Comments on: Reader Mail: The Rules We Live By

By: Meaux

Meaux — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 14:13:02 +0000

@Kate Amann@twitter. He has the same effect on me! He’s an understanding and sympathetic voice of reason. I think that is why he gets so many proposals of marriage.

By: cherrispryte

cherrispryte — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 17:21:58 +0000

So over half my income goes to rent, and I’m well aware that’s ridiculous. That said, it’s the most convenient apartment in the entire world, in the middle of a highly bikeable and walkable city, near 2 grocery stores and the metro. I figure (and I learned this the hard way a few years ago) I would wind up spending so much more on cabs and delivery food if I lived pretty much anywhere else. Also, it’s safe as hell, so that’s nice. Yes, I make sacrifices left and right to afford my ridiculous rent, but I’m okay with that.
Well, mostly okay with that.

By: allreb

allreb — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 15:44:38 +0000

Lovely advice, Mike Dang (as usual).

When my sister and I were looking for a place about a year ago, we had a lonnnnng talk about what we really wanted. The ultimate answer was location, for which we were willing to pay a few hundred bucks more than our previous rent, for a smaller space. Our 2BR in Morningside Heights comes in just under neighborhood average rent, even with a slight rent increase this year, but it’s less than a block from the train we both need to get to work, it’s only on the third floor (everywhere else we looked that we could afford was a sixth floor walk up), and we like the building and the neighborhood a lot. For us, those things were worth paying more than the minimum (or even average) of what we “should” have been willing to pay.

(My best friend just went through a similar decision to what was described in the article, too, deciding that living alone and the sanity she gets from that was more important than keeping her rent costs at that 30% level. Her life is much better for it.)

By: mishaps

mishaps — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 15:34:03 +0000

It’s also good to consider whether or not your rent will go up significantly – I would be more willing to encourage you to go to the edge of what you could afford if you’re in a New Yorker in one of those increasingly-rare rent-stabilized apartments. I had one that in the course of nine (!) years in the apartment went from “market rate” to “OMG so cheap” because the cost only went up by a third while rents around me more than doubled.

(I also have friends who have rented apartments in private homes where they’ve been able to maintain a reasonable rate of increase because it mattered more to the landlord that there was someone living there who they liked and trusted than that they were maximizing their profits, but that’s more subject to change if your landlord loses a job or sells the place.)

By: Mike Dang

Mike Dang — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 13:55:33 +0000

@stuffisthings I think we can all agree that being forced to spend more than you want or can afford to simply live somewhere is not a good thing, and if that was what the reader who wrote to me was going through, I would have offered different advice.

My point is that financial advisors would typically tell a person like Amy that she’s spending more than she should on rent, and probably admonish her for it because they love their rules of thumb, but she’s doing exactly what she needs to be doing to make herself happy, while still figuring out a way to be financially stable. I’d hope we could all live our lives in such a way.

By: navigateher

navigateher — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 13:37:52 +0000

@MuffyStJohn Also ridiculous? We have one of the lowest population density per square mile scores anywhere yet we live in these ridiculous small boxy apartments. All we have is land. Forests and fields and more forests.

By: MuffyStJohn

MuffyStJohn — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 13:11:33 +0000

@navigateher Whenever I feel bad about my teeny tiny apartment (under 250 square feet), I tell myself “the Europeans have it worse” and then watch an episode of House Hunters International where couples choose between three variations on a shoebox and I feel a little better.

600 square feet? Not tiny. Actually sort of luxurious.

By: MuffyStJohn

MuffyStJohn — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 13:09:18 +0000

@stuffisthings Thank you for this. The personal choice thing really gets my goat when salaries/stipends/income are not coming close to accommodating the cost of living in a lot of the large, urban areas where people can actually get jobs.

By: navigateher

navigateher — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 11:40:05 +0000

@OneTooManySpoons Yes, this! I’m European and used to very small apartments (also living in a city with very high living costs), although nothing similar to Tokyo. I actually giggled a bit (and then started crying) when I read this: http://thebillfold.com/2012/05/making-small-places-livable/ . The dude who won lives in an apartment over 600 square feet. I know families of three in here that live in that space, and make it work. I also saw an article about small kitchen design ideas in NY (maybe NY Times?), and they were all twice the size of our kitchen (which is considered “airy” and “roomy” here), and people in the comments section were all “omg tiny! how cute! look at that tiny, tiny fridge!!!”. Americans are just used to larger spaces and huge appliances.

By: eemusings@twitter

eemusings@twitter — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 07:19:51 +0000

I absolutely hate spending a lot on rent – it’s money I’ll never get back, after all. That said, I’ve lived with too many awful flatmates in too many gross houses. Right now we’re paying a little more to live alone, in a house, with a garage. I suppose if you split it right down the middle, rent is about 20 percent of my income, but in reality we don’t split things 50/50 because I make a decent amount more than the BF.