New York: How To Make the Most Of It On A Budget

After just having returned from a month in New York, I am definitely in love with the city. The big problem is that the Big Apple is also certainly a place that will take a big bite out of your savings if you ever decide to go there.

I’m certainly no millionaire and I managed to not only love every minute of my time but to also leave without a mountain of debt to face now that I’m back home. Here are some easy-to-follow tips for you to be able to do the same thing.

New York Living

Depending on how long you are planning to stay in the city, accommodation will almost certainly be your biggest outgoing. The best solution, and the one I was incredibly lucky to benefit from on my first stay there, is to find a place through a friend. Getting somewhere for free is a real long-shot, as everybody in the city suffers to pay the rent to some extent, but it is not impossible. Utilize your social media channels to tell people where you going and when. You never know how happenstance and a great stroke of luck might help you live it up in a two bedroom new build in Williamsburg.

If you can’t find a friend to give you a hand, check out Craigslist. Americans use this a lot more than the rest of the world and you can often find better deals on here than those that appear on Airbnb. If you don’t mind sharing, there are also quite a lot of decent hostel options, but for the cheapest prices, you need to understand that you will be sleeping with around 16 other people in a dorm every night!

Embrace Deli Culture

During my first week in New York, I was a little bit wary of the endless options of delis offering freshly made sandwiches. This was a big mistake on my part as I soon learned that delis are the best way to eat really well without burning a hole in your pocket.

Eating out in New York is incredibly expensive by European standards unless you are happy to eat fast food for the duration of your stay. This might see you saving a lot of money, but it certainly won’t do your health much good.

With most supermarket products also being a lot more expensive than they are in all of the other places I’ve ever been in my life, a good deli is a perfect place to get yourself some freshly made food at a price that isn’t going to want you to start missing meals to save cash.

Walk

New York is enormous and the underground service whilst being extensive is almost pretty jam packed and quite pricey at $2.75 per trip. Bearing this in mind, the best thing to do is to first buy a weekly Metro card so that you can travel as much as you like for $30. The subway is essential because of the sheer size of the city, but nobody wants to spend half of their holiday underground.

For me one of the most enjoyable ways to truly experience the city was to simply walk for miles through its endless streets. In Manhattan, you can easily jump off the subway and then stroll around Central Park before wandering the highly exclusive uptown parts of Fifth, Park, and Madison Avenue before diving down into tourist territory around Times Square.

Chelsea, Greenwich Village, Union Square, Chinatown, Little Italy. All of these places are so varied and interesting that to really make the most of your experience you should just allow yourself to wander and see where your feet take you. Not only will you begin to feel like a part of the city, you’ll also not be spending any money by doing so. Clocking up the miles on foot is also great for your health.

Culture Vulture Tips and Tricks

New York is arguably the most important city in the world. For this reason, it’s also home to some of the best art that can be found anywhere. Unlike London, where almost all museums are free, in New York, you have to pay your way. This is annoying if you’re on a budget, but it’s not completely true.

The majority of the major museums do have admission fees, but in brackets, you will see that the stated price is only the “suggested” one that you should pay. If you are not flush with money, there is absolutely no shame in paying the person on the ticket office exactly what you can genuinely afford to pay.

Another huge advantage that culture vultures have in New York is that this is a city where the art world is also incredibly active in terms of buying and selling. This means that in Chelsea you will find gallery after gallery featuring works by some of the world’s greatest living and deceased artists in small exhibitions that are completely free of charge to enter. In one afternoon, I saw small exhibitions by Rothko, Nan Goldin, Ai Weiwei, and William Eggleston all without spending a dime.

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