{"id":18704,"date":"2025-06-27T09:30:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-27T09:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/18704\/"},"modified":"2025-06-27T09:30:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-27T09:30:09","slug":"new-york-is-the-worst-place-for-a-cheap-date-here-are-the-best-cities-for-romance-on-a-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/18704\/","title":{"rendered":"New York is the worst place for a ‘cheap date.’ Here are the best cities for romance on a budget"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you feel like it\u2019s getting harder to treat your partner to a night out without breaking the bank, you\u2019re right. New Yorkers, specifically, probably won\u2019t be surprised their city is the most expensive<\/a> place to date<\/a> in the U.S., but it could be worse.<\/p>\n

Courting in five European cities\u2014Geneva, Zurich, Copenhagen, Oslo, and London\u2014is even pricier than in the Big Apple<\/a>, according<\/a> to the latest \u201cCheap Date\u201d Index from the Deutsche Bank<\/a> Research Institute. As the chart below shows, romance has become less affordable across the U.S. since the bank published its first annual report tracking worldwide prices in 2012.<\/p>\n

The rising cost of dinner and a movie reflects a wider trend: Besides recent inflation<\/a>, a strong dollar<\/a> and the preeminence<\/a> of U.S. capital markets have pushed prices up across America over the last decade-plus.<\/p>\n

Still, the index suggests several major American cities offer a cheaper night out than metropolises in Europe and elsewhere. Out of 69 cities, ranked by most to least expensive, San Francisco (No. 13) sits behind Tel Aviv (No. 7), Amsterdam (No. 10), and Dublin (No. 12). A romantic gesture in Chicago (No. 26) and Los Angeles (No. 27) also doesn\u2019t set lovers as far back as in Milan (No. 16), Paris (No. 18), or even Buenos Aires (No. 22).<\/p>\n

Two elements of the index particularly favor the U.S. First, taxi rides in America are relatively cheap compared to most of the developed world. That likely hints at the industry\u2019s massive disruption<\/a> prompted by Uber and other ride-hailing apps, which have often been much more limited by regulation<\/a> in Europe.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, as a proxy for a casual outfit, the index uses a pair of Levi jeans and a summer dress. Both inclusions favor the U.S., especially when it comes to the cost of denim.<\/p>\n

New York rents eat up salaries<\/p>\n

Many New Yorkers, however, might find it much harder to splurge than their peers in other major American cities. Unsurprisingly, the largest economy in the world is a magnet for high earners: San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, and New York all rank in the top seven for salary after taxes.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

By Deutsche\u2019s metrics, however, New York is by far the costliest place<\/a> to rent in the world. All the other major U.S. cities also place in the top 11 for renting a one- or three-bedroom apartment, but the latter is, on average, almost half the price in Chicago.\u00a0 The situation is much different when it comes to buying a house: New York is seventh, just behind London, but no other American metropolis falls in the top 15.<\/p>\n

As the chart below shows, that means the average wallet in New York is much lighter than in other U.S. cities. Most American metropolises perform well in the report\u2019s measure of disposable income, particularly San Francisco (No. 3), Boston (No. 7), and Chicago (No. 8). New York, however, comes in No. 41, sitting behind Vancouver (No. 33), Warsaw (No. 39), and Prague (No. 40).<\/p>\n

A similar story plagues the likes of Paris (No. 27), Tokyo (No. 37), and London (No. 38), where rents are also high relative to average salaries. The report cautions, however, that high levels of income inequality\u2014particularly in the Big Apple\u2014mean averages don\u2019t paint the full picture.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s also important to remember when evaluating the report\u2019s annual quality of life index, a subjective measure that includes the cost of living but also factors like commute times, pollution, crime, and healthcare availability. Global financial hubs like New York and London, both tied for No. 50 out 69, struggle mightily, with most major cities in emerging markets performing even worse.<\/p>\n

Regardless, much has changed since Deutsche Bank first published its report on worldwide prices 14 years ago. Coming off the Global Financial Crisis, American cities were a bargain compared to many peer cities in the developed world, noted Jim Reid, the bank\u2019s global head of macro and thematic research, and research analyst Galina Pozdnyakova.<\/p>\n

\u201cFast-forward a decade or so and the U.S. is now jostling with Geneva and Zurich at the top of many of the charts. Yes, a strong dollar helped\u2014but the story runs deeper: it\u2019s a tale of U.S. exceptionalism<\/a>, Wall Street strength, and a tech sector that\u2019s gone global (but has remained American led),\u201d they wrote.<\/p>\n

However, that trend may have peaked, they added. The dollar has dropped<\/a> more than 10% against a basket of currencies this year, and many on Wall Street\u2014and in President Donald Trump\u2019s administration<\/a>\u2014believe the greenback\u2019s decline has been a long time coming. Therefore, relative prices in U.S. cities might start dropping in future rankings. The issue of housing costs, however, probably won\u2019t be fading from New Yorkers\u2019 minds any time soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you feel like it\u2019s getting harder to treat your partner to a night out without breaking the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":18705,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,17749,16027,69,7065,266,135,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-18704","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-cities","10":"tag-dating","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-housing","13":"tag-inflation","14":"tag-markets","15":"tag-new-york","16":"tag-new-york-city","17":"tag-newyork","18":"tag-newyorkcity","19":"tag-ny","20":"tag-nyc","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-united-states-of-america","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114754632235541516","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}