NYC law partner w/ kids: "$850K gross is not enough to live on"

[Anonymous]

I haven't read all the pages but reading through the ones I have shows me how out of touch people really are especially the post about the couple making 1.5 but there daughters bedroom is the den.

My husband and I live in a nice middle class neighborhood in Brooklyn in a 3 bedroom 1400 sq foot apartment. My daughters bedroom is the same size as ours which for nowadays is big. We make 100k and survive well because we're not full of ourselves tryi.g to live somewhere we can't afford.

People can afford NYC if they really wanted to but people make choices to live in affluent neighborhoods they can't afford and live a lifestyle to keep up with others.

This is a home a few blocks from me that the above could afford.

https://www.redfin.com/NY/Brooklyn/1634-84th-St-11214/home/40829239

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:This thread is so stupid. I make $150,000 a year and I feel very rich (though with no kids). That doesn’t mean I have no limitations on my spending, and someone who makes $850,000 a year we also have limitations on their spending.

I’m Republican but threads like this pull me somewhat more leftward. Above a relatively moderate income/net worth, money just becomes, at best, about these trivialities or, worse, about greed and status-chasing.

Did you read the lady’s post? You cannot provide a strong education and a room for every kid in a safe part of NYC on 850k. She’s not asking for a private jet and house on Jupiter Island, more just the bare minimum.

You absolutely can provide a strong education and a room for every kid in a safe part of NYC, and for a lot less. It might not be a big room, and private school, in Tribeca, but NYC is a big city and a lot of the posters are incredibly narrow minded in how they imagine a happy life in NYC. I think biglaw expectations, not NYC, may be the problem here.

Please give an example. And if it is living in Jackson Heights and using PS 101 to test into Stuyvesant then that is not “a happy life in NYC”

God you are pathetic.

I’m not the one mocking a working mother who would be able to provide an UMC life in any other city in the country.

Lololol

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is so stupid. I make $150,000 a year and I feel very rich (though with no kids). That doesn’t mean I have no limitations on my spending, and someone who makes $850,000 a year we also have limitations on their spending.

I’m Republican but threads like this pull me somewhat more leftward. Above a relatively moderate income/net worth, money just becomes, at best, about these trivialities or, worse, about greed and status-chasing.

Did you read the lady’s post? You cannot provide a strong education and a room for every kid in a safe part of NYC on 850k. She’s not asking for a private jet and house on Jupiter Island, more just the bare minimum.

This!

She makes almost $1 mil. She’s far, far beyond the “bare minimum.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I haven't read all the pages but reading through the ones I have shows me how out of touch people really are especially the post about the couple making 1.5 but there daughters bedroom is the den.

My husband and I live in a nice middle class neighborhood in Brooklyn in a 3 bedroom 1400 sq foot apartment. My daughters bedroom is the same size as ours which for nowadays is big. We make 100k and survive well because we're not full of ourselves tryi.g to live somewhere we can't afford.

People can afford NYC if they really wanted to but people make choices to live in affluent neighborhoods they can't afford and live a lifestyle to keep up with others.

This is a home a few blocks from me that the above could afford.

https://www.redfin.com/NY/Brooklyn/1634-84th-St-11214/home/40829239

Big law attorneys don’t live in Bensonhurst. Most people there either don’t speak English or they chase minorities like Yusef Hawkins or reenact Saturday Night Fever. If your budget leads you to Bensonhurst, just move to the suburbs. You’ll need a car or two either day. 2.3mm to live there is a ripoff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is so stupid. I make $150,000 a year and I feel very rich (though with no kids). That doesn’t mean I have no limitations on my spending, and someone who makes $850,000 a year we also have limitations on their spending.

I’m Republican but threads like this pull me somewhat more leftward. Above a relatively moderate income/net worth, money just becomes, at best, about these trivialities or, worse, about greed and status-chasing.

Did you read the lady’s post? You cannot provide a strong education and a room for every kid in a safe part of NYC on 850k. She’s not asking for a private jet and house on Jupiter Island, more just the bare minimum.

This!

She makes almost $1 mil. She’s far, far beyond the “bare minimum.”

Bare minimum to buy a 4BR in a nice neighborhood and pay three tuitions and save a reasonable amount for retirement? Yea she’s not at the bare minimum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I haven't read all the pages but reading through the ones I have shows me how out of touch people really are especially the post about the couple making 1.5 but there daughters bedroom is the den.

My husband and I live in a nice middle class neighborhood in Brooklyn in a 3 bedroom 1400 sq foot apartment. My daughters bedroom is the same size as ours which for nowadays is big. We make 100k and survive well because we're not full of ourselves tryi.g to live somewhere we can't afford.

People can afford NYC if they really wanted to but people make choices to live in affluent neighborhoods they can't afford and live a lifestyle to keep up with others.

This is a home a few blocks from me that the above could afford.

https://www.redfin.com/NY/Brooklyn/1634-84th-St-11214/home/40829239

Big law attorneys don’t live in Bensonhurst. Most people there either don’t speak English or they chase minorities like Yusef Hawkins or reenact Saturday Night Fever. If your budget leads you to Bensonhurst, just move to the suburbs. You’ll need a car or two either day. 2.3mm to live there is a ripoff.

Your right they live in neighborhoods like in the original story and complain how they can't afford to buy anything. I would much rather live in Bensonhurst where my multi cultural neighbors own million dollar multi family buildings then with people who believe paying 3x more because they live in Carroll gardens is better.

In the end everyone makes a choice of where they decide to live but to complain about it when you earn x amount and say you can't survive is tone deaf. The woman is the reddit post is making a choice but in essence crying poverty.

And p.s some of those non English speaking people work everyday in jobs that most wouldn't because English speaking people are to good for. Who you think stocks/delivers to the grocery stores you shop in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I haven't read all the pages but reading through the ones I have shows me how out of touch people really are especially the post about the couple making 1.5 but there daughters bedroom is the den.

My husband and I live in a nice middle class neighborhood in Brooklyn in a 3 bedroom 1400 sq foot apartment. My daughters bedroom is the same size as ours which for nowadays is big. We make 100k and survive well because we're not full of ourselves tryi.g to live somewhere we can't afford.

People can afford NYC if they really wanted to but people make choices to live in affluent neighborhoods they can't afford and live a lifestyle to keep up with others.

This is a home a few blocks from me that the above could afford.

https://www.redfin.com/NY/Brooklyn/1634-84th-St-11214/home/40829239

Big law attorneys don’t live in Bensonhurst. Most people there either don’t speak English or they chase minorities like Yusef Hawkins or reenact Saturday Night Fever. If your budget leads you to Bensonhurst, just move to the suburbs. You’ll need a car or two either day. 2.3mm to live there is a ripoff.

Your right they live in neighborhoods like in the original story and complain how they can't afford to buy anything. I would much rather live in Bensonhurst where my multi cultural neighbors own million dollar multi family buildings then with people who believe paying 3x more because they live in Carroll gardens is better.

In the end everyone makes a choice of where they decide to live but to complain about it when you earn x amount and say you can't survive is tone deaf. The woman is the reddit post is making a choice but in essence crying poverty.

And p.s some of those non English speaking people work everyday in jobs that most wouldn't because English speaking people are to good for. Who you think stocks/delivers to the grocery stores you shop in.

She made a choice to live in a nice area where multifamily properties are worth more than 1mm (when it is that inexpensive, it is called a “slum.” Your neighbors are “slumlords”). Carroll Gardens is a steal compared to Bensonhurst, Bath Beach, and even Bay Ridge. You’re getting more for what you’re paying. I don’t criticize the lady for making mostly good choices in life and getting screwed by a million and one policies that harm upstanding professionals.

I really don’t care who stocks and delivers my groceries. I don’t care about them at all and pay them accordingly.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Main Line and Westchester are not much comparison. Philadelphia is a very poor city. It has so much history and good food but the people are so provincial and often don't leave the state ever. The politics of the state are ridiculous and stuck in the 1800s.

yep. Not at all the density of high-powered legal jobs as NYC. so it’s not really a comparison for most NYC partners, except in that if they believe they are “poor” in NYC then yes, maybe they need to trade some of the prestige and money of NYC for something slower paced. I went to law school in NYC and practiced in Philly at the beginning of my career and the cool thing is that most of my cohort went on to do a broad variety of interesting stuff in/around Philly (small firms, legal aid, DA, AG, opened own non-law businesses) specifically because Philly is so much more affordable and you are not locked into the law firm track the way you are in NYC.

Exactly. No one is arguing Philly is more exciting or even overall better. But it is better not to live in a shoebox and shoehorning three kids into a tiny space so you can brag about being a New Yorker. Go look at Rittenhouse if you want an urban neighborhood in Philly.

+10000. The people who insist on doing this are insufferable.

They also are typically lifelong renters.

Yep. You need to have family money, be in finance, or be an entrepreneur to live the life the redditor wants. Being a non-rainmaker partner doesn’t cut it and their NW will be a fraction of what it would be if they lived in the suburbs or a lower cost of living metro.

Again - the density of law and finance jobs cannot be paralleled in other cities. People move to NYC because they want the NYC lifestyle- which yes, includes less square footage but much much more to do outside of the home and higher power work. If you don’t want that then don’t move there, but don’t delude yourself into thinking New Yorkers are crying themselves to sleep over your McMansion.

This is debatable, especially when you have kids. Whenever I’m in NYC visiting family/friends I’m struck by how the only thing to do is go out to eat or to a playground. If you’re actually wealthy with multiple nannies then maybe you’re living a fabulous NY lifestyle. But the average $800k lawyer is hardly living it up. They aren’t doing anything you can’t do in any metro area in the US. They are just doing it with less square footage and less disposable income.

Correct. They have 2-3 regular neighborhood restaurants (not Le Bernadin) like they would in Scarsdale or Bethesda and they take advantage of NYC's artistic offerings to a similar degree (almost never).

No one is jealous of or impressed by your living in NYC, unless you have a 30+mm net worth, big apartment, weekend house, and place in Florida or Aspen for the winter. Then yes, lord it over us.

+1000. For all but the impossibly wealthy, living in NYC with children is exhausting.

Did you live in NYC with children? I’m not so sure what’s exhausting about having your kids’ elementary school two blocks away; multiple playgrounds, parks, libraries and museums within walking distance; delicious (affordable and fast) food options on every block; then when they turn 13 they can get themselves wherever they need to go on the subway?

Totally fine if that is not for you but you just sound like a rube when you make those kinds of statements.

Yes I did, and life was much easier when we moved to a major US city where we could still walk to all those things (well, not museums, but those are an easy subway ride away) and kids were using good public transit without adult supervision by 13, but we also could afford a home with a little room to spread out (although still not large) and a yard so that they could play outside without constant supervision, and we could use the car easily when we needed to and get out of the city easily when we wanted to, and so much less traffic noise--I didn't realize how stressful the noise was until I moved to a city with less traffic. (To be clear, traffic where I live is very bad. It's just not NYC bad.)

I love NYC, but I didn't love it with kids.

Great you made a good choice for yourself instead of whining that you are poor in NYC. Unlike the dumb*ss OP.

Anyone making 850k and has their children splitting a bedroom fits the dumb*ss description. Also thinking you’re doing well with 850k a year in NYC is idiotic.

Since when is having children share a bedroom a negative? I shared a room with two sisters and turned out pretty damn great

The issue isn't sharing a room. It's parents choosing themselves over their kids. OP's kids don't share a room out of necessity, nor because OP thinks it's a good formative experience. They are sharing a room because OP made a series of short-sighted and selfish choices and now she's blaming the situation on her apparently recent discovery that NYC is super expensive.

We're your parents selfish idiots too, or....?

Curious, what did your parents refuse to buy you? An American girl doll? Nike sneakers? Anyway, whatever it was, that’s not why your life turned out the way it did.

Nope. I'm speaking as a parent who understands that you don't have THREE KIDS before for firing it out where you will live and where they will go to school. It's one think to have one kid before you have this figured out, but three? And then to blame circumstances that you knew to be the case before you had any kids?

If OP were living in poverty or lacked education, I'd be empathetic because it can be hard to make good choices if you haven't been given many opportunities in life and are in survival mode. But she's a lawyer. A partner! She made the CHOICE to ignore her kid's needs and refuse to plan for their future. They will resent her for this later.

You sound unhinged. I’m pretty sure the redditor is giving her kids a great upbringing with more advantages than the vast majority of the planet. Geez. Why are you so angry about where a complete stranger is making a life?

Making 850k and forcing children to live in shared bedrooms all to live in Carrolll Gardens (lol) is not a recipe for a great upbringing. The Red Hook projects are 2-3 blocks away too.

Go look at the map, the Red Hook projects are a good 15-20 minutes hike with a highway in the middle of it. Besides, there is no place in the walkable areas of NYC that is not within 15 minutes from some “undesirable” housing.

It’s a seven minute walk from Red Hook East to the Dunkin in Carroll Gardens. There’s an army of criminals and sex offenders in that housing projects. Also keep in mind Carroll Gardens is a big step down from Brooklyn Heights and even Cobble Hill.

New Yorker here. Tell me you haven’t been to NYC in at least a decade without telling me you haven’t been to NYC in at least a decade.

90 percent of the posts on here are written by tourists who don’t know the city.

Cobble hill is extremely desirable. Carrol gardens is extremely desirable. As is Park Slope and many other neighborhoods you haven’t heard of bc you clearly don’t know NYC. FWIW Brooklyn heights has long been considered a bit passé and boring, although the promenade is pretty. It is not a ‘top’ area to live for most people. Red hook is a desirable and totally fun place to live. Yes, there are many projects in one section but guess what? That’s true of pretty much every NYC neighborhood. The city was designed that way. And there are also many mixed income buildings around as well. Again, this was by design, and the city has ramped up those types of projects. The city is meant to be vibrant and not full of just wealthy white people who are lawyers and finance people. If you want that, go to the suburbs and eat at a chain restaurant. And fyi the public school system, especially at the high school level is amazing. And kids can go to any school they apply to and get in. They are not limited by zone.

Desirability is measured by price. Brooklyn Heights is more expensive than Park Slope and Carroll Gardens because it is more desirable.

No one said the redditor is white. It’s also appalling you assume lawyers and financiers are all whites. There wasn’t some city charter or decree saying it has to be “vibrant” and mixed income. The last three decades of NY say otherwise.

The public schools are horrible. Even if you get into Stuyvesant, it is an unhealthy environment.

Yep, NYC is not for the snowflakes. You and your spawn are better off in a planned community somewhere.

If 65k tuition is a rounding error during accounting then you don’t send a kid to Stuyvesant. Lots of mental health issues and academic misconduct. The networking is way worse unless you want to know bodega owners’ children.

Somebody here is obsessed with the NYC billionaires. Dude, you’re not one of them, why talk? Being healthy is not choosing your children’s friends based on their family income. If Stuy works best for your kid that’s where they should go. Hopefully they meet a bunch of great neighborhood kids. If your child is a talented musician then you would check out LaGuardia. So many options, you’re so lucky. Don’t blow it by trying to hang with the 1%.

Stuy attracts from all over the city, not a particular neighborhood.

Billionaires will get your kid a job. His stuy classmate will take him to his family’s dumpy restaurant in Ozone Park that is half comped.

So you would want your kid to hunt down the few billionaire kids, befriend them all so they might give them a job some day? That is depressing.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Main Line and Westchester are not much comparison. Philadelphia is a very poor city. It has so much history and good food but the people are so provincial and often don't leave the state ever. The politics of the state are ridiculous and stuck in the 1800s.

yep. Not at all the density of high-powered legal jobs as NYC. so it’s not really a comparison for most NYC partners, except in that if they believe they are “poor” in NYC then yes, maybe they need to trade some of the prestige and money of NYC for something slower paced. I went to law school in NYC and practiced in Philly at the beginning of my career and the cool thing is that most of my cohort went on to do a broad variety of interesting stuff in/around Philly (small firms, legal aid, DA, AG, opened own non-law businesses) specifically because Philly is so much more affordable and you are not locked into the law firm track the way you are in NYC.

Exactly. No one is arguing Philly is more exciting or even overall better. But it is better not to live in a shoebox and shoehorning three kids into a tiny space so you can brag about being a New Yorker. Go look at Rittenhouse if you want an urban neighborhood in Philly.

+10000. The people who insist on doing this are insufferable.

They also are typically lifelong renters.

Yep. You need to have family money, be in finance, or be an entrepreneur to live the life the redditor wants. Being a non-rainmaker partner doesn’t cut it and their NW will be a fraction of what it would be if they lived in the suburbs or a lower cost of living metro.

Again - the density of law and finance jobs cannot be paralleled in other cities. People move to NYC because they want the NYC lifestyle- which yes, includes less square footage but much much more to do outside of the home and higher power work. If you don’t want that then don’t move there, but don’t delude yourself into thinking New Yorkers are crying themselves to sleep over your McMansion.

This is debatable, especially when you have kids. Whenever I’m in NYC visiting family/friends I’m struck by how the only thing to do is go out to eat or to a playground. If you’re actually wealthy with multiple nannies then maybe you’re living a fabulous NY lifestyle. But the average $800k lawyer is hardly living it up. They aren’t doing anything you can’t do in any metro area in the US. They are just doing it with less square footage and less disposable income.

Correct. They have 2-3 regular neighborhood restaurants (not Le Bernadin) like they would in Scarsdale or Bethesda and they take advantage of NYC's artistic offerings to a similar degree (almost never).

No one is jealous of or impressed by your living in NYC, unless you have a 30+mm net worth, big apartment, weekend house, and place in Florida or Aspen for the winter. Then yes, lord it over us.

+1000. For all but the impossibly wealthy, living in NYC with children is exhausting.

Did you live in NYC with children? I’m not so sure what’s exhausting about having your kids’ elementary school two blocks away; multiple playgrounds, parks, libraries and museums within walking distance; delicious (affordable and fast) food options on every block; then when they turn 13 they can get themselves wherever they need to go on the subway?

Totally fine if that is not for you but you just sound like a rube when you make those kinds of statements.

Yes I did, and life was much easier when we moved to a major US city where we could still walk to all those things (well, not museums, but those are an easy subway ride away) and kids were using good public transit without adult supervision by 13, but we also could afford a home with a little room to spread out (although still not large) and a yard so that they could play outside without constant supervision, and we could use the car easily when we needed to and get out of the city easily when we wanted to, and so much less traffic noise--I didn't realize how stressful the noise was until I moved to a city with less traffic. (To be clear, traffic where I live is very bad. It's just not NYC bad.)

I love NYC, but I didn't love it with kids.

Great you made a good choice for yourself instead of whining that you are poor in NYC. Unlike the dumb*ss OP.

Anyone making 850k and has their children splitting a bedroom fits the dumb*ss description. Also thinking you’re doing well with 850k a year in NYC is idiotic.

Since when is having children share a bedroom a negative? I shared a room with two sisters and turned out pretty damn great

The issue isn't sharing a room. It's parents choosing themselves over their kids. OP's kids don't share a room out of necessity, nor because OP thinks it's a good formative experience. They are sharing a room because OP made a series of short-sighted and selfish choices and now she's blaming the situation on her apparently recent discovery that NYC is super expensive.

We're your parents selfish idiots too, or....?

Curious, what did your parents refuse to buy you? An American girl doll? Nike sneakers? Anyway, whatever it was, that’s not why your life turned out the way it did.

Nope. I'm speaking as a parent who understands that you don't have THREE KIDS before for firing it out where you will live and where they will go to school. It's one think to have one kid before you have this figured out, but three? And then to blame circumstances that you knew to be the case before you had any kids?

If OP were living in poverty or lacked education, I'd be empathetic because it can be hard to make good choices if you haven't been given many opportunities in life and are in survival mode. But she's a lawyer. A partner! She made the CHOICE to ignore her kid's needs and refuse to plan for their future. They will resent her for this later.

You sound unhinged. I’m pretty sure the redditor is giving her kids a great upbringing with more advantages than the vast majority of the planet. Geez. Why are you so angry about where a complete stranger is making a life?

Making 850k and forcing children to live in shared bedrooms all to live in Carrolll Gardens (lol) is not a recipe for a great upbringing. The Red Hook projects are 2-3 blocks away too.

Go look at the map, the Red Hook projects are a good 15-20 minutes hike with a highway in the middle of it. Besides, there is no place in the walkable areas of NYC that is not within 15 minutes from some “undesirable” housing.

It’s a seven minute walk from Red Hook East to the Dunkin in Carroll Gardens. There’s an army of criminals and sex offenders in that housing projects. Also keep in mind Carroll Gardens is a big step down from Brooklyn Heights and even Cobble Hill.

New Yorker here. Tell me you haven’t been to NYC in at least a decade without telling me you haven’t been to NYC in at least a decade.

90 percent of the posts on here are written by tourists who don’t know the city.

Cobble hill is extremely desirable. Carrol gardens is extremely desirable. As is Park Slope and many other neighborhoods you haven’t heard of bc you clearly don’t know NYC. FWIW Brooklyn heights has long been considered a bit passé and boring, although the promenade is pretty. It is not a ‘top’ area to live for most people. Red hook is a desirable and totally fun place to live. Yes, there are many projects in one section but guess what? That’s true of pretty much every NYC neighborhood. The city was designed that way. And there are also many mixed income buildings around as well. Again, this was by design, and the city has ramped up those types of projects. The city is meant to be vibrant and not full of just wealthy white people who are lawyers and finance people. If you want that, go to the suburbs and eat at a chain restaurant. And fyi the public school system, especially at the high school level is amazing. And kids can go to any school they apply to and get in. They are not limited by zone.

Desirability is measured by price. Brooklyn Heights is more expensive than Park Slope and Carroll Gardens because it is more desirable.

No one said the redditor is white. It’s also appalling you assume lawyers and financiers are all whites. There wasn’t some city charter or decree saying it has to be “vibrant” and mixed income. The last three decades of NY say otherwise.

The public schools are horrible. Even if you get into Stuyvesant, it is an unhealthy environment.

Yep, NYC is not for the snowflakes. You and your spawn are better off in a planned community somewhere.

If 65k tuition is a rounding error during accounting then you don’t send a kid to Stuyvesant. Lots of mental health issues and academic misconduct. The networking is way worse unless you want to know bodega owners’ children.

Somebody here is obsessed with the NYC billionaires. Dude, you’re not one of them, why talk? Being healthy is not choosing your children’s friends based on their family income. If Stuy works best for your kid that’s where they should go. Hopefully they meet a bunch of great neighborhood kids. If your child is a talented musician then you would check out LaGuardia. So many options, you’re so lucky. Don’t blow it by trying to hang with the 1%.

Stuy attracts from all over the city, not a particular neighborhood.

Billionaires will get your kid a job. His stuy classmate will take him to his family’s dumpy restaurant in Ozone Park that is half comped.

So you would want your kid to hunt down the few billionaire kids, befriend them all so they might give them a job some day? That is depressing.

At a TT private there aren’t only a “few” billionaires (and multi centi millionaire) children. Not just jobs. Ski vacations, trips to private Caribbean islands, Hamptons estates, much better than knowing the convenience store owner’s kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is so stupid. I make $150,000 a year and I feel very rich (though with no kids). That doesn’t mean I have no limitations on my spending, and someone who makes $850,000 a year we also have limitations on their spending.

I’m Republican but threads like this pull me somewhat more leftward. Above a relatively moderate income/net worth, money just becomes, at best, about these trivialities or, worse, about greed and status-chasing.

Did you read the lady’s post? You cannot provide a strong education and a room for every kid in a safe part of NYC on 850k. She’s not asking for a private jet and house on Jupiter Island, more just the bare minimum.

This part is pretty funny. The majority of the middle class areas in NYC are actually pretty safe or, at least, no more dangerous than the Upper East Side. She can definitely afford those areas on her salary (and send her kids to private schools if publics are not to her liking), but she thinks those areas are beneath her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Many many years ago, when I was a paralegal at a law firm making $15k/year, a partner told me he didn't know how anyone lived on less than $200k. Same idea and inflation adjusted probably similar numbers in today's $. Of course I was single and living in a group house and working overtime to get the extra $ and the meal allowance to get by.

How many years ago was that? Twenty years ago I was making 100k at a small law firm in the Boston area. I worked in a specialty area which I was fairly compensated for. I’ve been home with kids that last 18 years so I have no idea what the salaries go for now. But 15k sounds like a clerk’s salary that they put a paralegal title on.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Main Line and Westchester are not much comparison. Philadelphia is a very poor city. It has so much history and good food but the people are so provincial and often don't leave the state ever. The politics of the state are ridiculous and stuck in the 1800s.

yep. Not at all the density of high-powered legal jobs as NYC. so it’s not really a comparison for most NYC partners, except in that if they believe they are “poor” in NYC then yes, maybe they need to trade some of the prestige and money of NYC for something slower paced. I went to law school in NYC and practiced in Philly at the beginning of my career and the cool thing is that most of my cohort went on to do a broad variety of interesting stuff in/around Philly (small firms, legal aid, DA, AG, opened own non-law businesses) specifically because Philly is so much more affordable and you are not locked into the law firm track the way you are in NYC.

Exactly. No one is arguing Philly is more exciting or even overall better. But it is better not to live in a shoebox and shoehorning three kids into a tiny space so you can brag about being a New Yorker. Go look at Rittenhouse if you want an urban neighborhood in Philly.

+10000. The people who insist on doing this are insufferable.

They also are typically lifelong renters.

Yep. You need to have family money, be in finance, or be an entrepreneur to live the life the redditor wants. Being a non-rainmaker partner doesn’t cut it and their NW will be a fraction of what it would be if they lived in the suburbs or a lower cost of living metro.

Again - the density of law and finance jobs cannot be paralleled in other cities. People move to NYC because they want the NYC lifestyle- which yes, includes less square footage but much much more to do outside of the home and higher power work. If you don’t want that then don’t move there, but don’t delude yourself into thinking New Yorkers are crying themselves to sleep over your McMansion.

This is debatable, especially when you have kids. Whenever I’m in NYC visiting family/friends I’m struck by how the only thing to do is go out to eat or to a playground. If you’re actually wealthy with multiple nannies then maybe you’re living a fabulous NY lifestyle. But the average $800k lawyer is hardly living it up. They aren’t doing anything you can’t do in any metro area in the US. They are just doing it with less square footage and less disposable income.

Correct. They have 2-3 regular neighborhood restaurants (not Le Bernadin) like they would in Scarsdale or Bethesda and they take advantage of NYC's artistic offerings to a similar degree (almost never).

No one is jealous of or impressed by your living in NYC, unless you have a 30+mm net worth, big apartment, weekend house, and place in Florida or Aspen for the winter. Then yes, lord it over us.

+1000. For all but the impossibly wealthy, living in NYC with children is exhausting.

Did you live in NYC with children? I’m not so sure what’s exhausting about having your kids’ elementary school two blocks away; multiple playgrounds, parks, libraries and museums within walking distance; delicious (affordable and fast) food options on every block; then when they turn 13 they can get themselves wherever they need to go on the subway?

Totally fine if that is not for you but you just sound like a rube when you make those kinds of statements.

Yes I did, and life was much easier when we moved to a major US city where we could still walk to all those things (well, not museums, but those are an easy subway ride away) and kids were using good public transit without adult supervision by 13, but we also could afford a home with a little room to spread out (although still not large) and a yard so that they could play outside without constant supervision, and we could use the car easily when we needed to and get out of the city easily when we wanted to, and so much less traffic noise--I didn't realize how stressful the noise was until I moved to a city with less traffic. (To be clear, traffic where I live is very bad. It's just not NYC bad.)

I love NYC, but I didn't love it with kids.

Great you made a good choice for yourself instead of whining that you are poor in NYC. Unlike the dumb*ss OP.

Anyone making 850k and has their children splitting a bedroom fits the dumb*ss description. Also thinking you’re doing well with 850k a year in NYC is idiotic.

Since when is having children share a bedroom a negative? I shared a room with two sisters and turned out pretty damn great

The issue isn't sharing a room. It's parents choosing themselves over their kids. OP's kids don't share a room out of necessity, nor because OP thinks it's a good formative experience. They are sharing a room because OP made a series of short-sighted and selfish choices and now she's blaming the situation on her apparently recent discovery that NYC is super expensive.

We're your parents selfish idiots too, or....?

Curious, what did your parents refuse to buy you? An American girl doll? Nike sneakers? Anyway, whatever it was, that’s not why your life turned out the way it did.

Nope. I'm speaking as a parent who understands that you don't have THREE KIDS before for firing it out where you will live and where they will go to school. It's one think to have one kid before you have this figured out, but three? And then to blame circumstances that you knew to be the case before you had any kids?

If OP were living in poverty or lacked education, I'd be empathetic because it can be hard to make good choices if you haven't been given many opportunities in life and are in survival mode. But she's a lawyer. A partner! She made the CHOICE to ignore her kid's needs and refuse to plan for their future. They will resent her for this later.

You sound unhinged. I’m pretty sure the redditor is giving her kids a great upbringing with more advantages than the vast majority of the planet. Geez. Why are you so angry about where a complete stranger is making a life?

Making 850k and forcing children to live in shared bedrooms all to live in Carrolll Gardens (lol) is not a recipe for a great upbringing. The Red Hook projects are 2-3 blocks away too.

Go look at the map, the Red Hook projects are a good 15-20 minutes hike with a highway in the middle of it. Besides, there is no place in the walkable areas of NYC that is not within 15 minutes from some “undesirable” housing.

It’s a seven minute walk from Red Hook East to the Dunkin in Carroll Gardens. There’s an army of criminals and sex offenders in that housing projects. Also keep in mind Carroll Gardens is a big step down from Brooklyn Heights and even Cobble Hill.

New Yorker here. Tell me you haven’t been to NYC in at least a decade without telling me you haven’t been to NYC in at least a decade.

90 percent of the posts on here are written by tourists who don’t know the city.

Cobble hill is extremely desirable. Carrol gardens is extremely desirable. As is Park Slope and many other neighborhoods you haven’t heard of bc you clearly don’t know NYC. FWIW Brooklyn heights has long been considered a bit passé and boring, although the promenade is pretty. It is not a ‘top’ area to live for most people. Red hook is a desirable and totally fun place to live. Yes, there are many projects in one section but guess what? That’s true of pretty much every NYC neighborhood. The city was designed that way. And there are also many mixed income buildings around as well. Again, this was by design, and the city has ramped up those types of projects. The city is meant to be vibrant and not full of just wealthy white people who are lawyers and finance people. If you want that, go to the suburbs and eat at a chain restaurant. And fyi the public school system, especially at the high school level is amazing. And kids can go to any school they apply to and get in. They are not limited by zone.

Desirability is measured by price. Brooklyn Heights is more expensive than Park Slope and Carroll Gardens because it is more desirable.

No one said the redditor is white. It’s also appalling you assume lawyers and financiers are all whites. There wasn’t some city charter or decree saying it has to be “vibrant” and mixed income. The last three decades of NY say otherwise.

The public schools are horrible. Even if you get into Stuyvesant, it is an unhealthy environment.

Yep, NYC is not for the snowflakes. You and your spawn are better off in a planned community somewhere.

If 65k tuition is a rounding error during accounting then you don’t send a kid to Stuyvesant. Lots of mental health issues and academic misconduct. The networking is way worse unless you want to know bodega owners’ children.

Somebody here is obsessed with the NYC billionaires. Dude, you’re not one of them, why talk? Being healthy is not choosing your children’s friends based on their family income. If Stuy works best for your kid that’s where they should go. Hopefully they meet a bunch of great neighborhood kids. If your child is a talented musician then you would check out LaGuardia. So many options, you’re so lucky. Don’t blow it by trying to hang with the 1%.

Stuy attracts from all over the city, not a particular neighborhood.

Billionaires will get your kid a job. His stuy classmate will take him to his family’s dumpy restaurant in Ozone Park that is half comped.

So you would want your kid to hunt down the few billionaire kids, befriend them all so they might give them a job some day? That is depressing.

At a TT private there aren’t only a “few” billionaires (and multi centi millionaire) children. Not just jobs. Ski vacations, trips to private Caribbean islands, Hamptons estates, much better than knowing the convenience store owner’s kid.

You know there’s a lot in between your private island and a convenience store. Middle class go on ski vacations. Middle and upper middle class go to the Caribbean and stay at resorts, not private islands. Plus teenagers don’t like to be isolated. Only older people who enjoy a private island. Teens want to meet other teens.

Do you really want your kid to be a hanger on to billionaires kids? Kids will choose their own friends regardless of what their parents do for a living. Unless you’ve trained your kid to be a douche who everyone recognizes him for what he is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread is so stupid. I make $150,000 a year and I feel very rich (though with no kids). That doesn’t mean I have no limitations on my spending, and someone who makes $850,000 a year we also have limitations on their spending.

I’m Republican but threads like this pull me somewhat more leftward. Above a relatively moderate income/net worth, money just becomes, at best, about these trivialities or, worse, about greed and status-chasing.

I love how this thread compares to another on DCUM right now about salaries in FCPS.

Apparently a single mother making $70K working 65 hours a week as a teacher is just fine. But a lawyer suffering on “only” $850K in NYC is somehow a travesty.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is so stupid. I make $150,000 a year and I feel very rich (though with no kids). That doesn’t mean I have no limitations on my spending, and someone who makes $850,000 a year we also have limitations on their spending.

I’m Republican but threads like this pull me somewhat more leftward. Above a relatively moderate income/net worth, money just becomes, at best, about these trivialities or, worse, about greed and status-chasing.

Did you read the lady’s post? You cannot provide a strong education and a room for every kid in a safe part of NYC on 850k. She’s not asking for a private jet and house on Jupiter Island, more just the bare minimum.

This part is pretty funny. The majority of the middle class areas in NYC are actually pretty safe or, at least, no more dangerous than the Upper East Side. She can definitely afford those areas on her salary (and send her kids to private schools if publics are not to her liking), but she thinks those areas are beneath her.

Name those areas. A TT private isn’t too receptive to kids from Douglaston, SI, and Woodlawn.

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Anonymous wrote:Main Line and Westchester are not much comparison. Philadelphia is a very poor city. It has so much history and good food but the people are so provincial and often don't leave the state ever. The politics of the state are ridiculous and stuck in the 1800s.

yep. Not at all the density of high-powered legal jobs as NYC. so it’s not really a comparison for most NYC partners, except in that if they believe they are “poor” in NYC then yes, maybe they need to trade some of the prestige and money of NYC for something slower paced. I went to law school in NYC and practiced in Philly at the beginning of my career and the cool thing is that most of my cohort went on to do a broad variety of interesting stuff in/around Philly (small firms, legal aid, DA, AG, opened own non-law businesses) specifically because Philly is so much more affordable and you are not locked into the law firm track the way you are in NYC.

Exactly. No one is arguing Philly is more exciting or even overall better. But it is better not to live in a shoebox and shoehorning three kids into a tiny space so you can brag about being a New Yorker. Go look at Rittenhouse if you want an urban neighborhood in Philly.

+10000. The people who insist on doing this are insufferable.

They also are typically lifelong renters.

Yep. You need to have family money, be in finance, or be an entrepreneur to live the life the redditor wants. Being a non-rainmaker partner doesn’t cut it and their NW will be a fraction of what it would be if they lived in the suburbs or a lower cost of living metro.

Again - the density of law and finance jobs cannot be paralleled in other cities. People move to NYC because they want the NYC lifestyle- which yes, includes less square footage but much much more to do outside of the home and higher power work. If you don’t want that then don’t move there, but don’t delude yourself into thinking New Yorkers are crying themselves to sleep over your McMansion.

This is debatable, especially when you have kids. Whenever I’m in NYC visiting family/friends I’m struck by how the only thing to do is go out to eat or to a playground. If you’re actually wealthy with multiple nannies then maybe you’re living a fabulous NY lifestyle. But the average $800k lawyer is hardly living it up. They aren’t doing anything you can’t do in any metro area in the US. They are just doing it with less square footage and less disposable income.

Correct. They have 2-3 regular neighborhood restaurants (not Le Bernadin) like they would in Scarsdale or Bethesda and they take advantage of NYC's artistic offerings to a similar degree (almost never).

No one is jealous of or impressed by your living in NYC, unless you have a 30+mm net worth, big apartment, weekend house, and place in Florida or Aspen for the winter. Then yes, lord it over us.

+1000. For all but the impossibly wealthy, living in NYC with children is exhausting.

Did you live in NYC with children? I’m not so sure what’s exhausting about having your kids’ elementary school two blocks away; multiple playgrounds, parks, libraries and museums within walking distance; delicious (affordable and fast) food options on every block; then when they turn 13 they can get themselves wherever they need to go on the subway?

Totally fine if that is not for you but you just sound like a rube when you make those kinds of statements.

Yes I did, and life was much easier when we moved to a major US city where we could still walk to all those things (well, not museums, but those are an easy subway ride away) and kids were using good public transit without adult supervision by 13, but we also could afford a home with a little room to spread out (although still not large) and a yard so that they could play outside without constant supervision, and we could use the car easily when we needed to and get out of the city easily when we wanted to, and so much less traffic noise--I didn't realize how stressful the noise was until I moved to a city with less traffic. (To be clear, traffic where I live is very bad. It's just not NYC bad.)

I love NYC, but I didn't love it with kids.

Great you made a good choice for yourself instead of whining that you are poor in NYC. Unlike the dumb*ss OP.

Anyone making 850k and has their children splitting a bedroom fits the dumb*ss description. Also thinking you’re doing well with 850k a year in NYC is idiotic.

Since when is having children share a bedroom a negative? I shared a room with two sisters and turned out pretty damn great

The issue isn't sharing a room. It's parents choosing themselves over their kids. OP's kids don't share a room out of necessity, nor because OP thinks it's a good formative experience. They are sharing a room because OP made a series of short-sighted and selfish choices and now she's blaming the situation on her apparently recent discovery that NYC is super expensive.

We're your parents selfish idiots too, or....?

Curious, what did your parents refuse to buy you? An American girl doll? Nike sneakers? Anyway, whatever it was, that’s not why your life turned out the way it did.

Nope. I'm speaking as a parent who understands that you don't have THREE KIDS before for firing it out where you will live and where they will go to school. It's one think to have one kid before you have this figured out, but three? And then to blame circumstances that you knew to be the case before you had any kids?

If OP were living in poverty or lacked education, I'd be empathetic because it can be hard to make good choices if you haven't been given many opportunities in life and are in survival mode. But she's a lawyer. A partner! She made the CHOICE to ignore her kid's needs and refuse to plan for their future. They will resent her for this later.

You sound unhinged. I’m pretty sure the redditor is giving her kids a great upbringing with more advantages than the vast majority of the planet. Geez. Why are you so angry about where a complete stranger is making a life?

Making 850k and forcing children to live in shared bedrooms all to live in Carrolll Gardens (lol) is not a recipe for a great upbringing. The Red Hook projects are 2-3 blocks away too.

Go look at the map, the Red Hook projects are a good 15-20 minutes hike with a highway in the middle of it. Besides, there is no place in the walkable areas of NYC that is not within 15 minutes from some “undesirable” housing.

It’s a seven minute walk from Red Hook East to the Dunkin in Carroll Gardens. There’s an army of criminals and sex offenders in that housing projects. Also keep in mind Carroll Gardens is a big step down from Brooklyn Heights and even Cobble Hill.

New Yorker here. Tell me you haven’t been to NYC in at least a decade without telling me you haven’t been to NYC in at least a decade.

90 percent of the posts on here are written by tourists who don’t know the city.

Cobble hill is extremely desirable. Carrol gardens is extremely desirable. As is Park Slope and many other neighborhoods you haven’t heard of bc you clearly don’t know NYC. FWIW Brooklyn heights has long been considered a bit passé and boring, although the promenade is pretty. It is not a ‘top’ area to live for most people. Red hook is a desirable and totally fun place to live. Yes, there are many projects in one section but guess what? That’s true of pretty much every NYC neighborhood. The city was designed that way. And there are also many mixed income buildings around as well. Again, this was by design, and the city has ramped up those types of projects. The city is meant to be vibrant and not full of just wealthy white people who are lawyers and finance people. If you want that, go to the suburbs and eat at a chain restaurant. And fyi the public school system, especially at the high school level is amazing. And kids can go to any school they apply to and get in. They are not limited by zone.

Desirability is measured by price. Brooklyn Heights is more expensive than Park Slope and Carroll Gardens because it is more desirable.

No one said the redditor is white. It’s also appalling you assume lawyers and financiers are all whites. There wasn’t some city charter or decree saying it has to be “vibrant” and mixed income. The last three decades of NY say otherwise.

The public schools are horrible. Even if you get into Stuyvesant, it is an unhealthy environment.

Yep, NYC is not for the snowflakes. You and your spawn are better off in a planned community somewhere.

If 65k tuition is a rounding error during accounting then you don’t send a kid to Stuyvesant. Lots of mental health issues and academic misconduct. The networking is way worse unless you want to know bodega owners’ children.

Somebody here is obsessed with the NYC billionaires. Dude, you’re not one of them, why talk? Being healthy is not choosing your children’s friends based on their family income. If Stuy works best for your kid that’s where they should go. Hopefully they meet a bunch of great neighborhood kids. If your child is a talented musician then you would check out LaGuardia. So many options, you’re so lucky. Don’t blow it by trying to hang with the 1%.

Stuy attracts from all over the city, not a particular neighborhood.

Billionaires will get your kid a job. His stuy classmate will take him to his family’s dumpy restaurant in Ozone Park that is half comped.

So you would want your kid to hunt down the few billionaire kids, befriend them all so they might give them a job some day? That is depressing.

At a TT private there aren’t only a “few” billionaires (and multi centi millionaire) children. Not just jobs. Ski vacations, trips to private Caribbean islands, Hamptons estates, much better than knowing the convenience store owner’s kid.

You know there’s a lot in between your private island and a convenience store. Middle class go on ski vacations. Middle and upper middle class go to the Caribbean and stay at resorts, not private islands. Plus teenagers don’t like to be isolated. Only older people who enjoy a private island. Teens want to meet other teens.

Do you really want your kid to be a hanger on to billionaires kids? Kids will choose their own friends regardless of what their parents do for a living. Unless you’ve trained your kid to be a douche who everyone recognizes him for what he is.

Nah my kids are rich too, just not billionaire rich. Birds of a feather.

Middle and high school kids love going to private islands like Mustique and getting the Insta geotag. Keep up. They don’t care about your all inclusive trip to San Juan with the B&T crowd.