How a Recent College Graduate Lives on $18 Per Hour in the East Bronx

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?

Jaden Baldeon is a recent college graduate who is trying to carve a life out for himself while making sure his family has a good one, too. And at 20 years old, he is one of the newest entrants to the city’s work force who is feeling its high prices most acutely.

He lives at home with his mother and two siblings in a two-bedroom apartment in the East Bronx. He makes $18 per hour working part-time at a swimming school and makes roughly $550 biweekly, contributing about half of that each month to household expenses.

Now that classes are over, the weather is warming and more people are heading to the pool, he plans to increase his hours to full-time, from 30 to more than 40 hours. He hopes to do so to keep his family members from feeling the worst of the cash crunch.

“As soon as I hit 18, a lot of the adult responsibilities have come into play,” he said, adding that he and his mother have had a lot of conversations about budgeting and spending.

As the son of immigrants from the Dominican Republic and El Salvador, Mr. Baldeon said he feels the pressure to succeed, especially because many of his relatives worked full-time by the time they were his age.

He added that he feels he is “breaking barriers” by earning his associate of liberal arts degree. He received the degree in May from Seton College at the University of Mount Saint Vincent, which offers a debt-free two-year degree and provides students with financial literacy education, access to free meals and a laptop. He is considering returning to the university in the fall to continue studies for his undergraduate degree.

His college experience and home life have taught him the real value of a dollar — and helped him find new ways to save for the life he wants.

“You don’t want to live and just be surviving. You want to have nice things,” he said. “That’s what it’s been: balancing both of those things and trying to help out here and there.”

A Tight Schedule

Maintaining a strict daily regimen has helped Mr. Baldeon budget and track his spending. For most of the final months of the spring semester, he planned out his daily schedule to determine whether he would use public transportation from his home in the Bronx to classes on campus in Riverdale, which costs roughly $6 round trip, or take his university’s free shuttle.

On the weekends, he works part-time at the Goldfish Swim School in New Rochelle, where he earns about $18 an hour doing tech support, membership management and front desk check-ins. He commutes to work using Metro-North, which costs roughly $7.00 per round-trip ticket. (He keeps an eye out for the less expensive off-peak tickets, too.)

But even his best-laid plans come against the realities of commuting in the city.

“Transportation is kind of a gamble,” he said, noting the occasional schedule delays and lack of available seating. “So sometimes I just have to opt for an emergency cab.”

When he returns home from classes late at night or if he works a late shift, he sometimes chooses a ride-share service and has an Uber One membership to help secure a lower price for cars, which can cost $40 or more during rush hour. If a ride home is more expensive, he uses local car service alternatives in his neighborhood that are discounted and allow cash payments.

A Model Saver

Living at home has helped Mr. Baldeon save on housing while in college and take some of the financial strain off his mother. He said that he contributes most often to household goods and regularly uses coupons to get them at even more of a discount.

He most often buys paper goods and also helps buy groceries, which gives his family more of a financial cushion to enjoy better-quality items and opt more often for fresh produce over canned or frozen. Recently, he started buying laundry detergent in bulk from local vendors rather than directly from the store, allowing his family to save around $10 dollars and get a larger supply.

Student discounts help, too: Mr. Baldeon recently opened a student Discover card to build credit and used the card to buy a special mop for the floors in his home. His student email address has helped him get discounts on audiobooks, music and other perks.

“I just try to save anytime I can, in all transparency,” he said.

Saving is becoming a family affair. His younger sister, who is in middle school, landed a position with the city’s Summer Youth Employment Program, marking her first job. His younger brother, in high school, is looking for a summer job. It’s unlikely that much of their earnings will go toward the household expenses, though. Mr. Baldeon said he hopes his siblings will use their first paychecks to learn about financial responsibility and pay for things themselves over the summer — something he did when he got one of his first jobs through the program.

“It was a very good feeling to have some money of my own,” he said. “It was definitely quality of life for me, too, so that’s what I want to stress to them as well.”

Eyes on the Future

Living at home, working more hours and delaying a return to college has helped Mr. Baldeon put money aside for what could be his biggest future expense: a car.

Four more wheels, he said, will make his commute to work much easier and give his mother and siblings more time to run errands during the week. His dream model? A Subaru WRX Impreza.

“It could be used, older, I don’t care,” he said. “As long as it’s that one.”

Mr. Baldeon was born and raised in New York and loves it as his home. But after he moves out of his mother’s house, he said he probably won’t stay in the city much longer. He is considering going upstate to Rochester, where he has family, or a more rural place where his dollar can stretch a little further to allow him to build a home for himself.

“I want something of my own for sure,” he said. “So I want to get out of the city.”