How Much Does It Cost to Live in NYC?

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You begin shopping for your future the moment you become an adult in New York City. Rich and well-furnished lives are aggressively paraded about. Parlor windows reveal Noguchi lamps the size of small horses, couples sit for brunch, families haul exploding bags of farmers’-market produce back to their lairs. People are furiously refreshing Resy to pay $27 for spaghetti pomodoro (!) and going, constantly, to Mexico City.

Sure, it's always been ludicrously expensive, and the "what you could get for the same price of this Chelsea studio in Ohio" game is our little way of torturing ourselves. New York is the most expensive city in the world, according to one recent report. Half the households that live here simply cannot afford to, according to another, which says you have to make $100,000 just to reasonably get by — to afford food and transportation to work. A one-pound container of strawberries at Eli's costs $30.

We decided to put a price tag on the dream lives of a wide range of New Yorkers, all 30 and under and childless. We spoke to dozens of people but narrowed it down to a handful, each reasonably en route to the upper-middle- (and, in two instances, just plain upper-) class life they picture in their heads. We were surprised by how many people fantasize about a life with a partner and kids in brownstone Brooklyn — we expected more to plan lives as single artists or to build households of friends and throuples. We expected a few more to actually want to live in Manhattan. Instead, we heard a craving for high-end domesticity; so many people told us they wanted to be married with "between one and two kids," a shocking number said they wanted three or more, and nearly everyone said they wanted to own their homes.

We went deep with these nine people on their aspirations for their lives in 15 years. We asked, What would a "nice life" look like? Do they want extreme levels of well off, or bourgeois comfort, or simply freedom from financial worry with the time to pursue a hobby?

Then we spent weeks talking to people who actually live those lives and asked them how much it all costs, from the babysitters to the termite prevention to the electric bill.

The purpose of presenting these receipts isn't to shock or horrify. But if they do shock or horrify, we hope facing them is at least better than wallowing in the ambient dread of not knowing. We hope it's genuinely useful to younger New Yorkers wrestling with questions like, What would my family income have to be to support my vision of tomorrow? What part of my dreams should change — or my plans for paying for them? Should I move upstate and renovate a dilapidated Victorian? (Do not do this.) Some readers may wonder: Is this city for me? But perhaps others will find in these case studies certain elements that could possibly be within reach (even if you don't have a trust fund, or your shares don't vest) for a good and manageable New York life.

To report out a reasonable baseline of what these nine people's future lives might cost, we asked hundreds of New Yorkers to open up their books. We interrogated these adults about their spending on everything from cars and heating to lawn care, children's birthday parties, and therapy bills. To account for all the other stuff that drains one's bank account — picking up floss and toothpaste at Duane Reade, field trips and school supplies, Ubers, office lunches and iced coffees — we asked dozens of them to take a look at their bills, subtract the predictable and repeating costs, and tell us how much was left over. We called this a "slush fund."

Every year of a child's life brings unique costs (are you paying for diapers, or are you paying for remedial tutoring in algebra?). So for our young New Yorkers who want to become parents, we went ahead and chose an age for their hypothetical children, then priced things accordingly.

A couple of disclaimers: We’re describing what these lives would cost right now — so there's no accounting for an unpredictable future or for inflation. And though we tried, we can't factor in everything: the absurd cost of health care, the various unique emergencies that each of us encounters. Nor did we consider past costs or future savings. (And it should be said that these numbers don't represent what a person needs to make in pretax income.) Some of the names in this story have been changed. Also, these are household expenses, but aside from things like groceries and vacations, we didn't factor in the spending habits of future partners.

Finally, you are right: Every number here could be cheaper or vastly more expensive. We went to extremes to do the most accurate accounting of these fictional futures — but if anything seems egregiously high or low, meet us in the comments.

➼ Aliya wants a Brooklyn Heights brownstone ➼ Tarek wants ‘absurd parties’ in Bed-Stuy ➼ Chen wants her in-laws to live with her in Queens ➼ Audrey wants summers on Long Island ➼ Ian wants both a bike and a motorcycle ➼ Louise wants a Victorian near the Staten Island Ferry ➼ Rachel wants to play paddle tennis in Bronxville ➼ Charlotte wants her kid to go to Stuy ➼ Bri wants to sew in Hudson

Aliya is a 30-year-old corporate lawyer in Manhattan. In this future, let's say she's raising children who are 7, 11, and 12.

The image I conjure up is a Sunday in Brooklyn Heights: I’ve just gone to a Quaker meeting with my husband and our children, and we’re strolling the promenade before we go back to our — in the perfect world — townhouse. I’d love to be two(ish) blocks from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade in a place with three or four bedrooms, since it's not a priority for my kids to get their own rooms. I’d send my kids to Brooklyn Friends, because I went to a Quaker school for a few years and that community really shaped me, and I want them to play an instrument or do an activity they’re interested in, like drama. And since I’ll be working, we’ll need after-school child care. I want an SUV and a place to park it, and we’d buy groceries from Trader Joe's and Sahadi's and do date night at least once a week. And I really want somebody to scrub the life out of my whole house once a month.

In my future life, I’d be wearing beautiful vintage designer clothing and buying a new piece maybe every couple of months. I’d also like a membership to a gym that has Pilates classes and a sauna. My only big expense in terms of personal maintenance is my eyebrows. I get them tweezed and tinted by someone who works for all these models and influencers. I’d be traveling monthly — little trips here and there, maybe a quick getaway with my husband or a solo trip. I love the idea of saying, "Okay, me and my best friend are going to Nashville or Austin," and we’d just stay in a nice simple hotel with Wi-Fi. My sister lives in Majorca, Spain, so for two or three weeks, we’d go visit with our whole family. When flying international, I’d fly business, but I’d put my kids in economy. I saw this woman do that — her kids were 10 and 8, and I was like, That's the most genius thing I’ve ever seen.

Three-to-four-bedroom townhouses are rare in Brooklyn Heights — they’re mostly five or six. We found Aliya a nice but somewhat dated six-bedroom at 138 Henry Street for the highly unusual price of $4.6 million — updated houses in the area tend to cost between $8 million and $12 million. She’ll pay an estimated $205,801 in closing costs (that includes a mansion tax of 1.5 percent), $23,944 in monthlies, and then $3,000 a month on utilities and general upkeep, like HVAC servicing. All of that is the bare minimum. Owning a brownstone makes you vulnerable to a million horrifying things: wind-driven rain getting lodged into parapets, causing leaks; a stoop in need of repair; a façade that needs to be restored (generally every 40 years, but costs can range from $50,000 to $150,000). Let's say this year she has a relatively minor leak: $3,000. Then she’d have to paint ($25,000, according to a brownstone owner in Windsor Terrace) and fully furnish the entire place (about $100,000). She’ll put $5,000 down on her Subaru Forester, then pay $788 a month after, and her garage will be around $500 a month.

When it comes to private schools, tuition is just the beginning. At Brooklyn Friends, it's ​​$56,100 a year, but there's also the enduring pressure to give to the endowment fund. During his child's first year there, "one of the parents was essentially hounding me to make contributions," says a father of two who affords tuition through financial aid and help from the grandparents. "It was pretty tactless." (He ended up giving $500 for both children.) Plus, he said "the school recommended both of my kids get outside-of-school tutoring, and get neuropsychological evaluations, which typically aren't covered by health insurance, to find out if they have ADHD." Said another private-school parent, "The schools are like clubs: If they think they can get money out of you, they’ll gladly host a multi-cultural night with an auction." Several parents spoke about the pressure to spend so their kids can "run with the pack" — to say "yes" to friends’ invitations to Nets games ($150), to throw parties at the private-school-popular Urban Air Adventure Park ($849, which includes a VR experience, plates, decorations, and three pizzas). "When you send your kid to a school and everyone is very wealthy, their lives are hard to keep up with," says a father who sends his children to Berkeley Carroll. That father of two at Brooklyn Friends agrees: "When your kids hit that 10, 11, 12 age, they start to realize the disparities. A friend and his wife are both attorneys, and their daughter came back from a playdate and was like, ‘Dad, are we poor?’" As for someone to pick up Aliya's kids from school, take them to activities ($250 a month for music lessons per child), and drop them off, it probably won't be less than $30 an hour. And though the children could run around in the backyard all summer, odds are she’ll want to send them to a day camp their friends are going to, like New Country Day Camp in Staten Island ($6,700 for the summer).

Plus a monthly deep clean ($360), the weekly date night at Felice or Ingas Bar ($214) plus babysitting ($120 for an evening with the sitter's Uber home), a Trader Joe's grocery haul ($400, the weekly bill of a Brooklyn family of four we spoke to), supplementary Sahadi's trips (let's say $150), membership at the Life Time fitness in Dumbo ($259 a month) because the nearby Equinox lacks a sauna, twice-annual visits to Aliya's preferred brow artist Azi Sacks ($250 before tax and tip), a vintage-clothes-shopping habit (accounting for $30 steals and occasional $800 Saint Laurent jackets), six weekend solo or girls’ trips to cities like Nashville (only six because she's a corporate lawyer with three kids, and let's say $1,000 per trip), plus a monthly slush fund of $3,400 (the household estimate of one Brooklyn tech worker who described herself and her husband as "those people who make a lot of money but live paycheck to paycheck because we also spend a lot, mostly on our three children") that might include things like a visit from the lice lady for the 7-year-old, new sheets, and gifts for other children's birthday parties.

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After a onetime payment of $1,252,401.

Tarek is a 24-year-old aspiring actor in Brooklyn.

A friend of mine worked at the Milton Resnick and Pat Passlof Foundation — they were two recently deceased artists who had lived in Manhattan for years and were happily married but also had their own homes within walking distance of each other. A two-household partnership would be amazing: I get my own place; you get your own place. There's a world in which we adopt two children, but let's imagine we don't. I’ll definitely have a cat, and I want that cat to be really happy. Something I’ve seen online is these people who have created tubelike structures going through walls and out the window for their cats to crawl through. So I’d build some sort of crazy tunnel to give her some kind of enrichment.

Bed-Stuy is full of happy Black people living their lives, and I’d like to buy a place alongside Herbert Von King Park — a two-bedroom with an office, a washer-dryer, a dishwasher, and a bedroom big enough for my queen-size bed, plus either a backyard or a living room big enough to throw absurd parties with 100 people. I think it's important to clean your own house, so no housekeeper, but I do want someone to do my taxes for me. I’d join a food co-op, and a dietitian would tell me exactly what to purchase. I’d hire a personal trainer twice a week and go to acupuncture once a week. And join a soccer league. Once a week, I’d go see a movie at the Angelika and go out for a nice dinner at a place like Macosa Trattoria, and twice a month I’d see a Broadway show and go to a nice jazz bar. I’d have a Chevy Volt — and a parking spot for it — so I can easily go hiking at Storm King. Every couple months, I’d take a three-day weekend and drive all the way up to Acadia in Maine or do an Airbnb for a weekend trip to the Hamptons or Fire Island. And every year, I’d spend a month outside America — staying in Airbnbs in Geneva and Lucerne and Berlin, doing a lot of clubbing and swimming in lakes. I’ll give away the excess money that I don't need to charity, which could be $1,000 or $10,000 a month.

Tarek essentially wants to live a version of the life he has now — going out with friends, taking weekend trips. This is obviously possible, but several of his 40-and-up counterparts warned us that, as he gets older, his habits might change in subtle and more expensive ways. One 53-year-old happily child-free New York architect says that over the past few years cabs have become more compelling, as have nicer clothes, investing in his health ("I’m like, You know what? I’m gonna get that X-ray!"), and hotels where each person has their own bathroom ("Not the fleabaggy ones I stayed in when I was young"). And as his cohort has gotten freer with spending, he has too. "My friends called me the other night and said, ‘We’re going to Lincoln Center to see this performance. Want to go?’" he says. "And I was like, ‘Actually, I do.’ That was $150."

A two-household marriage definitely offers advantages (interior-design freedom, more independence), but it eliminates one of the primary pleasures of romantic relationships: splitting the cost of housing. We found Tarek a two-bedroom condo a few blocks from the park with a private outdoor space at 508 Lexington Avenue, No. 2, for $788,300 with estimated closing fees of $26,477 and a mortgage of $3,781. The building is new and all electric, so utilities will come out to $250 a month, and he’ll presumably enjoy a couple of years before things start breaking. We can't be sure how his neighbors would respond to his "absurd parties," but each will probably run him $1,000 (that's for 26 bottles of wine, 13 bottles of liquor, and 125 bottles of beer). Garage parking for his Chevy Volt ($7,000 down; $1,037 monthly for car payment and insurance) will be $300 a month, though he could "just park on the street," as one Park Slope dweller tells us. "We’ve gotten tickets, but it's only $75, so it's like, Hey, if I get a ticket, it's less than paying for parking."

For his monthlong jaunt through Switzerland and Germany, let's say Tarek stays in $200-a-night Airbnbs. And a lot rides on how much he's eating out. "I’m at an age where my friends can go out for expensive meals, and if I’m on holiday with a group, I want to participate in that," says one gallerist and curator who travels three months a year. "Whereas if I’m alone, I might just go into a coffee shop and get myself a ham sandwich." So let's give Tarek a range — some days cooking ($70 a week in groceries), others going out for a nice dinner ($225 a week, say). And if Tarek's husband joins him on his travels, he’ll have to pay to make sure his cat is taken care of. For $199 per year, he can get a TrustedHousesitters "standard pet parent" membership, a home-exchange platform that connects pet owners to travelers looking for accommodation. Once he's paid the membership fee, he has access to unlimited pet sitting from "verified sitters." (In total, that monthlong trip, including cat accommodations, will come out to $9,579.) As for the cat's "tubelike structures" — Myzoo, a Taiwanese brand, sells aesthetically pleasing versions for $100 per 23.5-inch section. (Its wall-mounted "capsule-like cat bed" with a massive convex window is an additional $155.) A Tasker from TaskRabbit can install it for about $62 an hour.

Plus his general cat costs ($1,200 a year for litter, food, checkups, and insurance), his weekly shopping at the Park Slope Food Coop ($120, assuming his husband shops for his own groceries), and a dinner at Macosa Trattoria ($50), an accountant (one New Yorker we spoke to with a "complex tax situation" like Tarek's paid $1,600 for tax help), twice-a-week training sessions at the Vita Wellness Center ($158 a week), weekly in-network acupuncture (a $35 co-pay) and a few sessions with a nutritionist ($95 each), membership in a co-ed soccer league ($180 at Bedford Armory), the Broadway tickets ($130 each) and nights at Birdland jazz club ($50 plus a $20 food or drink minimum), weekends in Fire Island and Maine (for the latter, assuming he splits a $900-a-weekend log-cabin Airbnb with his partner and spends $80 a day on food, it’ll be $900), as well as a monthly slush fund of $2,200 — the estimate of one fun-loving New Yorker we spoke to — which includes things like movies at the Angelika, a trip to the cobbler, a new pair of jeans, and spontaneous drinks out.

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After a onetime payment of $192,178.

Chen is a 29-year-old ad-industry producer in Queens. In this future, let's say she's raising a child who is 2.

My partner and I would live in a multifamily home somewhere in Queens close to Manhattan — Astoria, Sunnyside, Woodside, Jackson Heights. I don't care whether it's new or old, but ideally the house would not touch other buildings so we can maximize the amount of light it gets, and it’d have a parking space and two units. My partner's parents, after they retire, will move into the other unit. They’re immigrants, and we’d want to take care of them, plus they can help with the kids. We’d compensate them for child care and cover their housing and other day-to-day expenditures: food, cell-phone bills, anything else they would need (they’ll be on Medicare by then). We already have a car, so that's how we’ll get around.

I’d like one kid because it's much easier to manage one child's education. With my two nieces, it takes their parents so much time and attention to stay on top of their schoolwork, as well as their private lessons and tutoring sessions and activities outside school, and I don't have the capacity to do that for more than one child. We’d also have two big fluffy dogs. I have a dog now, and my parents like to say she has a better life than a lot of kids in other parts of the world. She eats high-quality food and gets groomed every six to eight weeks. Once or twice a year, I buy her a new sweater.

We’d take a yearly two-week trip as a family — maybe to Europe, where we’d stay in a nice Airbnb, travel to different cities and go to museums, and eat at restaurants on the street. In the summer, we’d send our child to day camp, then on the weekends we’d go on day trips, hiking and fishing in the Hudson Valley or Connecticut.

"In Asian cultures, the grandparents are very much a part of taking care of children and the upbringing of them," says one Brooklyn parent whose mother moved in with her when she had a newborn. The cost cannot be beat. "I just paid a little extra for food and gave her money here and there for transportation," she says — though eventually she began paying her mother a stipend of $1,000 a month ("I just came up with a number," she says). If Chen wants a real two-family home, with two entrances and proper separation between the units, those tend to go for $1.5 million to $1.7 million in Jackson Heights. One nearly perfect example we found, a $1.4 million split-level at 31-11 70th Street, would put her monthlies at $7,537 and estimated closing costs at $44,683. (Unfortunately, it's attached to its neighbor.) She’ll be paying two utility bills — $500 a month, according to one person who owns a two-unit Long Island City house — and taking care of both parts of the house, plus the large basement. So let's say this year New York experiences torrential rain again and her basement floods; Chen may need to do what one Brooklyn homeowner did and spend $15,000 on a commercial-grade sump pump. "We had two storms back-to-back, and our basement flooded," the homeowner says. "We were literally spending 24 hours a day bucketing out our basement, and we never want to go through that again." Since she’ll be grocery shopping for a five-person household, let's give Chen a budget of $400 a week based on the grocery bills of two families who do the Wegmans-Costco-Target circuit. (A not-insubstantial portion of that, many parents find, will go to berries for her toddler. Two parents we spoke to spend $75 a month a month just on strawberries and blueberries.)

We spoke to six dedicated dog owners across the city whose canine charges range from a low-maintenance terrier to an elderly dachshund to a Brooklyn Heights Labradoodle with so many health conditions that his family nicknamed him their "million-dollar baby." Most of them spend between $1,000 and $2,000 a year for each of their dogs’ basic needs: food and treats, checkups and insurance, vaccinations, and anti-flea and anti-heartworm medications. Those regular appointments with a groomer will be $80 each. But with a dog, anything can happen, very little of it cheap to deal with. Debbie, a senior Chihuahua with a heart murmur, costs her owner an additional $600 a year in prescriptions (Proin for urinary incontinence, Denamarin for liver support) and $1,100 on medical visits (a cardiogram every 18 months, the occasional upset stomach, anal-gland expression every three weeks). Debbie also has a sensitive stomach, so her owner springs for fresh food from a company called Nom Nom Now — Chicken Cuisine and Turkey Fare — which comes to $1,600 a year ("This is insane," her owner acknowledges). Yet another dog owner we spoke to says hers had to unexpectedly have a mass removed last year; the final procedure cost around $2,000, and because the mass was on his shoulder, he couldn't get up the stairs at her walk-up, so she had to rent a ground-floor Airbnb for a week. "I’d rather not think about that expense," she says. Let's assume one of Chen's fluffy dogs is healthy and the other, like Debbie the Chihuahua, has a heart murmur.

Plus a birthday party in the park ($300 for pizzas, lemonade, balloons, and a cake), an annual trip to Europe ($6,500 in all, according to one Brooklyn family of three that recently traveled to Spain — including a ticket for the 2-year-old, who will now need her own seat), planting a garden and keeping it nice ($1,000 up front, $80 a year in supplies), plus a monthly slush fund of $1,200 (diapers, wipes, a new stroller, a 2-year-old's clothes, fishing gear, hiking boots, and, per a Windsor Terrace mother, the exorbitant surprise fees charged by her son's pediatric dentist: "We cannot get out of there without spending $200. They fill every single baby-tooth cavity. My 3-year-old now has three crowns").

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After a onetime payment of $323,683.

Audrey is 25 years old and works at an investment firm in Manhattan. In this future, let's say she has children who are 6, 7, and 9 years old.

I’d be living on the Upper East Side with a husband and three kids. In my dream, it's a four-bedroom apartment with natural light and high ceilings, ideally on Park, Madison, or Fifth in the 70s or 80s, either in an older building that's renovated or a more modern one, and I’d probably get a decorator. We’d lease one car in the city, a seven- or eight-seater. And we’d have a second home on Long Island. I’d cook three or four nights a week and order in the rest of the time from our local Italian place, and every week or so I’d do drinks and dinner with friends, maybe in the West Village at Cafe Cluny or Rosemary's. If my husband would go with me, I’d love us to have season tickets to the Jets. Nails once a month, a haircut three times a year, and highlights if I start going gray. I would also want a membership at a high-end gym and regular facials.

I’d like my kids to go to one of the magnet schools because they’re really good, and free is nice — like Hunter or Bronx Science. A nanny from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. while my husband and I are at work, and my children would play an instrument and a sport. In the summer, I’d make my kids go to a summerlong sailing camp on Long Island, and for vacation, we’d go somewhere in the Caribbean and stay at a resort with a beach and activities. We’d also join a Reform or Conservative synagogue, which is a whole ordeal in itself. If I’m living on the Upper East Side, the subway can be really inconvenient, and I wouldn't want my kids going alone, so we’d probably do a lot of cabs. If I’m being perfectly honest, a lot of this is very similar to either my life or the life I saw growing up in New York, and I think I turned out okay.

An apartment with Audrey's exact parameters will be at least $4.5 million, and it might not even be that nice — you’re paying for the address. But things get better if she's willing to lose a bedroom. We found her a three-bedroom at 1088 Park Avenue that costs $2.8 million (two of the children can share a room). There’ll be a 50 percent down payment, standard for fancy UES co-ops, and it’ll cost $151,166 for things like closing fees, the flip tax, and the mansion tax. Her monthlies (including utilities) will be $12,958. If Audrey wants professional help decorating, one interior designer who handles high-end apartments in Manhattan says that would start at $60,000 a room. (Children's rooms are half that.) Every building has the occasional special assessment: There's a lobby renovation or a repainting, and everyone has to chip in; this could range from a few hundred dollars to tens of thousands. Let's say that this year Audrey's building needs façade work and elevator mechanical rehab, like one Manhattan co-op owner we spoke to — he recently got a bill of $19,000 to cover the costs.

The elementary school at Hunter College is extremely hard to get into — admissions offers are made to only 50 candidates per grade after two rigorous rounds of testing. If this doesn't work out, Audrey's Zip Code means she has access to one of the best public schools in the entire city: P.S. 6, Lillie D. Blake. (Some parents attempt address fraud to get their kids into this place.) As for someone to ferry them to their activities — piano lessons for all three kids ($3,000 a year for each, according to one UES parent of three), dance for the 9-year-old ($1,115 per semester), and soccer for the 7-year-old ($2,000 a year) — there’ll be Audrey's nanny. Many full-time nannies are paid between $60,000 and $100,000 a year. "Essentially, she's a second mom," says one parent of three under the age of 7. With the frequency of holidays, kids getting sick, and her and her husband's extremely inflexible jobs, it feels worth it. "You panic about your job, and you panic about your kids, then you have enough weeks like that and you panic about your marriage," she says.

Audrey's second home — let's say it's on the North Fork — will start at around $800,000 if she picks a place inland, like 45195 Route 25 in Southold. Closing costs could be $38,291, the land-preservation tax will be $16,625, water and electricity will be $2,000 a year, and as for heat — well, "you have to keep it running all winter so the pipes don't burst," says one media executive. Their winter heating bill comes out to $2,000, so let's say $3,000 for the year. And given how old these homes are, things can go south at any time; one artist on the North Fork estimates she spends an average of $6,000 a year on repairs. Lawn maintenance and trash collection will cost, in total, $140 a month.

Plus a splurge-y family vacation at the beloved-by-fancy-uptowners Four Seasons Anguilla ($22,250 for flights and exorbitant hotel meals), three trampoline-park birthday parties ($849 each), membership at Central Synagogue ($4,400) along with the cost of Hebrew school ($2,400 per child), ten weeks of summer day camp in Southold for the two younger children ($525 a week at the Child's Garden), sailing camp at the Southold Yacht Club for her oldest kid ($1,260) and a required membership ($600), FreshDirect groceries (around $1,200 a month based on the budgets of two similar families), a weekly dinner at Cafe Cluny–esque spots ($200) and two nights of takeout from Caffe Buon Gusto ($180 each), a new Audi Q7 with insurance ($1,656) and UES garage parking (a whopping $999), Audrey's personal maintenance regimen ($5,500 for a year's worth of manicures, haircuts, highlights, facials, and an Equinox membership), two season tickets to the Jets ($7,000), and the monthly slush fund of $4,000, which is the amount one Brooklyn mother of two estimates her own to be, and which would include a healthy cab budget, weekend lunches with the family, iPads for the children, and holiday tips for the doormen).

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After a onetime payment of just under $2,019,582.

Ian is a 25-year-old arborist in Manhattan.

I’d like to buy in the southern part of Washington Heights, a basement apartment in a brownstone with a little backyard where I could grow native plants and wildflowers. I’d live with a partner. No children but two cats. I’d still take public transit, though my favorite way of getting around is by motorcycle. There's one I’ve been fawning over, a Moto Guzzi V7, so I’d love to upgrade to that someday. For exercise, I’d buy an inflatable kayak and ride my bike — just a decent-framed, fixed-gear bike will do. Once a month, I’d get a barbershop haircut. I quite like the experience of buying clothes secondhand, but not every Goodwill is created equal, so in the future I’d shop at more-curated secondhand stores, like a Beacon's Closet.

One thing I try to avoid is lifestyle creep. Some of my peers have taken high-earning jobs, and I’ve seen how every part of their life becomes more expensive at the same time, almost like the expenses are chasing them. So I’m very focused on keeping some things unchanged and concentrating my money on experiences. For example, the New York Botanical Garden has these arboriculture courses, and right now the cost is too high, but I’d sign up for those or for sailing or drawing lessons. We’d cook most nights, and we’d still shop at Trader Joe's. We’d dine out three nights a week — a good Mexican place with plastic tablecloths where I can get a burrito the size of my head or a local Chinese restaurant. Twice a month, we’d go out to a bar, order a couple house cocktails, then go to a club for dancing. And twice a month, we’d also have people over for board games; we’d cook spaghetti and meatballs for six or seven people, make some martinis and dark-and-stormys, and put out candles for vibes. Ikea sells them in big packages, which is good enough for me. And three weeks a year, we’d travel — going abroad to Chile or Australia one week, then visiting friends around the country. I’d also like to get more into camping and take a weeklong RV road trip somewhere up to Canada.

Owning one floor of a brownstone isn't impossible in Washington Heights, but it isn't particularly likely. According to broker Louis Pulice, the practice of splitting up townhouses into condos hasn't crept much farther north than the Upper West Side. Ian could purchase an entire brownstone ($2.4 million) and rent out the upper units, but let's assume he doesn't want to become a landlord and instead goes the rental route. A brownstone apartment with outdoor space only occasionally comes on the rental market; when it does, it’ll cost around $3,700 a month. (He lucked out — no broker's fee.)

The Moto Guzzi V7 is a solid mid-priced bike; a new bargain-basement edition starts at $8,990. He’ll want to park it in a local garage because motorcycles are easy to steal. That’ll cost $225 a month, though Ian may run into a supply problem: "In Washington Heights, there's not a lot of motorcycle garage parking," says one longtime biker in Manhattan. "You hear all these stories of people going to garages: ‘Excuse me, do you take motorcycles here?’ ‘No, get away.’ You feel like Jesus Christ. Like there's no room at the inn." The Manhattan biker lucked into a motorcycles-only parking garage called Ryders Alley, which comes with Wi-Fi, a bike lift, and a cubby for his jacket and helmet, but these garages can have waiting lists. Ian is probably also looking at an up-front purchase of locks and alarms ($400 to $500) and a full set of gear ($700 to $1,000): a good helmet and boots, gloves, and abrasion-resistant pants and jacket. Every year, he’ll need insurance (our biker source pays $650 a year) and gas ($38 a month for commuting April through November) and new tires every three to four years ($500 total). Ian's other set of wheels will be lower maintenance in comparison; let's put him on a 4130 steel State fixie ($550), which will cost around $100 in yearly tune-ups.

Ian and his partner's Trader Joe's shopping would be $150 a week, and their social outings — burritos and margaritas at a local Mexican place like Refried Beans ($33 per person), Chinese food from the Handpulled Noodle ($25 per person), cocktails at Penny Jo's ($15 each) — would come out to around $1,000 a month, including tax and tip. Their game nights will cost about $55 each, assuming they’re burning four Ikea candles per night and drinking Beefeater gin martinis. As far as other socializing costs go, one married Washington Heights resident points out that a big expense could be spontaneous transportation. "Living in Washington Heights means coming to terms with spending money getting downtown and uptown, either because we can't deal with the subway at all or because we can't face taking it twice in the same day," he says (he and his partner spend $250 a month on Uber and Lyft, though if Ian is dead-set on avoiding lifestyle creep, he may just default to the subway).

Plus setting up his modest garden ($1,000 up front, then $80 a year for supplies and upkeep), utilities ($200 a month), the kayak ($570), the two cats ($2,400), the RV camping trip for two people for one week ($2,300, according to a Brooklyn resident who did something similar recently), a five-week class on spring trees and shrubs at the New York Botanical Garden ($340 for nonmembers), a sailing lesson at Hudson River Community Sailing in Inwood ($125 for a three-hour intro class), drawing lessons at the Art Studio NY ($275 for a six-week course), a trip to Chile ($1,500 per person), and let's assume Ian has a friend who can crash at his place and take care of the cats while he's gone), his monthly barbershop haircut ($40 each), ten solid pieces from Beacon's Closet ($450), plus a monthly slush fund of $500 for him and his partner, which is the monthly "random stuff" spend of a child-free Washington Heights couple in their 60s we spoke to who purchase things like vitamin D, bulk floss and toothpaste, a year's supply of garbage and recycling bags, and garden supplies and plants.

.

After a onetime payment of $12,410.

Louise is a 23-year-old events coordinator in Staten Island. In this future, let's say she's raising children who are 5, 7, 9, and 11.

I’d own a house on the North Shore of Staten Island, so it wouldn't be so difficult to get to the ferry — maybe in a nice area close to St. George or in West Brighton, within walking distance of a coffee shop or deli. I’d like an old Victorian house with columns and a pop of color. I would love to have a porch or balcony, and I want a yard. I don't need a housekeeper; the only thing I’d want is a landscaper or a lawn-mowing service.

I’d be married and have four kids (I have seven siblings), so we would need a minivan. I’d send my kids to a Catholic school so that can be their starting point for understanding the world. Ideally, I would work from home a couple of days a week or shift to part time, and my husband could work remotely one day a week; then we could get family to cover a day or week. I’d definitely put my kids in ballet class and on some sports teams — not football or wrestling or boxing or anything high contact, but I’d be okay with soccer, baseball, basketball. And in the summers, theater or dance or sports camp.

I work events, so I get gowns from Windsor, but I’d switch to something a bit more sophisticated, like Macy's. Every two months, I’d take the ferry into Manhattan to see the ballet, Broadway, or summer opera. Once a week, it’d be nice to have one date night and then one dinner out with friends, and we’d probably get family to watch the kids. We’d probably go to a place with $18-to-$25 entrées like Ho’Brah Staten Island or Bayou. Once I have my own space, I’d host themed parties every so often, like a Met Gala red-carpet viewing where we all dress to the theme of the costume exhibit: 20 to 30 guests with platters of food from Costco. Once every five to ten years, I’d do a big trip to another country, and I’d like to plan more local trips to see family for a week where we’d probably just stay at their house.

Compared with other private schools in New York, Catholic schools tend to be more affordable because they’re subsidized by the diocese. So the total cost of sending all four kids to a Catholic elementary school, such as Blessed Sacrament, would start at $20,400 a year, plus the occasional donation for a fundraising event, say $500 for a raffle basket (you can elect not to participate, one local parent says, but you’d be the odd person out). According to Louise's mother, Lea, families at Catholic schools typically spend around $400 for their child to join the school basketball or soccer team, though this would be taking the more modest route: "Sports are a big, big thing in Staten Island," Lea says. "Some people's kids are doing three or four or five sports and go to basketball camps and basketball clinic. Our family didn't do nearly as much." Fifty-minute ballet classes at a nearby school like Mrs. Rosemary's Dance Studio cost $65 per kid per month, though Lea says some offer scholarships for male dancers.

Broker Tom Crimmins says St. George, the neighborhood along the waterfront where Louise wants to live, is one of the more average-priced neighborhoods — but Victorians in St. George are low turnover and rare to find, so those can get into the seven figures, especially if they’re landmarked. A good fit (since Louise is okay with her children sharing rooms) would be this four-bedroom house at 122 Hamilton Avenue, about a 15-minute walk from the Ferry Terminal, that's currently going for $798,000. Closing costs could be $26,764. And, of course, there's going to be lots of upkeep — according to a contractor who works frequently on old Victorians, they need something every year. The cedar shake requires treatment with an oil-based stain (which recently became more expensive), the windows need replacing, the tongue-and-groove flooring on the porch goes out, the heating system gives. Let's say the last happens to Louise this year — it’ll be $14,000.

The Staten Island parents we spoke to tend to fill their gas tank once a week; Lea, who drives an eight-seater minivan, spends around $400 a month on gas. (Let's add another $350 for the gas to visit family out of state.) "Tolls are a hidden cost of Staten Island if you’re doing a lot in Brooklyn, Manhattan, or New Jersey," Lea says. "My kids used to do dance in Brooklyn six days a week, and my husband used to work there, so there was a time when we’d average 22 tolls per week. Even with the Staten Island discount, we’d spend hundreds of dollars per month." Let's assume this year Louise sticks closer to home and averages four tolls ($11 total) a week. And as for her clothing budget: One person we spoke to who used to work in events tells us that a senior events coordinator may need to refresh her wardrobe every year with a few new shirts and dresses, a new pencil skirt and blazer and suit, and pair of shoes ($1,500 at Macy's).

Plus the monthly payment for a 2021 Kia Sedona ($772), enrollment for Louise's four children at the Spotlight Theatre Staten Island summer camp for two weeks each ($ 2,100 total) followed by four weeks of day camp at the Staten Island Broadway YMCA ($6,954 for the whole clan), four birthday parties ($300 each for pizza and cake at home or at a park), annual school fees ($900), a weekly lawn-mowing service ($50 a week), groceries for a family of six between a few Costco runs and an every-other-day trip to Stop & Shop reaches up to $2,000 a month (adjusted from the budget of Louise's mother), occasional themed parties for 30 (one meat-and-cheese platter from Costco is $27; Louise would probably need two), dinners and date night ($120 per week), occasional tickets to the ballet and Broadway ($850 a year), utilities ($500), and a monthly slush fund of $1,880, which is how much Lea, Louise's mother, spends on new kids’ clothes, holiday decorations, field trips, and ice cream after dinner.

.

After a onetime payment of $192,364.

➼ Aliya in Brooklyn Heights ➼ Tarek in Bed-Stuy ➼ Chen in Jackson Heights ➼ Audrey on the Upper East Side ➼ Ian in Washington Heights ➼ Louise in Staten Island ➼ Rachel in Westchester ➼ Charlotte in Park Slope ➼ Bri in Hudson

Rachel is a 30-year-old theater agent in Queens. In this future, let's say she's raising children who are 6, 8, and 10.

We’d live in Westchester, specifically in Bronxville, because it's not too far from the city — that way, I could still commute into the office a few times a week. Also it's walkable, so our kids could take the bus or walk to school and I’d go to the grocery store without driving. Our ideal house is two stories and four bedrooms and close to the train station. We’d want a pool, but we don't need a ton of land — we do not have green thumbs — so we’re fine with it being on top of another house. We’d have a weekly housekeeper and a snowplow guy for the winters. One car would be fine.

We’d have three kids. A family member has an au pair who's a study-abroad student, and it's actually not that crazy compared to day care, so I’d prefer that, plus my parents don't live too far away, so they could babysit. The kids would go to public school and do some sort of team activity and play a musical instrument. We’d have at least two dogs, a Pomeranian and a Shetland sheepdog. We love paddle tennis and would have a paddle-tennis permit for the family. At that point, we’d probably want some community. Maybe a rec club, and I’m not opposed to a country club, but it depends on the price, and it has to be a family-oriented place. I would also want to join a church. And I’d be planning charitable events — fundraisers for the church or charitable drives for a social club. Three or four times a year, we’d take a trip to Florida, where we’d stay in a family house (I’d drop the dogs off at my parents’). Every September, we’d do a family trip to the Jersey shore with my parents, where we’d rent a house and go out for every meal — just one nice dinner and then the rest of the time it's beach food, clam-shack types of places.

Suburban homeownership seems appealing when compared to an impossible-to-please New York City co-op board. If Rachel buys, say, a $1.6 million very walkable Tudor at 25 Parkway Road (sadly, it lacks a pool, which can be hard to come by in Bronxville, given the small lots), she’ll pay around $10,062 a month, which includes Westchester's eye-popping property taxes, and likely $32,898 in closing costs. This feels like a "transition from the city" home; if she loves it here, and wants to give up her three-minute walk to the train station and farmers’ market, she can move into the leafier, more expensive part of Bronxville.

"We’ve had a lot of things, well, I don't want to say go wrong," says Kat, who bought an old Victorian in the suburbs in 2018 after seven years in Queens. Many of those problems relate to the local fauna. "We paid $5,000 to a pest person to close up all these holes, because we had squirrels running through our attic," which we absolutely think will happen to Rachel. Termite prevention ("Important with all the old wood houses in this area!" one Westchester homeowner pointed out) might run $1,600 for installation, then $350 a year for annual upkeep and service visits. Heating and cooling a whole house adds up, too. "This is the big one, and this is the one I fucking hate," one Chappaqua transplant told us. Here, her utilities (natural gas, water, and electric) will be $638 per month. Plus: "Westchester is wet," the Chappaqua homeowner warned. "I had to waterproof my basement last year, which is a pretty common thing people end up having to do," she says, an improvement that cost her $15,000.

Like so much else, the cost of maintaining her idyllic suburban lawn depends on how much Rachel wants to do herself, but if she outsources mowing, she's looking at $60 a week, although the more they do, the more it costs: One homeowner in Hastings-on-Hudson told us landscaping — mowing plus "some minor gardening and whatnot" — runs him $150 a week. "My wife and I don't do any of that stuff. We’re city folk," he says. That doesn't include a biannual lawn cleanup ($500 once in the spring and another postseason cleanup in the fall for $600). In the winter, one's landscaper often transforms into one's snowplow guy, charging $100 a pop. And if she’d like to actually use her lawn on balmy summer evenings, one easily bitten homeowner recommends spraying for mosquitoes for the course of the summer: For her, nine visits from Mosquito Hunters came to $720 a season, or $80 per session. And if Rachel does want to join a club nearby, most have extremely hefty initiation fees. They range from $45,000 to $125,000. (The upside: "I think it was good for my husband," one Westchester mom told us. "I have found many men in the suburbs, they have a harder time meeting other men.") Fortunately, she can play paddle tennis locally for much less — a recreation permit to use the paddle courts is $540 a year for a family.

An au pair is way cheaper than a nanny, though Rachel would effectively be adding a member to her family. The minimum weekly stipend for au pairs, who can work up to 45 hours a week, is $195.75, plus the program fee, which might be $11,000 a year. But that doesn't take into account the less-easy-to-quantify stuff. One Westchester parent with three children says she pays for her au pair's gas ($75 to $100 a month), car insurance, and cell-phone line with unlimited data. And, she says, having her in the house means the family grocery bill goes up about $200 a month. "Plus, for Christmas, obviously I’m not going to have the kids open their plethora of presents and have the au pair only get, like, a gift card or something. Especially because most of our au pairs have been from Italy, so a lot of them are Catholic, and Christmas is a huge deal."

Rachel's kids are in public school, which costs nearly nothing (that's what the $27,500 a year in property taxes is mostly for), but activities still do. Tennis lessons will be $80 each, and weekly piano lessons $1,950 a semester. And God forbid her children want to do travel sports. Let's say Rachel's 10-year-old wants to join a club baseball team that travels: If they play spring and summer, it would probably cost $3,000 a year for things like tournament registration, access to the training facilities, umpires, an actually good coach ("You may have former major leaguers that are coaching the club team," says the founder of a local baseball league. "And for the town programs, it's usually investment-banker dads hustling up from Manhattan.") But all of that pales in comparison with the costs of tagging along to games. If Rachel's baseball player has ten tournaments a year, a handful will be far away, and those weekends, per one Mount Kisco training-center owner, could cost parents around $750 each.

"I have no regrets about being a suburbanite," one Westchester parent told us. "But, you know, it is amazing how much money suburban life costs." "We easily blow through an unbudgeted and shocking average of $1,500 a month on nothing," another local said. "It's not, you know, like living in New York City, where you feel like you walk out the door and $50 flies out of your pocket. I don't feel like I have that same experience here. But also I don't have sidewalks," said another.

Plus the weekly grocery-store run at the nearby Acme ($350, based on the budgets of two similar Westchester families), three birthday parties ($900 a year), town camp for the two younger kids while their oldest sibling plays baseball during the summer ("The best deal around," according to one Westchester parent — it's $1,395 for six weeks), the week on the Jersey shore ($3,600, according to one New Yorker who recently rented a house on Long Beach Island, counting the house, plus "food, alcohol, restaurants, many ice creams, and also one of those beach-wagon things"), a weekly visit from a housekeeper ($150), a used Subaru Outback ($2,243 down, then $561 a month, including insurance for the au pair), gas for the car ($200 a month), basic care for her two dogs ($3,000), and a few family trips to Florida (one Brooklyn parent said a recent trip to Boca to visit grandparents cost $6,000, but Rachel wouldn't pay that much), basic homeowners insurance ($1,500), plus a monthly slush fund of $2,000 like that of another parent of three we spoke to, which includes things like neighborhood fundraisers and booster-club events, Girl Scout cookies, trips to the plant nursery, book fairs, gifts for coaches, unplanned trips to Home Depot.

.

After a onetime payment of $359,141.

Charlotte is a 29-year-old journalist in Brooklyn. In this future, let's say she's raising a 13-year-old.

I’d be married with one child, and we’d rent a three-bedroom duplex apartment right near the park on the border of Windsor Terrace. It would have a dishwasher, roof access, and an abundance of closets. We’d have a cleaning person once a month, and I’d send my laundry out. We’d own a hybrid or electric four-door car and rent a parking spot in a garage. My kid would go to good public elementary and middle schools, then something like Stuyvesant for high school. They’d be heavily into the arts. I’ll be the type of parent who takes my kid to museums literally every weekend. I’d be a member at MoMA and the Whitney, and I’d donate enough to get my name on the wall at Film Forum and get all the perks. Plus art camp and music classes. I’d always have two cats. We’d eat out once a week at a new place and also get pizza every week — but nice pizza. I’d shop at Whole Foods and Trader Joe's, instead of the bodega or the corner market. We’d save up for a big international trip every other year with the cheapest flights we could find. I’d go to Japan many times.

I deal with chronic pain, so I’d see an actually good physical therapist, a good regular therapist, and have acupuncture and massages every other month. Plus a monthly yoga pass and a nice gym membership — better than Blink but not as fancy as Equinox. And I’d outsource my hair care — I have thick curly hair that takes an hour to wash, so I’d go to a hair lady for monthly deep cleaning, conditioning, and detangling. I’d be able to casually buy a Rachel Antonoff sweater, and I’d have a little vanity of makeup — the fancy mascara, not Maybelline or Sephora store brand, and the $30 eyeliner. I also collect retro video games, which is an expensive hobby. And every weekend, I could stop in at a record store or bookstore and buy a book or a record for my collection without feeling bad about it.

In all likelihood, Charlotte's 13-year-old will need some test prep for the SHSAT, a.k.a. the Stuy test. This could theoretically start when the kid is 3 — not unusual in this city. Or she could adopt the comparatively laid-back approach of one Manhattan parent we spoke to: His child's regimen includes 12 hours of private tutoring ($140 an hour) plus test-prep classes the summer before and in the fall of eighth grade ($2,090), as well as a year's subscription to Elissa Stein's High School 411 newsletter ($200) and a onetime high-school-admissions consult with Stein herself ($260 an hour). Outside school, those weekly music lessons come in at $250 a month, but luckily, the other costs of raising her artistic child will be more moderate: around $340 a year for the family memberships to the MoMA and the Whitney, plus $250 to get her name on the Film Forum wall. And now that Charlotte's child is 13, she’ll no longer need a babysitter for her nights out: "More often than not, he's at a sleepover anyway, and I coordinate my going out with his social activities," one Brooklyn parent tells us of her tween's social calendar. In the summer, Charlotte's teen could get a babysitting gig, but many Stuy students are extremely achievement oriented, and even though freshman year will not yet have begun, it's not out of the question for them to start optimizing their breaks for college applications. If Charlotte's child is ready to enter that rat race, they might enroll in the popular–among–Park Slope–parents Great Books writers’ workshop at Amherst ($3,095 for a week), but if they want a lower-key summer, they might go to the Brooklyn Museum camp ($3,250 for five weeks).

Regarding the other members of Charlotte's family, we spoke to two Brooklyn-based cat owners (one of whom requested that we "let the record show they get only the fanciest wet food") who each spend just over $1,550 a year for each cat's basic vet checkups, litter, food, and insurance. Let's say, like one of those cat people, Charlotte has one healthy cat and another plagued by medical issues. That cat owner spends an additional $500 a year on prescriptions and — between the blood work and the annual echocardiogram for the cat's heart murmur — $2,500 in vet expenses (though pet insurance reimburses some of it).

The three-bedroom, two-bath in Park Slope will be, at the very least, $5,000 a month. We found one at 462 Seventh Avenue, No. 2, which was recently on the market for $5,900. It even comes with a parking spot ($200 a month) for Charlotte to park her 2023 Hyundai Ioniq 5 SE (she’ll put $9,000 down and will pay $880 a month, including the car insurance). Finding an in-network therapist whom you actually like is akin to finding a below-market-rate apartment without a broker's fee (which, by the way, would be $10,620 for that Park Slope apartment) — it's equal parts luck, timing, and extreme perseverance. If she doesn't find such a person, therapy can cost between $150 and $400 a session. The rest of Charlotte's health-and-wellness routine will come out to $333 a month (the sum of a basic membership to Shambhala Yoga & Dance Center, in-network physical therapy and acupuncture, and membership to the South Slope Crunch). Let's add $1,070 for a ten-pack of massages from Melt Massage & Bodywork. And the monthly hair care, assuming Charlotte is doing a wash-and-go and no styling, would come out to around $150.

Plus dinner out once a week ($150 at a place like Pasta Louise), laundry (one New Yorker with a family of three washes five loads per week, which would cost about $32 at a Park Slope wash-and-fold), a birthday celebration at a local skating rink ($660), weekly shopping at Trader Joe's and Whole Foods ($200, based on the grocery bill of one Manhattan mother of two who frequents both) and weekly pizza from Emily ($72 including fee and tips), housecleaning ($200), utilities ($250 a month), the occasional Rachel Antonoff dress ($275 each), the every-other-year trip to Japan (around $11,000 including souvenirs and meals, according to a parent who recently took her family there), plus a monthly slush fund of $1,200 (which might pay for some hardcovers, records and retro video games, a few $30 tubes of mascara, and a new winter jacket for her teen).

.

After a onetime payment of $19,620.

Bri is a 30-year-old data analyst in Brooklyn. In this future, let's say she's raising children who are 8 and 11.

In an ideal world, I’d design and build a home in Hudson inspired by Anaïs Nin's in L.A. It would have three bedrooms, have a garden and a stream in the backyard, and would not be super-close to other houses. It would have room for a sewing studio. And in that sewing studio I’d have a serger and a sewing machine and a big table that I can get to on all sides and really iron. I’d also have a one-bedroom in Greenpoint. Both my partner and I would have flexible hours, so we’d split caretaking duties of our two kids. They’d do pre-K to second grade in a Montessori school, then public school for the rest. They’d go to day camp in the summer and do activities during the school year — whatever they’re interested in — twice a week per kid. The house would have an open-door policy with lots of people coming in and out and lots of dinner parties, which means keeping the house stocked with food from the grocery store and the farmers’ market. I’d want a Mini Cooper to get around.

I’d be able to casually buy things from Paloma Wool, YanYan knits, Arthur Apparel, Maryam Nassir Zadeh, and Tangerine, a shop in Williamsburg. Maybe one new piece a week. I also want to be able to buy real investment furniture — big wooden tables from antiques stores in Hudson that are "rustic chic" or "modern rustic farmhouse" or whatever. I don't love traveling, but we’d go on two weeklong family trips a year, flying economy and staying in boutique hotels. Maybe to Mexico, where we’d spend two nights in Oaxaca, then go to Mexico City, where we’d stay in the Brooklyn Heights of Mexico City rather than the Times Square of Mexico City.

Building a house is expensive — probably more than Bri thinks. "Some people don't realize that you have to dig a well; you’re not on town water or town sewer. So you’d need to construct a septic field and a septic tank for all of your waste and even road access," says Kimberly Ackert, an architect. "Also you may not have power going to the property. Adding all those things could be $100,000 to $200,000." The more straightforward option, she says, is to buy an existing house and renovate, but that's not cheap either: The costs, she estimates, would range from $300 to $500 a square foot (so in this case, it would be a $750,000 renovation). "No matter how many hotel rooms you get in New York City, no matter how many fancy dinners you have, train tickets to the city, or even vacations, nothing could compare to home renovations," says a resident who renovated a house in Hudson. "$100,000 goes away in a blip. You buy the Victorian mansion, you’re going to start at a million dollars of renovation. That's, like, standard." 279 Scudderhook Road, listed at $925,000, has a stream out back. Bri's closing costs would be $23,909, and her monthly payments would be around $5,825.

Unless she wants to go use the Metro-North station in Poughkeepsie (an hour away), Bri is stuck with Amtrak, whose prices go drastically up and down like airplane tickets. Locals say it's an unavoidable expense when living in Hudson; a ticket to the city might cost $56 each way. Plus, in Hudson, "you have to drive everywhere," says another local. A nice Mini Cooper with about $5,000 down will cost about $700 a month, not including insurance, and gas is about $70 a week. "You really are filling it up once a week, at least," they say. (Not to mention the fact that the Mini Cooper will be a bit of a squeeze with two kids.) That's especially true if she chooses to regularly drive the 120 miles to her apartment in Greenpoint (we found her a no-fee one-bedroom at $3,850 a month).

We spoke to several recent Hudson arrivals with children, and many sounded surprised to find that the upstate city didn't have quite as robust a raising-a-child infrastructure as, say, Park Slope. There are good activities, but supply is low and they can be competitive to get into. Says one parent about private baseball lessons ($40 a week for each child), "It's in high demand and hard to even get an appointment." And things one takes for granted in Brooklyn are difficult to come by: "Everyone's like, ‘It's so great up here.’ Unless you’re trying to get a math tutor," one father tells us. The six-week camp at Art Omi is so popular that it once "sold out in an hour" and costs $500 per week. Other residents spoke about how Hudson's gentrification ("The streets are lined with Teslas," one ex-resident says) means city-high prices at restaurants and the many specialty grocery stores (like Talbott & Arding, where some honeycomb costs $25) that line the main street. Bri could do a haul of her staples at a grocery store like ShopRite ("Around $120 for pantry stuff," estimates a Hudson father) and supplement with stuff from the farmers’ market (another $120). The dinner parties will be around $200, assuming guests are polite and bring wine.

Plus utilities and maintenance ($1,326 a month for heating, electric, pest control, lawn care), dining out three nights a week (sometimes at a cheaper place like Isaan Thai Star, sometimes at more expensive spots like Lil’ Deb's Oasis), music lessons at Bard (it's a 25-minute drive, and parents pay around $30 an hour for private instruction), the occasional babysitter (Bri and her husband will both be working full time, so let's say $450 a week), clothes (sometimes a $120 top from Paloma Wool, sometimes $400 MNZ pants), a $5,500 trip to Mexico City, and a monthly slush fund of $1,200.

.

After a onetime payment of $963,909.

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