When people talk about the city being expensive, what they are talking about, primarily, is rent prices. This is the massively dominant factor in NYC’s higher cost of living. And the caveat there is that while rent prices are very, very high in Manhattan, and quite high in the parts of Brooklyn and Queens that are <= 15 minutes by public transit from Manhattan, as you get further from that, the rents drop. Not to Midwest levels (for example)—no, never quite that far; but they do drop.
And many things are actually cheaper in NYC than elsewhere. I own a car and benefit from that fact greatly, but it can’t be denied that car ownership is not at all mandatory in NYC—that’s money in your pocket. Groceries—fresh fruits and vegetables in every variety, and everything else from the basics to ethnic cuisine ingredients—are cheaper than anywhere else I’ve been to, in the U.S. The ubiquitous “99 cent stores” are huge money-savers. Etc.
Note about NYC being too expensive:
When people talk about the city being expensive, what they are talking about, primarily, is rent prices. This is the massively dominant factor in NYC’s higher cost of living. And the caveat there is that while rent prices are very, very high in Manhattan, and quite high in the parts of Brooklyn and Queens that are <= 15 minutes by public transit from Manhattan, as you get further from that, the rents drop. Not to Midwest levels (for example)—no, never quite that far; but they do drop.
And many things are actually cheaper in NYC than elsewhere. I own a car and benefit from that fact greatly, but it can’t be denied that car ownership is not at all mandatory in NYC—that’s money in your pocket. Groceries—fresh fruits and vegetables in every variety, and everything else from the basics to ethnic cuisine ingredients—are cheaper than anywhere else I’ve been to, in the U.S. The ubiquitous “99 cent stores” are huge money-savers. Etc.