Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Fresh out of college and about to move to NYC for an entry level job in advertising in what would be considered a desirable job that tons of people applied for. Expecting to make around 40k, but I do have some savings and my parents are whiling to be guarantor for whatever lease I sign. What kind of life can I expect to live? I found a bunch of ads looking for roommates for around 1,000-1,200 a month for 6 month-1 year leases that I am considering, but I expect to be house poor for a couple years and live the typical broke young nyc lifestyle.
The entire advertising, pr, and media industries pay around this much for all of their entry level jobs and besides finance these industries are probably the industries most closely identified with NYC, so it must be that I am not the only one planning to live like this?
It's part of the dues paying process to get ahead. Generations of ad industry workers before you went through this. Some actually succeeded and became execs able to afford to live decently in or around NYC.
Quote:
Originally Posted by steelers1523
Fresh out of college and about to move to NYC for an entry level job in advertising in what would be considered a desirable job that tons of people applied for. Expecting to make around 40k, but I do have some savings and my parents are whiling to be guarantor for whatever lease I sign. What kind of life can I expect to live? I found a bunch of ads looking for roommates for around 1,000-1,200 a month for 6 month-1 year leases that I am considering, but I expect to be house poor for a couple years and live the typical broke young nyc lifestyle.
The entire advertising, pr, and media industries pay around this much for all of their entry level jobs and besides finance these industries are probably the industries most closely identified with NYC, so it must be that I am not the only one planning to live like this?
Fresh out of college and about to move to NYC for an entry level job in advertising in what would be considered a desirable job that tons of people applied for. Expecting to make around 40k, but I do have some savings and my parents are whiling to be guarantor for whatever lease I sign. What kind of life can I expect to live? I found a bunch of ads looking for roommates for around 1,000-1,200 a month for 6 month-1 year leases that I am considering, but I expect to be house poor for a couple years and live the typical broke young nyc lifestyle.
The entire advertising, pr, and media industries pay around this much for all of their entry level jobs and besides finance these industries are probably the industries most closely identified with NYC, so it must be that I am not the only one planning to live like this?
I would try to shoot for something in the $800-1000 range and it won't be that bad if you don't have a lot of other bills besides cell phone and a subway pass.
Fresh out of college and about to move to NYC for an entry level job in advertising in what would be considered a desirable job that tons of people applied for. Expecting to make around 40k, but I do have some savings and my parents are whiling to be guarantor for whatever lease I sign. What kind of life can I expect to live? I found a bunch of ads looking for roommates for around 1,000-1,200 a month for 6 month-1 year leases that I am considering, but I expect to be house poor for a couple years and live the typical broke young nyc lifestyle.
The entire advertising, pr, and media industries pay around this much for all of their entry level jobs and besides finance these industries are probably the industries most closely identified with NYC, so it must be that I am not the only one planning to live like this?
Yes that is standard the entry level salary for that industry (when I started it was $25K-$30K!!) but you tend to move up to a better salary pretty quickly. It's not unusual to get to the level of something like a media supervisor in a few years. A big plus with working at an agency is all of the perks you get from the vendors and media companies that want you to spend money with them. You'll get taken to a lot of lunches (you will constantly have "lunch and learns" to get you to come to meetings) and dinners but also taken shopping and to games and concerts. My colleague took some media planners to a shoe store so they could get custom designed sneakers! There are also going to be plenty of open bar events.
So yea, you'll have to tough it out for the first few years. Certainly look to having a roommate situation where you are paying closer to $1000, or even under that amount. It's good that your parents can help out too.
Fresh out of college and about to move to NYC for an entry level job in advertising in what would be considered a desirable job that tons of people applied for. Expecting to make around 40k, but I do have some savings and my parents are whiling to be guarantor for whatever lease I sign. What kind of life can I expect to live? I found a bunch of ads looking for roommates for around 1,000-1,200 a month for 6 month-1 year leases that I am considering, but I expect to be house poor for a couple years and live the typical broke young nyc lifestyle.
The entire advertising, pr, and media industries pay around this much for all of their entry level jobs and besides finance these industries are probably the industries most closely identified with NYC, so it must be that I am not the only one planning to live like this?
Surprise! The great apartments, couture clothing, high-end designer shoes, and $15,000 handbags on Sex and the City were an illusion! You don't get that until you ARE Anna Wintour.
Yes that is standard the entry level salary for that industry (when I started it was $25K-$30K!!) but you tend to move up to a better salary pretty quickly. It's not unusual to get to the level of something like a media supervisor in a few years. A big plus with working at an agency is all of the perks you get from the vendors and media companies that want you to spend money with them. You'll get taken to a lot of lunches (you will constantly have "lunch and learns" to get you to come to meetings) and dinners but also taken shopping and to games and concerts. My colleague took some media planners to a shoe store so they could get custom designed sneakers! There are also going to be plenty of open bar events.
So yea, you'll have to tough it out for the first few years. Certainly look to having a roommate situation where you are paying closer to $1000, or even under that amount. It's good that your parents can help out too.
That's very encouraging, I actually have a handful of interviews lined up with a lot of the major media buyers (GroupM, DAN, OMD, etc.) so maybe one day you'll see me in a meeting! Thankfully I am pursing a career in media because I love media and not just for the perks and a big pay day. I also figure there will be a lot of other young people in my situation working with me so that'll probably make it a lot more fun.
Surprise! The great apartments, couture clothing, high-end designer shoes, and $15,000 handbags on Sex and the City were an illusion! You don't get that until you ARE Anna Wintour.
Well that was also the mid 90's...NYC was far more affordable 20 years ago. I always remember that episode where the drag queens were making noise outside of Samantha's apartment and she made a comment to herself about how she was paying $1000 a month and shouldn't have to put up with that crap. The show dated itself right there because that apartment would likely be 3-4x that much today.
Surprise! The great apartments, couture clothing, high-end designer shoes, and $15,000 handbags on Sex and the City were an illusion! You don't get that until you ARE Anna Wintour.
Well that was also the mid 90's...NYC was far more affordable 20 years ago. I always remember that episode where the drag queens were making noise outside of Samantha's apartment and she made a comment to herself about how she was paying $1000 a month and shouldn't have to put up with that crap. The show dated itself right there because that apartment would likely be 3-4x that much today.
So true. Wasn't that the meat packing district? lol
Well that was also the mid 90's...NYC was far more affordable 20 years ago. I always remember that episode where the drag queens were making noise outside of Samantha's apartment and she made a comment to herself about how she was paying $1000 a month and shouldn't have to put up with that crap. The show dated itself right there because that apartment would likely be 3-4x that much today.
The show ran from 1998 to 2004, not the mid 90's. I was not a regular watcher or fan of the show, but the reason ($1K rent) is she probably had a rent-stabilized apartment if she was paying that even back then according to the show. They are common in NYC. The people with the best deals on rent are the ones living in their apartment the longest. She was old enough to have had the apartment for 10 or more years. If you've got rent stabilization in Manhattan, you've hit the jackpot. Landlords will actually pay people $50-100K to MOVE OUT. NYC is very liberal on that, once you're in, the landlord has to renew the lease and keep charging you cheap rent and usually the raise in the rent cannot be raised more than a few percent per year by law. The landlord cannot get rid of you unless you don't pay or do something else really bad. Seriously, it's crazy and that is probably why other apartments (not rent stabilized) are so high here. I know someone who just moved out of a rent-stabilized studio apartment in one of the other boroughs (a safe neighborhood, but still not a Manhattan neighborhood like in SATC). She had lived in it for 26 years. When she moved, she was only paying $950 a month. She said the landlord is going to renovate it and charge real market rent of $1,600 to $1,800 a month for it now, since it can come off rent-stabilization.
The thing is, to have even the most basic and spare couture wardrobe, it will cost a woman around $50-70K a year. Couture was certainly not that much cheaper then. That show was not realistic and that in itself did not portray the money they would have been making correctly. It was just all Hollywood make believe because they wanted to have the clothes, shoes, bags, etc., in the show and they did it whether or not the characters could afford them in real life.
SATC also portrayed NY women as s l u t s and caused trouble for women who met men who relocated from out of town for dating because they were all expecting to get sex immediately or even worse, thought every woman in NY was like the one who only had one-night stands.
Other TV shows do this too, look at Friends and the apartments they had. And all of them were too young to profit from rent-stabilization. It's Hollywood, what can we say?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
You don't get that until you ARE Anna Wintour.
