adult.
8 p.m. — I haven't had nearly enough carbohydrates today, so we head out to a place that does fancy sit-down pizza that we haven't been to in a hot minute. I'm a bad influence so we split a half carafe of wine along with a panzanella salad, and a margherita pizza with artichokes. The wait staff ignores us toward the end so I go in to see about the bill and end up paying for it all as they want to ring me up inside. He'll buy me some future dinner, I'm sure. $73.16
9:30 p.m. — I stop at the grocery on the way home for dish soap, canola oil, and tomato paste, which is all I can fit in my little Fjällräven backpack. I am so excited about doing dishes. We put in my bedroom air conditioner in preparation for the heat wave and watch an episode of Taskmaster before bed. $15.01
Daily Total: $94.42
Day Four: Thursday
7 a.m. — Time to do the dishes! There are so many dishes! I clean the dishes and then I make them dirty again with another savory oatmeal bowl that's basically a repeat of Tuesday's breakfast. I read in bed again with my tea (oolong) again until it's time to go to work (from home). I let P. free in the apartment to see what happens. This isn't how you are supposed to introduce cats, but they were fine with snacking together.
10:15 a.m. — R. is baking bread as he's off work today, but remembered the gas in his apartment is still turned off due to a fire in the building earlier this year. He asks if he can bake it here. I turn on the oven for him even though it is 85 degrees out and we'll have to keep it on for like three hours.
12:45 p.m. — I'm in a meeting throughout most of the bread baking and emerge from my bedroom/office to find half a freshly baked loaf of bread on my counter. I drizzle it with olive oil and eat a whole lot of it.
3 p.m. — We hired a few people in Poland recently and I volunteered to go there to help with trainings. I was sorta kidding, but the powers that be liked the idea and my boss reiterates that might happen! I spend too long googling flights and things to do and music venues when I should be doing real work.
6:30 p.m. — R. comes back over with some extra ingredients for a turnip and tofu stir-fry and scallion pancakes. We paid about $1,000 split 75:25 for 25 weeks of vegetables, fruits, and eggs from a local farm. I pay more because the CSA predates him so I keep most of it and he's more likely to bring extra ingredients over. I love how the CSA forces me to eat a more diverse array of vegetables than I would otherwise. That said, turnips aren't that exciting and we poorly execute the tofu portion of the stir-fry. The scallion pancakes slap though. I absolutely love making them.
9 p.m. — Dinner and clean up take forever so we just do a little cat hang out when we're done. I leave P. free since he's still hiding and doesn't seem to be fighting with my resident.
Daily Total: $0
Day Five: Friday
4:30 a.m. — I let P. sleep in the bedroom instead of putting him into his bathroom, and he wakes us up playing in the middle of the night. I'm glad he's out and about and having fun for once, but I wish he'd wait another two or three hours. I eventually fall back into a fitful sleep.
7:15 a.m. — Another gym day, another bagel. This bagel guy knows my order, which makes me feel like part of the community. I hop on the subway home ($2.90, which is always deducted from my prepaid card), shower, make tea, log into work, the usual. $6.25
12:40 p.m. — My boss seems to be feeling Friday too because he bumps our 1:1 up by 20 minutes and we run through it in five minutes flat. His Zoom background is different and I get the feeling he's playing hooky. I'm not super hungry but scrounge around for lunch and end up with the leftover scallion pancake and some bread with peanut butter. Back to coding!
4:45 p.m. — It's Friday alright. I clock out a little early and veg out on the internet until R. texts about dinner. He is excited about making a riff on a panzanella salad and I just like that he's planning dinner.
6:30 p.m. — R. comes over with tomatoes, the rest of his loaf, some chickpeas, and Korean rice beer. We each pop a can while the bread roasts and then another can while the bread and chickpeas marinate in the dressing and tomato juice. I am quite a bit tipsy as that was a lot on an empty stomach, but not so tipsy that we can't finish the Friday crossword. The salad comes together nicely and he does the dishes while I pet the cats. We watch the new Poker Face episode, which is probably the best of the season so far and only partly because it's set in NYC and relatable.
10:30 p.m. — I feed the cats Churus right next to each other again. A. can be hissy and mean to newcomers and my last foster wouldn't stop bothering her, but P. is a quiet shy guy, and all good vibes. I make a mental note to write his bio tomorrow so he can be listed for adoption. I let him roam free in the apartment again tonight and hope he sleeps the whole night through.
Daily Total: $6.25
Day Six: Saturday
3:30 a.m. — I wake up to the sound of P. puking. Sigh. I clean it up and get back to bed where I fall asleep again basically immediately.
5:30 a.m. — I wake up to the sound of P. puking. R. rouses first and I pretend to be asleep so he'll deal with it.
7:15 a.m. — I wake up to A. cuddling me close. Much better. R. is missing and I go into the living room where he reports P. puked three more times, but did a lot of good play. I've been feeding P. miscellaneous food cans that A. rejected, but I will never feed him that variety again. He doesn't seem to be feeling ill otherwise so I just prepare breakfast for the two of them. He doesn't really touch it, poor thing.
8:30 a.m. — We're hungry and decide to check out a new café in the neighborhood. I get a very good iced tea and breakfast plate with eggs, toast, avocado, and salad that is not better than anything I could cook at home for a fraction of the price. We make our weekly resolution to make breakfast at home next week, but paying $20 for mediocre eggs is our toxic trait, so we'll probably fail once again when Saturday comes around. I do keep this place in mind for occasional coffee shop working as they have the best tea selection in the neighborhood and a lot of outlets. $22.26
10 a.m. — I go pick up my CSA share (prepaid) where I get scallions, dill, Swiss chard, radishes, lettuce, summer squash, snap peas, strawberries, and six eggs. I'm dreaming of a summer squash frittata with dill, but that's a story for another day, as today we're going to Porch Stomp.
10:45 a.m. — I meet my partner at the subway and we head into the city to catch the ferry over to Governor's Island. He buys us tickets online but no one bothers to check them. We wander between stages before sitting for a while at to catch some bluegrass and then a few people that sing about books. Helicopters keep flying by loudly and I wish they would be banned already.
1 p.m. — It's really hot and I'm in need of refreshments, so I buy us both paletas (mango chamoy for me, a weird choice of tahini cookie dough for him). At long last, two of our friends finally arrive (and another three bail...), so we meet up with them to watch more bluegrass, this time in jam form, and catch up. $13.20
3:45 p.m. — I'm quite hungry at this point so we head over to the Mexican place on the island with skyline views. I wish it were about 10-15 degrees cooler, but otherwise this is my perfect weekend day. I get a plate of nachos with chicken and a large Mezcal margarita that really hits the spot. The nachos turn out to be sharing-portion huge, but our friends aren't that hungry and two out of four of us are vegetarian or vegan, so I end up gobbling it all up myself. Only minor regrets. R. pays for our meal to cancel his dinner debt from earlier this week. We're all pretty exhausted and rush to make the 5 p.m. ferry home!
6 p.m. — R. and I separate to shower with the intention of reconvening. I get home where I take a long cool shower and sprawl out under the fans because the sun has left me totally beat. I am not a summer person and cannot wait until fall (it is only the summer solstice today).
7:30 p.m. — I feed my hungry little kitties and, thankfully, all seems well with P.'s tummy. R. and I decide not to bother meeting up again, but do virtually smash the Saturday NYT crossword. I watch the dumbest TV until I fall asleep early.
Daily Total: $35.46
Day Seven: Sunday
6:45 a.m. — I'm up at my normal time with my snuggling cat. P. is not hiding, but laying on the couch. I get up to feed them. I laze around for a while before seeing if R. wants to come over for breakfast. He does! I make a pot of tea and I introduce him to savory oatmeal, this time with zucchini, kale, and eggs. We chill with the cats for a bit until he departs for his Sunday chores and I play video games until it's time for the gym.
11:20 a.m. — It's a quiet Sunday afternoon at the gym with only three other people. There's a newbie there who makes me remember how far I've come. I like it when women take up lifting so I hope she sticks with it! I'm always up for a post-gym treat, so I get a large oolong bubble tea with 25% sugar, 25% ice on the way home. Yum yum. I normally like to walk home through the park on Sundays, but it's still a humid swamp out there so I chicken out and jump on the subway. $8.49
2 p.m. — I take a luxurious, lukewarm (the weather, man), Epsom salt soak and read a very long chapter of The Vegetarian by Han Kang. It's my bath book so it's been almost two weeks since I read the first chapter, but I really like it. Then I give my parents a call and move on to Sunday chores. I vacuum everything, clean out the cat boxes, take down the trash, recycling (so much recycling with all the wet food the cats eat), and compost, and scrub out the bathtub.
4 p.m. — R. comes over with feta cheese to realize my dreams of this summer squash frittata, even though it's 94 degrees and requires turning on the oven again. He chops up summer squash while I dump all the dill and leftover cilantro into the food processor with some walnuts, olive oil, salt, and a little rice vinegar to make a tasty herb sauce. We saute the summer squash in the cast iron before mixing all the radish green, herb sauce, feta, and egg mixture. This comes out super good for something I've just improvised on the spot.
5:30 p.m. — We ate so early because we have tickets to a concert (I think I paid like $70 for the two) that is well over an hour from us, partly because the L train is off for the weekend. I'm sort of regretting committing to this on a Sunday night, but alas, we jump onto the subway to downtown Brooklyn and then get out and wait for a bus to cart us 45 minutes east. The assorted maps apps say there won't be a bus for another 20 minutes and I am so hot, but then it arrives out of nowhere two minutes later. Oh, blessed day. The a/c is pumping and I read a whole chapter of Invisible Women.
6:45 p.m. — The first opener has just started when we arrive (I don't know them and it's only adjacent to what I like). The show is outside and I am once again so unbelievably hot. I head down to the bar to get water and the bartender gives me two cups of ice and tries to point me to the water station. I cannot find it though so I head back to R., where we nibble ice chips for the rest of the set.
8:45 p.m. — I see people come out of a door with water and try another water quest, but it appears to be just a line to the bathroom. I give up and return to where we're standing. R. is a better man than me so he takes our cups and goes to successfully find the water. It is apparently through that door and next to the bathroom. Bless him. The sun finally sets, but it's still 86 degrees when the band I want to see takes the stage. They play an amazing set, but all I can think of is a cold shower by the time it's over.
10 p.m. — The various apps once again tell me the bus won't be there for 30 minutes. I look into a Lyft, but it's going to be $50 to get back to civilization, so we wait. And then once again the bus comes like two minutes later! The a/c is blasting and I read a whole chapter on anti-woman data bias in transportation planning, which, yes. We finally get home at like 11:30 p.m. and I take a cold shower and take an ashwagandha to wind myself down.
Daily Total: $8.49
The Breakdown
Conclusion
'I try to keep my spending under $350 a week, so this was a fairly inexpensive week, though a lot of it (the vegetables and the concert) were prepaid and I was probably marginally less social than normal. I had fallen out of cooking before the CSA started a few weeks prior, so it's a good reminder of how much I enjoy cooking and how much cheaper it is than eating out. I check my credit card statements every few days as is, so nothing particularly surprised me.'
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