OP, go buy a cheap Foreman and a bunch of frozen boneless, skinless chicken breasts. A pack of 20 chicken breasts is like $5, buy 3 or more. Also buy a bunch a few hot sauces, spices, and cheese. 30 meals should cost you about $30 with those ingredients and they taste really good. Making your own food is supposed to be saving you money, if not, you're doing it wrong.

he needs 800$ per week for food and toilet paper.

I've never met anyone who needs to spend $5/month on batteries.

This includes an acquaintance who has 3 different vibrators and uses them daily.

Buy some rechargeables FFS. What the hell do you use that requires this much money towards batteries?

Buy an electric razor, preferably one that is battery operated since you must have thousands of unused batteries lying around at $5 a month.

The olive oil, as already stated above is unfathomable.

$7 1000 pills... Here http://www.amazon.com/GERI-CARE-PHAR...2&sr=8-2-fkmr2

20 aspirins a day? Pretty impressive.

This is the best thread I have seen here in months.

May not seem like a lot, but an extra 300$/mo cuts his paying off that CC from 30 months to 19 months.

Apparently the median is ~$28,000. So if you're making more than 2x that and you're struggling, you're making poor decisions or you are an idiot or both.

Growing up (in college now) dad made $25k a year, mom stayed home and they raised 4 kids on it... I think you should be able to squeak by on 65k

Wow, they pay 65k/year at McDonalds in New York?

OP - You are levelling. Or you just have no clue how much you spend on any of this stuff.

The cologne and olive oil stuff have both ben pointed out already. You spend more on cologne in a single year than i have in my entire lifetime.

But there are some other really ridiculous ones in there such as the detergent. Basically you get a 32 load bottle of Tide for $10. Lets throw in some dryer-sheets to that equation too I guess to get us to the $15/mth somehow. So you are actually doing 32 loads of laundry every month? Really? One load of laundry every day? Do you change your clothes 5 different times each day and then wash them all at the end or something?

Bayer aspirin is $14 for a 300 count bottle (and this would be the more expensive option). So you are going through close to 150 aspirin each month? That doesn't seem terribly realistic.

Maybe it would be fun if you also detailed how much you use each of these items. Like, how much hair gel do you go through each month and how many light bulbs are you replacing all the time?

Your numbers are ridiculous. As I said before, it's pretty clear you're levelling because it's just so stupid but I'll continue to play along just for kicks and just in case you really are somehow spending $20/mth on freaking olive oil (kinky olive oil wrestling with the GF perhaps?)

move to KC

You don't have to keep drilling him about his ridiculous estimates, he's playing dumb because he doesn't want to admit how much he loses at online poker.

I don't believe you could possibly be going through some of these items at the rate you've indicated, but w/e. You're spending too much on all of this. The total for this reduced list, according to the numbers you provided, is $500 / month.

Middle class people with huge credit card debt can't afford to spend that much on meat, seafood, alcohol, and personal care products. My wife and I have a combined income around $70k in D.C., which isn't quite at the level of NYC in cost of living, but it's much closer than the average city in America. We usually spend maybe $5 a week on seafood (we consider fresh salmon a treat) and rarely more than $15 a week on other meat (we've had steak around four times in the last year). Recently we started trying to save more on proteins by learning to make very good curry cheaply, to stretch chicken (we buy whole chickens and break them down) and big bags of frozen shrimp.

As for the alcohol, if those numbers represent four six-packs, four bottles of wine, and one 750-ml bottle of Scotch (this is how I would tend to spend that amount of money), then you're drinking at too high a quality for your budget. If those numbers represent cheaper alcohol, then you're drinking too much quantity for your budget. Either way, you can find a way to reduce the amount that you spend on alcohol.

The personal care stuff... if you really spend $35 / month on cologne, $20 / month on shampoo/conditioner, and $18 / month on toothpaste / mouthwash and $30 / month on vitamins, is it any mystery where your money is going? I get the sense that you have a taste for expensive things that you can't really afford. Some of these things you could just have less often. Others probably need to be cut out completely.

Alobarisright

You don't have to live in NYC. You could live in Westchester, Nassau, Bergen, Rockland, etc.

Bolded items you should not be buying.

If you're in debt, why are you buying alcohol? Also why are you buying cologne/hair gel? Who are you trying to impress? you already have a GF.

Just read prices. If you stopped buying those 5 items, you'd save 183$ a month. That's nearly 25%. 25% is a **** ton.

Although if you have really ****ty hair, then the hair gel is fine at 6/month. However, if you're one of those DBags that use it to spike their hair, please stop. It makes you look like a moron.

This thread was a great read.

But in all seriousness, even if all his grocery estimates are correct and he is spending $800/mo on all that crap, in less than 3 years, he'll have the credit card debt cleared. Assuming he doesn't fall back into credit trouble. Then he'll have another $500/mo free. That's a pretty good position to be in, especially given his relatively low salary in NYC.

Then he can go nuts with all the olive oil he wants.

He has $45,000 in after tax income. He could easily be debt free in a year if he really wanted to.

Lol this is gold. What's with all the olive oil and cologne? Is this enrico palazo? You should have a reality show, I'd watch.

he'd have to cut down on seafood, beer/wine/alcohol, and what I would have to assume to be a bottle or two of cologne a month! I don't think he can do it.

Even given the ridiculous grocery bill, he should certainly sell the car. That saves him $350/month minimum plus whatever he can shave off the credit card payments by putting the proceeds towards that.

You live in a $1,600/mo apartment, get $800/mo in groceries, have great cable/internet and still have $700 left over every month.

This is like some guy saying he's poor because between his Lambo payment and the mortgages on his Malibu ranch and beach house he has nothing left from his paycheck.

You're an idiot.

I'm not levelling. And all that I've listed is being consumed by BOTH me and my gf, except for a few personal items.

And to answer the recurring question she is not contributing financially to anything. She does however cook us dinner every night, in addition to helping me with other daily minutiae.

Guilty as charged for having expensive taste and preferring high quality products and food, but I don't overindulge in anything.

LOL @ cologne comments, I don't go through an entire bottle every 2 months rather I purchase a new one every other month for variety.

Most of you don't get how expensive NY is. You would think I could afford (maybe) a $300k house in Long Island, but the truth is for that money you are getting a very modest home with easily $8-$10k yearly property taxes. While most of the country is suffering from foreclosure woes and a declining housing market, NY and its surrounding area's remain EXTREMELY HIGH!

Gotta go to work now.

I know it sounds crazy but when you're taking a customers order via headset remember to smile. It makes a difference and the customer will notice.

lol

You're complaining about only having $250/month when you could have 3-4 times that by NOT over indulging on basics.

OPs grocery budget aside, many of you are underestimating how truly expensive NYC is. We don't have Aldi or Walmart, $1600 is not that much rent if you don't want to live in a ****hole. Places charge $10 for a sandwich and can of soda. A single parking ticket can be $110. Clothes wear out faster because you are smashed against subway doors and riding 100 year old escalators that snag and scratch. Apartments are old and soot and dust makes everything filthy, so you have to clean more often.

This city sucks unless you make $100k +

I didn't notice anyone saying $1600 is high rent for NYC. People pretty consistently focused on the things that he can reduce: car expenses and grocery expenses.