How can people possibly afford to live in one of the most expensive cities on the planet? It\u2019s a question New Yorkers hear a lot, often delivered with a mix of awe, pity and confusion.<\/p>\n
We surveyed hundreds of New Yorkers about how they spend, splurge and save. We found that many people \u2014 rich, poor or somewhere in between \u2014 live life as a series of small calculations that add up to one big question: What makes living in New York worth it?<\/a><\/p>\n It is a perennial question: Can artists still afford to live in New York? For Carrie Ahern, a choreographer and dancer who has lived and worked in the city for 30 years, the answer is yes \u2014 but it takes a couple of day jobs, a friendly landlord and a willingness sometimes to tell friends, \u201cI can\u2019t tonight, I\u2019m too broke.\u201d<\/p>\n Ms. Ahern moved to New York from Wisconsin in 1995, at age 19, with a dream to become a professional dancer. She had the drive and some contacts. But just as important, she had a nose for cheap real estate. She scored an apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn, for $850<\/strong> a month, split with a roommate. Supporting herself through a series of waitress jobs, she began pursuing her dream.<\/p>\n Now 50, Ms. Ahern runs her own nonprofit dance company<\/a>, staging performances in private homes or unusual spaces, including a butcher shop, where she butchered a lamb<\/a> as part of the show, then sold the meat at the end.<\/p>\n \u201cI kept expanding that dream,\u201d she said of her years in New York. The city, in turn, \u201ccontinued to let me bring out some skills that I didn\u2019t even know I had.\u201d<\/p>\n Those skills include creativity, resourcefulness and agility \u2014 in finance as well as dance.<\/p>\n A Landlord to Cook and Garden With<\/p>\n The dance company pays Ms. Ahern a stipend of $4,800<\/strong> a year, which she augments by teaching Pilates and movement therapy \u2014 sometimes in clients\u2019 homes, sometimes in a rental studio, for which she pays $30<\/strong> an hour. <\/p>\n A third income stream comes from a family company that manufactures industrial parts, which she has helped run since her father\u2019s death in 2018. Her income from those three sources came to about $55,000<\/strong> last year \u2014 about 10 percent higher than usual.<\/p>\n The key to making it work, she said, is her apartment, one floor of a townhouse in the Kensington section of Flatbush, Brooklyn. After 16 years there, her rent is $1,350<\/strong> a month, about half the median asking price for the neighborhood, according to StreetEasy.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s like a cooperative in a lot of ways,\u201d she said. \u201cMy landlord and I are very close, and we help each other out. We cook for each other. Or she was really excited that I love to garden, because she wanted help out there. So she keeps my rent low because she likes that I\u2019m here and that we help each other out.\u201d<\/p>\n Special Expenses for a Dancer<\/p>\n Because Ms. Ahern\u2019s apartment doubles as her office, she writes off part of the rent and utility bills as business expenses. She also deducts books, tickets to performances and any other expenses related to her work \u2014 including fitness and dance clothes, hair and makeup for performances, studio rentals and her Spotify subscription. It helps, she said, to have an accountant who works extensively with performing artists, and who had been one herself.<\/p>\n Those expenses bring Ms. Ahern\u2019s income below $21,600, the threshold for Medicaid eligibility, which spares her from having to pay for health insurance. \u201cIt\u2019s actually been the best insurance I\u2019ve ever had,\u201d she said. \u201cYou know, there\u2019s no co-pay.\u201d<\/p>\n She does, however, still have to pay for routine maintenance on her 50-year-old dancer\u2019s body.<\/p>\n She pays $120<\/strong> for weekly sessions with a personal trainer, plus $115<\/strong> for monthly acupuncture treatments and another $160<\/strong> for monthly massage therapy appointments. \u201cAlmost all these people slide their scale for me, because of my career,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Finding Deals on Apps and Online<\/p>\n Ms. Ahern gets free tickets to a lot of performances because she knows the people involved. Yet a free ticket can turn into an expensive night out if she isn\u2019t careful. \u201cLike, if someone says, \u2018Oh, do you want to meet for dinner before?\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re good about being honest with each other, like, \u2018I\u2019m just really broke right now, and I can\u2019t do it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n