How can people possibly afford to live in one of the most expensive cities on the planet? It’s a question New Yorkers hear a lot, often delivered with a mix of awe, pity and confusion.

We surveyed hundreds of New Yorkers about how they spend, splurge and save. We found that many people — rich, poor or somewhere in between — live life as a series of small calculations that add up to one big question: What makes living in New York worth it?

Ever since she was a child growing up in Guilford, Conn., Molly Culver wanted to live in New York City, “come hell or high water,” as she remembers it.

She was never under any illusion that it would be easy, but for years, she was managing well. She spent nearly a decade running an urban farm, teaching classes on farming and growing her floral business, which meant she was bringing in about $50,000 a year.

A few years ago, Ms. Culver, 44, turned her floral business, Molly Oliver Flowers, into a full-time job.

She sells flowers sourced from nearby farms for events, and also runs a subscription service in which customers sign up for weekly flower deliveries. When weddings and parties started back up after the Covid pandemic, she was able to pay herself as much as $62,000 before taxes one year. But then the economy soured, and clients pulled back on nonessentials.

Last year, Ms. Culver put nearly all the money she earned back into her business. She paid herself a salary of about $23,000 and took roughly $22,000 from her savings, more than half of her nest egg, to stay afloat.

Priced out of the housing market

After the pandemic, Ms. Culver was newly single and no longer splitting rent with her former partner. She soon realized she could no longer afford to pay market rent.

As she searched for housing, she said, “I was looking for the miracle that only happens through word of mouth in this city.”

First, Ms. Culver spent a few years renting a 150-square-foot room with a twin bed in a friend’s home for $40 a night, which did not include cooking privileges. (She typically spent a few nights a week there, and the rest of the week at her mother’s house in Connecticut.)

Last year, after her friend said she needed the room back, a different friend mentioned she had a spare room to rent out in her home in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn.

It was $600 a month, more than Ms. Culver was used to paying, but much cheaper than anything else she could find.

Ms. Culver’s housing setup shows what it takes for many people to afford housing in New York: The family that owns the home lives downstairs with their two small children. Ms. Culver and three other tenants rent rooms on the two top floors.

How can people possibly afford to live in one of the most expensive cities on the planet? It’s a question New Yorkers hear a lot, often delivered with a mix of awe, pity and confusion.

We surveyed hundreds of New Yorkers about how they spend, splurge and save. We found that many people — rich, poor or somewhere in between — live life as a series of small calculations that add up to one big question: What makes living in New York worth it?

Tyson Watts spends every day trying to make enough money to eventually leave New York City.

He wants to live somewhere where life is easier, and more peaceful. “I don’t think there’s anything left for me here,” he said. So for now, his life revolves around his work.

Mr. Watts, 28, spends his days traveling across the city, cleaning homes as an employee of Well-Paid Maids, a local service that guarantees its cleaners $27 an hour. He started out at the company making about $2,000 a month after tax. Though he’s part time, he picks up as many overtime shifts as he can. In January, he was so busy that he earned $3,300, and hopes to keep his income around that level for the rest of the year.

Mr. Watts lives with his mother in Rockaway Park, Queens, and he gives her about $600 a month to help pay for groceries and utilities in their shared apartment. Since his mother does not work, he is encouraging her to take a job as a cleaner, too.

A step toward independence, then moving back home

Mr. Watts knows there is something special about being able to afford your own apartment.

After he moved to New York City from California as a child, he bounced between apartments and homeless shelters with his mother and brothers, before moving in with his uncle.

Mr. Watts started working right out of high school, taking home about $1,000 a month from his job at a children’s clothing store, and soon started paying his uncle $700 a month for his share of the rent.

A few years ago, when Mr. Watts moved out of his uncle’s place and into an apartment in Flatbush, Brooklyn, he felt like he was taking his first big step toward adulthood.

But he had to break the lease when his roommate was unable to keep up with his half of the $1,900 rent and ended up back with his mother, who by then had secured her own apartment.

“If you do have an option to live with a family member that will be there for you, to help you save and want to do better with yourself, take advantage of that until you’re really, really good,” Mr. Watts said.

Everyone needs a side hustle

In the early days of the Covid pandemic, Mr. Watts took up a new hobby: making Caribbean food in his mother’s kitchen and spending hours in quarantine watching YouTube cooking videos.

In the summer of 2020, he typically woke up at 5 a.m. and started cooking oxtail and fried chicken before it got too hot outside. Then he took his creations to sell at nearby Rockaway Beach. He called his business T.U.P.S., with the tagline, “a savory taste away from heaven.”

It could be stifling sitting on the beach all day, but business was brisk, and he could make $400 on good days.

The only problem, he said, was the high cost of ingredients — about $200 a day — even at the wholesaler where he shopped.

He needed a more reliable job until he could make his cooking business more profitable. After applying for about 100 jobs online, he got hired at Well-Paid Maids last summer. He hopes that one day he’ll be able to turn his cooking side hustle into his primary source of income.

“I believe my business will flourish,” he said. But for now, “I believe this job will help me save and learn how to invest into myself, and not just be a knucklehead.”