GETTING BY ON 500G
By BRADEN KEIL
WHAT IT COSTS TO LIVE WELL: Half-mill after taxes needed to live 'well' here.
June 22, 2005 -- It costs plenty to live in New York City — but how much does it cost to live well?
The breadwinner of a Manhattan family of four looking to achieve an affluent lifestyle — not private jets and chauffeured limos, but no public school, either — will have to earn nearly a half-million dollars a year after taxes, according to a survey by forbes.com.
The online survey looked into the expenses of several cities in the Northeast and factored in costs that included housing, education, cars, entertainment and health care to come up with their ballpark figures.
After-tax salary totals ranged from $215,000 in Portland, Maine, to $483,000 in the Big Apple.
This well-living fictional family of four has a four-bedroom residence, a vacation home, a Lexus and BMW, one child in a private college, another in a private high school, a liberal expense account and three vacations per year, including a trip abroad.
The New York numbers are based on a family living on the Upper East Side in the 10021 ZIP code with a primary home cost of $3.9 million and annual mortgage payments of $215,000 a year.
The "family" has a "modest" Hamptons vacation home valued at $1.9 million (not the $90 million beachfront model) with yearly expenses of $105,000.
Other annual bills include $30,300 for college, $26,000 for private school, $18,000 for cars, $12,480 for dining out, $22,000 for vacations, and $22,000 for incidental expenses.
"I think $500,000 will give you a comfortable lifestyle, not an affluent one," said Dolly Lenz, a top real-estate broker with Prudential Douglas Elliman. "To live affluently, not extravagantly, you'd have to make at least $2.5 million a year."
John Herman, a single Wall Street banker, agrees with Lenz.
"I don't believe that I could possibly have a wife and two children and have any kind of privileged lifestyle," he said.
According to study author Sara Clemence, it doesn't take into account different habits in different places. The imaginary family dines out once a week.
"How many affluent New Yorkers only eat out once a week?" she asked. "And if you live in Manhattan, you're probably going to spend far more on clothes and things than if you live in Baltimore."
"It may allow them to keep up with the Joneses today, but it doesn't give them much wiggle room if they hit any financial bumps in the road," said Corcoran Group CEO Pamela Leibman.
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