A 5 Step Guide to Hacking Life in NYC

Life in the Big Apple can really bite off your tiny wallet. But here’s help for all you clueless transplants.

Photo by Joshua Gay

Welcome to NYC: also known as the 7th most expensive city in the world. While your daily essentials may feel very affordable at each purchase, it all adds up to some monstrous figure that leaves you scratching your head at a negative balance on your checking account. With an intern’s pay that is effectively lower than the minimum wage in the state of New York, it’s no wonder people feel crappy over the weekend, and pass the time browsing Netflix (and chilling).

“Man, why can’t I have nice things?” Cos you broke, stupid.

But don’t worry. Like a true blue Singaporean, I have scrabbled together the top 5 things you need to know on how you can New York like a true New Yorker. Here’s an alternative click-bait title for you: how you can put scrap together a decent living so that you can splurge on that $2200 limited edition Kanye West kicks you damn well cannot afford.

I mean, they look like **** tbh, but hey YA DO YA OWN THANG BRUDDER.

It’s not all just about dollars and cents though: it’s also about meeting great people and learning crazy ideas. This is a blog about the start up life in NYC after all (so I am obliged to write about how you can grow as a budding entrepreneur blah blah blah insert inspirational quote here).

#5 — Tech Meetups and Events

Meetups are pretty rad. Tech meetups are EVEN RADDER. Yes, everyone there is kind of a geek, and no you probably won’t understand what the guy up there with the funny lisp is going on and on about. Still, a lot of these events are FREE, so why not head down and network with some interesting people after work on Tuesdays? I mean, what are you even doing after work on Tuesday anyway?

There is usually free pizza and beer, so you can skip out of making dinner. There are also tons of people who are all too eager to give you their name cards, which means filling in names for your quarterly internship report is a breeze.

And if you are of the fairer sex……well, just ask Penny.

Make sure you go around to the right ones though: as with all free events, some attract a whole bunch of freeloaders and other desperate sorts (here’s looking at you), while others bring together a much more curated guest list. I personally like those put together by Digital Dumbo (free events are announced on email newletters) or IoT Central (completely public). For annual events, NYU students get to attend the Tech@NYU Startup Week absolutely free. This is a week long line up of events that bring together the hottest names in the NYC start up scene, so mark out your calendars and network the right way.

Also, free pizza and beer. Oh wait did I already mention that?

#4 — Groceries

Let’s talk numbers. Dinner in Brooklyn from that shady Chinese takeout round the corner comes up to around $6. Even we we round this down to $5 and I assume you are a broke college kid who skips breakfast, that’s still approximately $300 a month. Which is really not a lot, until you take away things like rent, transport, phone bills, utilities, toiletries etc. And tax on your stipend (yes your minimum wage just got even smaller). Suddenly, you feel like you should really do something about FOOD.

So what do you do? You cook, of course. Even the most hardened kitchen-phobic creature like me succumb to this necessary ritual, much like how 3-year-old me finally learnt how to clean up after himself after potty time because Mummy won’t be wiping asses no more.

This art installation piece is titled “My First Day in the Kitchen”.

But where do you buy groceries? How does a complete amateur like myself navigate the perils of choosing overripe tomatoes? Well, 3 supermarket chains stand out from the rest: Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, and Key Foods.

It may sound really silly to talk about supermarkets here; like, “duh of course I will shop at a super market for my groceries, what kind of stupid advice is that?”. Well, smartypants, supermarkets around the world don’t actually work the same way as your neighbourhood NTUC now, do they? There are no giant supermarket oligopolies within NYC itself. What you see instead are a lot of family-owned grocery stores here, each servicing the immediate community it in is located (a Jewish grocery store here, a Mexican supermarket there).

For fresh transplants like me, Trader Joe’s is your best bet. It is marginally cheaper than the other two since everything is house brand, and it has all the essentials you will need arranged in an idiot-free layout. The shopping experience here is in itself a rite-of-passage from blur sotong to irritable cosmopolitan, so you will just have to see this for yourself.

#3 — Biking 101

Let’s talk even more numbers. The public transport monthly concession sets you back $116.50 per month (and an extra $1 for new train cards), or $1,399 a year. This is the cheapest mode of transport, and it is also likely to increase in the near future.

It is also hardly the most reliable way to travel; frequent delays make the MRT breakdowns in Singapore look merciful in comparison. The commuting experience can be really unpleasant too. Imagine sardine-like conditions during rush hour, strangers harassing you on the train, and tons of filth tossed unto the tracks even with many empty trash bins lining the platform. For me, the MTA train has become a synonym for all that is wrong with New York and New Yorkers.

The train tracks are so unnecessarily gross that I cannot even think of anything funny to write about them.

Which brings me to my favourite NYC hack: biking. IT JUST MAKES SO MUCH SENSE. A great second hand bike with all the necessary accessories will set you back $200 on time, and an additional $50 for a tune up after 6 months. With that, you can travel anywhere in the city, at anytime, with no delays or crowds or stinking subway trash to sully your journey to and fro work every day. An average bike at an average speed can even get you from Manhattan’s Chinatown to Brooklyn’s Sunset Park in the same time as the MTA.

Biking is also a great way to tour the neighbourhood, to visit a friend’s place, to head down to the waterway anytime you feel like it. You can even take a weekend and ride out of the city for a quick getaway, which is what I have done on multiple occasions to New Jersey and Long Island.

I am not going to lie about the downsides: it is definitely much more dangerous than taking the train, you cannot ride when it is raining/snowing, and you will work up one hell of a sweat every morning before work. But all things considered, there’s no better way to take in the Big Apple and do it like a true New Yorker than to live the bike life. Not only do you save up money from biking, you get to have fun while at it.

#2 — Sights and Sounds

Alright, serious biker talk over. It is now the weekend, and you want to hang out and explore Manhattan.

But wait, you’re broke, remember? How on earth are you going to fill that gaping hole that is Saturday without rotting in your sad rented apartment?

Why, you look for cheap things to do, of course. And man have I got the list for you. Let’s start with your museums: NYU students have free access to some of the best selection of museums in the city, including MOMA and the Whitney Museum. Or you could try for some public museums and get real ‘generous’ on the ‘recommended ticket price’: you technically get to visit the world famous Metropolitan Museum (or the lesser know Brooklyn Museum) for only a dollar. Suggested donations are $12+ each, but your taxes already cover your lifetime entry fee ANYWAY. Besides, New Yorkers aint care ‘bout no suggested donations.

A dollar is all you need, brudder.

Or you could catch a show! Tapings of many popular American talk shows are absolutely free, so long as you are willing to wait 2–3 hours in advanced at the studio entrance (you will still need to book a ticket online though). Try the explicitly hilarious ‘Last Week Tonight with John Oliver’, or ‘The Daily Show with Trevor Noah’.

For audiophiles, great music is everywhere in the city. From free concerts in NYC, to great indie music tucked away under shop houses, music is everywhere. My favourite: $3 for live and rowdy jazz at the Fat Cat bar in Manhattan.

For me, nothing quite beats the sights and sounds of Mother Nature though. You can stare wide-eyed at the Atlantic Ocean from Rockaway Beach, cycle along the Hudson River in the evenings, or hop on a train out of the city to Harriman State Park. I could go on forever about national and state parks here, but that is another article for another day.

#1 — Making Connections

By far, there is no better way to hack life in New York than to actually meet its people. More than just connecting with people from all over the world (and pretending to be sophisticated as ****), this is an incredible opportunity to go behind the scenes and understand what makes this city tick. It is more than just a free ticket into another person’s life; it’s about broadening your perspectives with ideas and stories from a variety of people and places you have never heard from before.

Things are about to sound super cheesy around here.

Surely there is no easier way to make these connections than to locate a community of like-minded people. There is probably some sort of group for every kind of interest around here: yoga, film, gastronomy, biking, you name it. My personal hobby is skating, and joining the Manhattan meet-up sessions on Wednesdays has allowed me to befriend some incredibly interesting folks from all walks of life. I have met housing project dwellers and well-off business owners on these get-togethers, and stories on both ends of the social spectrum fascinate me.

Of all the free things to do in the city, making a friend is by far the most rewarding hack you get, so get the hell out of your comfort zone and go meet some real people.