$300K Too Little for NYC Family?

Are you kidding me? I’ve got absolutely no sympathy for this guy. He’s got his kid enrolled in a $32,000.00/year “day school” and he’s wondering why he’s crammed into 1,200 sq. feet without a dishwasher. And his son is going to apply also. What’s wrong with this picture??? Why didn’t the reporter point out that $32K a year for a daycare is beyond most everyone’s idea of extragagance?

millions send their child to daycare, it is not an extravagance. $32k is the price in NYC. this guy is the middle class of NYC. so what?

his apt. is still larger than my house and I don’t have a dishwasher either!!!! This poor poor man…his daughter’s daycare costs well over what I even make a year.

It is one thing to identify how it is VERY costly to live in New York. It IS!
But it is another ‘selfish’ thing to try and do so by using personal refereneces to things like: Not having a dishwasher / ‘Having’ to pay 32K per child for attendance to a prep school / Not having enough square footage – enough bedrooms (Whatever happened to multiple kids sleeping in the same bed room?)
And to ignore that there are millions in NY making – and getting by – on far FAR less that 300K… That just shows me Mr. Shiff is not cognizant of the reality of others who have it much, much more difficult than he and his family.

So he thinks those without money don’t understand stress? He’s worried about pulling his priveliged little entitled kids out of private school – how about the rest of the country that is having to decide between paying a bill and feeding the family? This poor excuse of a human being should have to go live like the rest of the world for awhile – maybe then he would appreciate what he has! Of all the assinine articles to republish ABC this is it – we have enough problems in this country / world without reading about some idiot who hasn’t got a friggin clue how the country works outside of his precious Manhattan.

To Alfred Hitchcock,
True, millions do indeed send kids to daycare, and I agree that it’s not an extravagance. I also agree NYC is indeed expensive and why people select that lifestyle and live there is beyond me. But $32K/year is the going rate in NYC? Total BS. I’ll say it again BS. How did the reporter just happen to select this guy and why publish his story. I’ll tell you why because his sense of reality and priorities are whacked and that makes good reading. Never said anything about his wife. If things are that bad, put her to work. If she doesn’t want to work, then she has plenty of time on her hands to cook without a microwave and wash dishes by hand afterwards. This is typical non-news BS that reporters throw out there to get bites. This is what I call a “generalization” story. She reports on 1 person out of how many million and we are supposed to think that everyone is in this shape. Pitiful. Use your common sense Mr. Schiff and make a budget and stick to it.

One more thing, the author left off a few tidbits about Mr. Schiff. If you just follow the Bloomberg hyperlink, you’ll see Mr. Schiff is also having a hard time affording their summer rental property in Kent, Connecticut. Talk about expensive! But there is a bright spot! His brother is CEO of his company. He’ll get a nice raise/bonus now. No wonder the guy is ragging on his business, can’t get fired from it. What a joke.

One word for this guy – “SERIOUSLY”? I feel as bad for him as I did for Kim Kardashian when I heard her marriage broke up. MILLIONS of people work in NYC making a fraction of what he does and they seem to get by. He could easily commute into the city and give his kids a chance to grow up in the suburbs for half what he is paying for an apartment. And what is his rent anyway, $10,000 a month??? For that you could BUY nearly a $2.0 Million dollar 5,000 sq. ft. house with plenty of bedrooms at today’s historically low interest rates…. SERIOUSLY

“”"”“People who don’t have money don’t understand the stress,” and “Could you imagine what it’s like to say I got three kids in private school, I have to think about pulling them out? How do you do that?””"”"

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Well, how you do that is sit your kids down and say, “Hey, you know I love you very very much and I’ve always tried to provide you with the best I can but here’s the deal.” Then you educate them with the facts, explain to them how as their parent you owe them these things: clothing, shelter, and food, and that anything beyond that is gravy and that because of the financial situation you’re going to have to cut back on the gravy. No one “owes” their kid $32,000 annual tuition to a private school. No one “owes” their kids name-brand clothing. No one “owes” their kids smartphones, ipods, etc.

The rest of us have had to learn to do with less (in many cases a lot less) and I’m sure this guy can too.

While I DO get that living in New York is more expensive, and I DO understand not wanting to uproot your kids or drastically change their lifestyle, he is clearly unwilling to do what is necessary for his family. He needs to sell his vacation home, move to the suburbs and commute, and put his kids in a less expensive private school, I am sure they have good schools in the suburbs too. Kids are pretty resilient. He should have a meeting with Suze Orman, she could totally straighten him out!

While I DO get that living in NYC is way more expensive, and I DO understand not wanting to uproot your kids or drastically change their lifestyle, this guy clearly does not have a grasp on reality, and is unwilling to do what is necessary for his family. He needs to sell his vacation home (or rent it out for income), move to the suburbs and commute in, and put his kids in a less expensive school, I’m sure there are plenty of good schools in the suburbs. What he really needs is a good “talking to” from Suze Orman, she could totally set him straight!

I worked in NY (Long Island) as a contract engineer for 3 years. WIth the level of taxes, I don’t know why anyone would want to live there. There’s Fed Income tax, State Income tax, a City Income tax (if you work in the city), outrageous property taxes, an 11% sales tax, and only knows what else. I once told a coworker who lived there that they “eat their young” and that’s why their children leave. So most don’t even have the excuse they want to be close to their family! It’s rather insane.

“Proof positive that money is all relative. We live better than this guy on 1/8 of what he makes….and we even have a dishwasher!”

LOL! Love it!

Correction; It looks like Long Island has lowered it’s sales tax to 9% including something called the Metropolitan Commuter Transportation District tax.

I agree with Pete. Just a hit piece designed to aggitate the have-nots, get bites from the angry 99ers, more divisiveness based on money. Life lesson: you have no right to b!/ch about a life style you have consciously chosen. Made me think of those snobs on HGTV who “need” a 3000 sf house b/c their 2000 sf house it just too small. And to think there’s some folks who can’t afford food and meds.

I get what the guy is saying. He says making $350,000 / yr in NYC is about equivalent to maybe making $75,000 everywhere else in the country. I can believe that. What does the guy have? A 1200sf rental home and a good daycare. So he pays $32k for daycare – maybe he gets the equivalent daycare that everyone else gets in other places but it costs 3x more where he is. His point isn’t that he can’t make it on $350k, his point is that in NYC $350k is not $350k. Same thing in many parts of California. A tiny ugly house that would cost $80k anywhere else costs $600k in California. Insane.

“Why are so many people jealous about the fact that someone EARNS their$300K salary? ”
Excuse me Diana but… I haven’t read one post yet that indicates that people are JEALOUS of this guy.
Rather – they seem to ‘feel sorry’ for him – because he seems to have it SO rough. (Laugh)
And if not feeling sorry for him because he fails to realize how rough he – I mean others – have it… Then folks are berating him because he is a whiner – all while having it so good.
That is not jealousy. That’s simply calling a Spade a Spade.

We create our own realities. There are ways he could economize but many of us making far less are having trouble with his need to.

Last time I checked you could get a microwave for about as much as the last bottle of wine this guy drank.

I would like to hear the mayor’s take on this story when he has complained about over paid teachers in New York city making 60,000 per year.Many people will never be satisfied, but for a reporter to actually spin that into a story of true need is absurd.

You think it’s “difficult” to support a family on only $350k a year?? Seriously??!!?! Tell you what… let’s trade places & I’ll do some research on that statement. You can try supporting a family with only a 10th of that income. Then maybe you’ll have some smidgen of a clue about what ‘difficult’ REALLY is. That private school tuition for ONE child is MORE than my annual take home pay, and soon you’ll be paying double that. For most of us the idea of sending our kids to private school isn’t even a faint hope. Two words… public school. You don’t have a microwave? Join the club. At least you don’t have to worry about being able to feed your family, about having to choose between past due car payment so you don’t lose your only mode of transportation, or past due on the electric bill so the heat doesn’t get shut off. You said the city is priced as though Wall Street was enjoying a boom, but it’s not… and what exactly do you think that the rest of the country is dealing with??? Greed on Wall Street plunged this country into an economic free fall, and yet the cost of living has continued to go up… and then those on Wall Street claim it’s ‘difficult’ to get by on a mere $350k a year. That’s a major insult & slap in the face to those barely scraping by, who lost their savings because of the greed on Wall Street, who lost their homes, who lost everything, who want to work, are willing to work, but decent paying jobs are harder to find than ever, also because of the greed on Wall Street. Nobody on Wall Street gave a damn about the ‘difficulties’ they were creating for a majority of the people in this country while they were raking in the money, so what makes any of them think we care one bit about their trivial miniscule ‘difficulties’ that aren’t difficult at all with the kind of money they’re still making.

INDEPENDENTTHINKER | MARCH 1, 2012, 8:33 AM…….”if he cannot manage his own and be happy”

Life is all relative – more expensive in NYC than Dallas. What would someone in Mexico say about their lives compared to America’s middle class and 50% who pay no taxes? I think they
d say ALL Americans don’t realize how good their lives are – or they’d say they’d gladly trade places with any of the poor (just for the opportunity). How about those in Africa? What standard do you think George Soros and the progressives are trying to lower America’s standard to? Call me crazy? I respond everyone should read more – more international press and non DNC literature. The truth has no agenda.

Andrew, perhaps you can cut some costs by doing what a lot of others New Yorkers have to do to survive.They dumpster dive. And a lot of those who actually dumpster dive earn what they make. They don’t get bonus payments for failing, cheating or failing to cheat! Have a nice day!

This man is ridiculous, I don’t have to say much to back that up but I will add that I live in the SAME BROOKLYN neighborhood and our FREE PUBLIC schools are among the top in the city. Theres no reason he should be sending his kids to private school besides his priority is keeping up with the Joneses instead of his bank account.

Mr. Schiff. You can get yourself a portable dishwasher. That’s what my mom and dad did when we lived in a simple house in the suburbs. I think you can get one at Home Depot, though that might not be one of the stores you frequent. If you look around out there, you might actually discover things you never know existed.