How a Book Editor and Jazz Musician Lives on $55,000 in West Harlem

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?

Perhaps Ruby Pucillo’s number one bragging right is that she’s a tenth-generation New Yorker, one whose ancestors have lived thriftily in the boroughs since they first immigrated to New York City more than 300 years ago.

Ms. Pucillo, 25, has tried to carve out a life for herself that would mirror her family’s ideals of spending little and living a lot. But because the city her relatives arrived in generations ago now ranks among the most expensive in the world, that can present a challenge.

Ms. Pucillo’s 9 to 5 is working as an assistant editor at Abrams, an art book publishing house. After a recent promotion, her salary was bumped up to about $48,500 before taxes. Her work day begins on the subway, where she gets a head start on reading proposals and manuscripts as she travels to her office in the Financial District from uptown.

On many a weeknight, and sometimes on Saturdays, Ms. Pucillo performs as an improv jazz musician. She studied music and loves to play, but the amount she makes fluctuates — sometimes netting her upward of $1,000 in a month, other times $25, often something in the middle.

On Sundays, Ms. Pucillo travels back to where she grew-up, Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y., to teach French and give voice lessons for $350 a month.

All told, she makes about $55,000 a year, with wiggle room for her jazz gigs.

Rent is High, but Community is Free

Ms. Pucillo lives in a rent-stabilized prewar apartment with two roommates in West Harlem. Rent runs her about $1,460 a month, including utilities and internet.

“I spend more than half my income on my rent,” Ms. Pucillo said. “But I really like my apartment, and I live on the most beautiful block in Manhattan. Community is completely free.”

After rent is paid, Ms. Pucillo diligently tracks the leftovers of her paychecks on a spreadsheet on her computer; she can account for almost every cent. Each month, she spends $300 or less on groceries and $140 of her gross monthly income goes toward public transit, using a pretax subsidy her job offers.

Then Ms. Pucillo has a “cushion” tier of expenses, for unforeseen circumstances like a co-pay at the doctor’s office, a late-night taxi ride or a case of beer for a friend who might have done her a favor, like helping her move. “I know I’m not going to pay for these things every month,” she said, “but it’s nice to have a monthly increment that either goes into my savings or comes back out of my savings later.”

Ms. Pucillo’s monthly splurge is on entertainment — dining out, live music and shows, admission fees. “I budget $500 a month for that,” she said, which she conceded felt like a lot. “But it can disappear quickly in this city.”

And twice a year, she treats herself to a curly cut done by a friend on Long Island, for the budget total of $73 — not including, of course, a tip and the cost of a Long Island Rail Road ticket.

Ms. Pucillo doesn’t pay for many streaming services, but every few weeks she pays $3 to watch a movie on YouTube. She also pays $12.99 a month for Apple News and $10.99 for Apple Music. The remaining money goes into her savings.

An Eye for Deals

Many in Ms. Pucillo’s orbit “are in a difficult financial spot, too,” she said. “Many of them are creative and have a similar idea of what it means to achieve financial stability and what it means to make your dollar stretch.”

Ms. Pucillo’s ideal equation involves doubling or tripling up on activities to get the most bang for her buck, especially when it involves something free or a promotion that makes it very cheap.

When the fitness app ClassPass offered a discounted rate of $5 per month, she signed up so she could attend cheap workout and dance classes with friends. When she found a $1-a-month deal for a cooking app, she took it so she could share meals with friends without restaurant prices.

“I’m very opportunistic,” she said. “When things come up, I take them, but otherwise I figure out how to do just about everything for free.”

Recently, Ms. Pucillo had the shopping bug, but lacked the funds to act on it, so she and a group of friends arranged a clothing swap. Everyone emerged with new pieces for their wardrobe, she said, without spending a dime.

Ms. Pucillo credits her upbringing for making resourcefulness feel second nature.

“I come from a base line that says, ‘Don’t buy anything,’” she said. Her parents moved the family to Westchester when she was young and started renting in Hastings-on-Hudson because, she said, “they wanted to put us through really good public schools. They said, ‘If you can’t be rich, live where rich people live.’”

Ms. Pucillo is grateful for that. “I had to find ways to make money,” she said, which propelled her toward “what probably will be a different and better financial situation than my parents had, and than their parents had.” Her parents have since moved from Westchester to the Bronx.

She noted that because of an array of part-time jobs she worked during her undergraduate years, a hefty scholarship and a family tradition of supporting one’s children through college, she graduated debt-free, unlike many people she knows.

Saving Up for a Piece of the City

Even with a tendency toward frugality, she said, it’s still hard to navigate New York City as a 20-something, where the incomes of friends vary, and there are so many things that entice, especially when your friends want to drop money and you don’t.

“This is a very expensive place to socialize,” Ms. Pucillo said. But she’d never consider moving.

“The people in New York — I understand them, and they understand me,” she said. “There’s a directness that you really don’t find anywhere else.”

Ms. Pucillo’s dream is to own an apartment in the city — “a pretty lofty goal in this place,” she said. Despite the nine generations of New Yorkers that came before her, Ms. Pucillo’s family doesn’t own any property.

This is why Ms. Pucillo is dedicated to building up her savings however she can, and she is preparing to open her first line of credit after years of holding out.

Ms. Pucillo’s father, a guitar teacher and a Staten Island native, has always been fond of asking this question: If you had the choice between staying in New York for the rest of your life and never being allowed to leave, or being able to go anywhere else in the world, but never returning to New York — which would you choose?

She doesn’t have to deliberate for a second. “Absolutely, I would stay in New York for the rest of my life, and I would never leave.”