BiggerPockets Money Podcast - Paula Pant Quit Her Job with $25K (Now She’s FI in NYC)

Episode Date: April 23, 2026

Paula quit her $32,000 job in 2008—before she’d ever heard of the FIRE movement—with just $25,000 saved to travel the world. When she came back, she started freelancing and made a pivotal decision: buying a triplex and house hacking. That one move changed everything. Today, she’s fully financially independent in New York City through real estate—all without ever earning more than $32K at her day job. In this episode, we break down how she did it, the risks she took early on, and the strategy that turned a modest income into long-term financial freedom. To go beyond the podcast: Kick start your financial independence journey with our FREE financial resources - https://biggerpocketsmoney.com/ Subscribe on YouTube for even more content- www.youtube.com/biggerpocketsmoney  Connect with us on social media to join the other BiggerPockets Money listeners - https://www.facebook.com/groups/BPMoney Connect with Paula Pant: Website: https://affordanything.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paulapant We believe financial independence is attainable for anyone no matter when or where you’re starting. Let’s get your financial house in order! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mindy and I are so grateful for the following sponsors who make Bigger Pockets Money possible. When you want more, start your business with Northwest Registered Agent and get access to thousands of free guides, tools, and legal forms to help you launch and protect your business all in one place. Build your complete business identity with Northwest Today. Northwest Registered Agent has been helping small business owners and entrepreneurs launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years. They're the largest registered agent and LLC service in the U.S. with over 1,500 corporate guides, who are real people who are real people who. know your local laws and can help you and your business every step of the way. Northwest makes life easy for business owners. They don't just help you form your business. They give you the free tools you need after you form it, like operating agreements, meeting minutes, and thousands of how-to

guides that explain the complicated ins and outs of running a business. And with Northwest, privacy is automatic. They never sell your data and all services are handled in-house because privacy by default is their pledge to all customers. Visit Northwest registeredagent.com slash money-free and start building something amazing. Get more with Northwest Registered Agent at Northwest Registeredagent.com slash money-free. When I evaluate debt funds, I look for things like first position loans, personal guarantees, deep experience by the fund operator, low fund leverage, fast liquidity, and consistent returns. These are some of the reasons why I'm excited to partner with Pine Financial Group. Their fund six offers investors exposure to real estate credit, largely for construction and rehab,

with loans originated by an experienced originator with over $1 billion in origination volume. They offer investors an 8% preferred return paid monthly and a 70-30 LP split of everything over 10% paid annually. The lock-up period is nine months with liquidity available within 90 days after that nine-month commitment. The fund is open to accredited investors only. The fund's minimum investment is typically $100,000. The Pine Financial is able to reduce that minimum for bigger pockets money listeners to a minimum of $25,000. Full disclosure, I am personally invested. in this fund through my self-directed IRA.

Pine Financial is sponsoring this message and our podcast. Go to BiggerPocketsmoney.com slash pine, P-I-N-E. Please note that returns are not guaranteed and may vary based on fun performance. When spring hits, some people suddenly just want to declutter the garage, clean out the closets, and get everything all organized. Whether or not that hits you, Monarch will do your financial spring cleaning for you.

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Use the code Pockets at Monarch.com to get your first year half off at just $50. That's 50% off your first year at monarch.com with the code P-O-C-K-E-T-S. Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. Today we've got our second bonus episode. Scott and I are highlighting real stories from real New York City residents who have achieved financial independence proving you don't have to leave a high cost of living city to achieve FI. Today, we're talking to the Paula Pant from Afford Anything. Paula walked away from her $31,000 job in 2008, before she'd ever even heard of fire,

with just $25,000 saved to travel the world. When she came back, she started freelancing and bought a triplex to house hack, a decision that changed everything. Today, she's living in New York City, fully financially independent through real estate, all starting from a career that never topped $32,000. Let's get into her story. Paula, you moved to New York City a few years ago, despite knowing how expensive it is to live there.

You were living in a much lower cost of living area. So let's set the record straight. Why did you move to New York City? So for my entire adult life, I'd always wanted to live in New York, but I never allowed myself to do so because it has a high cost of living. And so I couldn't rationalize the decision. Given that I work remotely, given that I work for myself, and so I don't need to make job-related connections, I could not find a rational,

you know, make sense on paper reason to do it, and there were plenty of make sense on paper reasons to not. Before New York City, I was living in Las Vegas, where you've got a very low cost of living, relatively speaking, you have no state income tax, you've got mild winters, you've got relatively not that much traffic. Most people who live in Las Vegas would argue against that, but my stance is there's the traffic's not that bad. You know, for all of these reasons, Las Vegas really made sense on paper. Before Las Vegas, I was living in Atlanta. I grew up in Cincinnati. I've always lived in these relatively low cost of living cities. The only reason to move to New York was the fact that I wanted to. There was no other reason.

And because that was the only reason, I couldn't justify doing it. And then the pandemic hit. And when that happened, I realized life is short. None of us, I know that's a cliche, but none of us are guaranteed to live to be 120. If there is something that you really want to do and you have the money to do it, don't cheap out on it. Like, I don't want to be on my deathbed thinking, man, I never lived in the city that I wanted to live in. How does living in New York City impact your finances? So that's the thing that caught me by surprise. I had braced myself before moving here. Braced myself for the expectation that life was about to get a lot more expensive.

And I was actually shocked to discover that my cost of living in New York is about the same as my cost of living in Las Vegas. And here's how that breaks down. I'll use real numbers in Las Vegas on a 15-year mortgage on a condo with about 1,700 square feet. My mortgage was around 3,500, 3,600 a month. In New York City, I have a one-bedroom apartment. It is 4,700 a month. I'm letting a friend live with me, and I'm giving her a sweetheart deal. So my friend pays $1,100 a month.

I've studioed the living room, so we don't have a couch, right? I live in the living room as a studio apartment sort of a thing. She takes the bedroom. It's $4,700 a month minus her $1,100 contribution, so my out-of-pocket is $3,600 a month. That means my rent in New York is similar to what I was paying for my condo in Vegas. You can certainly argue that from a wealth-building point of view, they're not comparable. In Vegas, I was building equity on a 15-year mortgage. In New York, I'm a renter.

In Vegas, I was getting 1,700 square feet. In New York, I'm getting half of 600 square feet. So those are the trade-offs, but the actual cash flow impact is the same. How much time do you spend in your apartments in New York City compared to what you spent and your condo in Las Vegas? A lot. One thing that I love about my condo, and part of the reason that I chose it, A, it's got these big floor-to-ceiling windows with this absolutely good,

gorgeous view, like bonkers beautiful view. Can I show you guys? That's great. And this doesn't really do it justice, but like, that's the view. It's insane. Sunset is just, it's ridiculous. It's so pretty that last night, right at sunset, I actually came to my section of room and sat on my dresser and just watched the sunset from there, like for 30 minutes. That was what I did. I just sat there and watched the sunset. It's a beautiful place. I really enjoy being here. and in the building that I live in, so this is a newer building, it was built in 2012. This building has on the fifth floor 80,000 square feet of amenities. So it has an indoor pool, an outdoor pool, a steam room, a sauna, half-sized basketball court,

cycling studio, yoga studio, boxing studio. I say that and I do like the same thing. I do the elliptical every time, you know, but I could take boxing classes if I want to. But the point is I have basically an equinox level luxury gyms. that is in my building. And so between the beautiful view from the floor to ceiling windows, plus the incredible luxury gym, and also that gym has like a co-working space area that I normally work from. It came to my apartment to do this interview because it's quieter, but normally I'm down in the co-working space. Between all of those things, I very rarely leave my building.

And when I do leave my building, the other thing that's been really nice is the building hosts all these social events, and so I've become friends with a bunch of people who also live in the same building. And so because a lot of my good friends live in my building. It's basically like the grown-up version of living in the college dorms. When we want to go out, we just go to a bar that's like on the corner, which means if I do leave the building, I'm going to the corner bar. I'm going to the corner hairdresser. Like, I'm very rarely leaving like three to four block radius of the building. Awesome. So this sounds fantastic. And so what about other expenses? Like do you continue to have a car here in New York City? Nope, no car. I moved here with a car and I actually found that my quality of life improved once I got rid of it.

When I had a car, initially you can park on the streets for free, but if you do that, you need to move the car twice a week. And moving that car requires, because you have to move it for street sweeping, requires like getting there at a certain time, a very fixed time, and then like figuring out what to do for two hours and then coming back right at the exact time that you like compete for an open spot. Doing that twice a week, it was turning into a part-time job. Then I was like, all right, I'm going to stop doing that. I'm just going to pay for a spot in a parking garage. And that was $600 a month. And so paying for that, I was like, well, now I need to use this car enough to justify paying that. So then I just started manufacturing unnecessary trips purely so that I could feel like I could justify the parking garage spot.

And so for, like, I was like, this is, this is dumb. Having a car is actually impeding my quality of life because it's just, too much work, too much money, too stressful. So I got rid of the car. And now, I mean, I pretty much everywhere I go I can walk to. And if I'm not walking, there's a bus stop that's immediately in front of my apartment, which I resisted for a long time because I have these notions in my mind of buses being really inefficient because that was the case every other place that I've lived. But the bus stop out here, there's a bus that comes by every 10 minutes. It's like an Uber but for $3. That bus will take me right down 57th Avenue to a bunch of different subway stops so I can take the bus to the subway

and it's just, it's easy. It's super easy. That's another way in which my cost of living actually, you know, in housing, the cash flow stayed the same. In transportation, my costs dramatically decreased. How about food? How are the other big categories? Food and fun. Is it much more expensive to enjoy all the things that you want in New York City? So groceries, if you buy groceries from a brick-and-water grocery store, don't, because brick and water grocery stores here are very expensive. But Amazon Fresh, and I also use this service, it's called Imperfect Foods. It was recently purchased by Misfit Market. It sells, quote unquote, ugly produce, like overstock or misshapen produce, or

overstock or misshapen items in general. So between Amazon Fresh and Imperfect Foods, my friend calls it mangled meals. Between those two, my grocery costs are about. like between 80 to 100 a week. You live in a really nice building and a really nice place with all these amenities, and it really is not expensive between those big three categories

to run your life here. It probably was much more in Las Vegas, I'd imagine. Yeah, yeah, because in Las Vegas, I was thinking about this this morning. In Vegas and prior to that in Atlanta, my friends were spread out all over the city. So I didn't have, you know, here I have this concentration of friends

who live literally under the same roof in my building. In Vegas, my friends, were spread out all over the city. So if I wanted to go out, I would have to drive, you know, so I'm spending time and gas money, driving to wherever they are, we're meeting up at some restaurant somewhere. If we have a bunch of drinks, I might Uber home and then like Uber back to the parking lot again the next morning to pick up my car, right? That's all cost. Versus here, everyone lives in my building. We can all just hang out at someone's apartment if we want to, or we can go to a local dive bar where beers are like seven or eight bucks. And then, and we're

walking, you know, so we don't even have to worry about Ubering anywhere, like we can just walk there, walk back. So in all of those ways, things here, you know what, it's funny, I'd really braced myself for things being more expensive and that has, with the exception of taxes, that has turned out to not be the case. Now, taxes are definitely a lot higher. Do you track the difference between what you were spending in Atlanta and in Las Vegas versus what you're spending in New York? Just in the way that I've outlined it, that's my main tracking. But there are also like differences. So, for example, coming to New York, I had, over the past year, I had massive veterinary bills. Now, that's not a function of living in New York.

That's a function of having a 15-year-old cat. That would have happened anywhere. For those reasons, it's not as simple as saying, oh, here are my expenses in 2025 versus in 2015, because the types of things that I'm doing with my life and the types of non-geographic-related circumstances are also going to be dynamic. So it sounds like you're absolutely delighted by, living in New York City, but I want you to say those words specifically. Are you excited that you move to New York? Do you have any regrets at all that you left Las Vegas? I have no offense to Las Vegas. It's a beautiful place. I love the desert. Great hiking and camping and climbing. And during

the season of my life, when I was really into being outdoors, Vegas was a great fit for that season of life. Now I'm in a season of life where I kind of prefer being indoors and New York is a much better fit. So New York, I love living in New York, and it is a great fit for where I am at this time in my life. I think the message that I want to send to people is if you're holding yourself back from doing something that you want to do or living in a place where you want to live because you're worried it's going to be very expensive. Go for it. Because once you get there, you might discover it's not actually that much more expensive anyway. So help us understand because, you know, you've painted a picture of really wonderful building that you live in, great friends, good amenities

nearby where you live. What about the broader New York area? Like, is this experience very consistent across many people in different buildings? Is there other things about New York City? And I think you're in Manhattan that you particularly like, that you particularly enjoy about being in the city besides the building? Yeah, yeah, definitely. So, I mean, one of the things I love about New York is that you have this cross-section, you know, it's a meeting point of the world. There are parts of New York, like in Flushing Queens, you walk around there and it feels like you're in China. Like, the street signs are all in Chinese. Or you go to Jackson Heights, Queens, and it feels like, depending on what part you're in, like, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan,

Nepal, like, you've got this cross-section of the South Asian diaspora that's all right there. I made a bunch of friends who are all Albanian. And, like, once you meet one Albanian, you meet, like, seven of them or eight of them, because they, you know, they all hang out together. And they were like, oh, we'll take you to these Albanian restaurants, right? Like, there's this, this meeting point of the world that happens here that I haven't experienced anywhere else. I mean, I'm sure that exists in other places, but it's certainly very visible here. One of the things that I was mentioning when I issued this challenge for New York City is not so much that it was impossible to fire in New York City, but just that there is more headwinds

in the form of taxes and expenses to becoming fire and less of an appeal to living the fire lifestyle because of all of the wonderful things to spend money on in Manhattan, right? It seems like you can exchange money for experiences or better quality, basically up an infinite ladder and that the more money you have, the more enjoyment you get pretty incrementally, pretty linearly out of the New York City experience in a way that I don't think is the same here in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, right? Like I live in a suburb, you know, there's some good restaurants and good grocery stores nearby and they're skiing.

But it's not like if I spend a lot more money on skiing, I'm going to have a better experience. It's, I get a pass. I have my skis. I have a wonderful time every time I go, as long as the snow is not as bad as it is this year. And that was more of my take on New York City fires. I think if I lived in Manhattan, I would want to just earn a Buku amount of money because that would enable me to experience all of the wonderful things that the city has to offer in a bigger way. But I've, again, been very thoughtfully challenged on that. and folks disagree and have very different lived experiences than that in New York City. Can you walk me through how you feel about that observation? Is there an appeal to making large amounts of money in New York City that draws you in in order to spend that on the finer things?

I guess the short answer is there is an appeal to doubling down on work but not for the financial element, for the seeing what I can produce if I really apply myself element, the personal satisfaction of creation. I'll talk more about that in a second, but first I want to directly address your question. So I think that if you come to New York as a tourist and spend your money on expensive tourist things like Michelin Star restaurants and Broadway show tickets,

sure, you can have a condensed four or five days where all your money goes to that and then you leave. If you live here, then I mean, you'll go to a Broadway show maybe once or twice a year. You know, that's not really like. life-changing enough. You know, for many people, that's just not going to make a big dent in your budget. If you, you know, you go to a show for your birthday. The other element of it also is that depending on where you live and depending on who you meet, sometimes you have friends who are

involved in those productions and you then get discounted tickets. So one of my friends, for example, is the understudy for Velma in the musical, the Broadway musical Chicago. She's been able to give me discounted tickets, the friends and family deal. So sometimes you do get to access those at the friends and family rates as well. So the cost of accessing New York things as a local can sometimes be cheaper than the cost of accessing it as a tourist. When it comes to like fancy restaurants, again, it's like a very occasional thing. It's not a regular thing on a like regular weekly basis, especially when it's cold and especially if it's raining. Remember, we don't have cars. Most New Yorkers don't have cars. I don't want to put on rain boots and get an umbrella and then

wear like a hat and scarf and earmuffs and mittens and take the bus to the subway 40 minutes to go to some inconvenient place that might happen to be fancy. If I'm going to leave my apartment at all, it's going to be to walk to like the local corner because that's the most convenient location. And also I know that the guy who works there is named Eddie, you know, and I know that they have tacos, like crispy tacos that they sell for like 14 bucks and they're actually super good. and Eddie will get you the extra salsa. So it's just a very local sort of a thing. And I think that, you know, I live in Hell's Kitchen,

but I think that any neighborhood that you're in, New York is a very neighborhood-centric place. And in most neighborhoods, at least anecdotally, it seems like I see a lot of my friends having similar experiences. So my friend Valerie, she threw a birthday party in the Upper East Side, which is a neighborhood that I almost never go to. And so I went there. And almost every single person I met,

at that birthday party lived in the Upper East Side. And it was clear they all lived within a couple block radius of each other. And they were all Upper East Side Friends and they all had their like standard haunts that they tend to go to. And so I think that for a lot of people, you know, you live in Astoria, you've got your handful of favorite Astoria places. You know, I think for a lot of people, you kind of find community in a very, very localized neighborhood and tend to kind of occupy that unless it's a special occasion like a birthday or unless you've, got friends or family who are visiting and they want to do the touristy sort of things. When you want more, start your business with Northwest Registered Agent and get access to

thousands of free guides, tools, and legal forms to help you launch and protect your business all in one place. Build your complete business identity with Northwest today. Northwest Registered Agent has been helping small business owners and entrepreneurs launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years. They're the largest registered agent and LLC service in the U.S. with over 1,500 corporate guides, who are real people who know your local laws and can help you. you and your business every step of the way. Northwest makes life easy for business owners. They don't just help you form your business. They give you the free tools you need after you form it, like operating agreements, meeting minutes, and thousands of how-to guides that explain the complicated

ins and outs of running a business. And with Northwest, privacy is automatic. They never sell your data and all services are handled in-house because privacy by default is their pledge to all customers. Visit Northwest Registeredagent.com slash money-free and start building something amazing. Get more with Northwest Registered Agent at Northwest Registeredagent.com slash money-free. When I evaluate debt funds, I look for things like first position loans, personal guarantees, deep experience by the fund operator, low fund leverage, fast liquidity, and consistent returns.

These are some of the reasons why I'm excited to partner with Pine Financial Group. Their fund six offers investors exposure to real estate credit, largely for construction and rehab, with loans originated by an experienced originator with over $1 billion in origination volume. They offer investors an 8% preferred return paid money. and a 70-30 LP split of everything over 10% paid annually. The lock-up period is nine months with liquidity available within 90 days after that nine-month commitment.

The fund is open to accredited investors only. The fund's minimum investment is typically $100,000, but Pine Financial is able to reduce that minimum for Bigger Pockets Money listeners to a minimum of $25,000. Full disclosure, I am personally invested in this fund through my self-directed IRA. Pine Financial is sponsoring this message and our podcast. Go to biggerpocketsmoney.com slash pine, P-I-N-E. Please note that returns are not guaranteed and may vary based on fun performance. When the change in season hits, some people suddenly just want to declutter the garage,

clean out the closets, and get everything all organized, and that's great. If that's you or if it's not you, either way, let Monarch do the financial spring cleaning this year for you. One dashboard gets your entire financial life organized. No more clutter, no more mess, no more scattered logins, just accounts, investments, property and more all in one place. Another feature I love about Monarch is the weekly AI recap. It catches spending spikes before they become problems and flags big net worth shifts or upcoming expenses. It's like having a quick personal check-in every week, so nothing sneaks up on me. Get your first

year of Monarch for half off, just 50 bucks with the promo code pockets. Use the code pockets at monarch.com to get your first year half off at just $50. That's 50% off your first year at monarch.com with the code Pockets, P-O-C-K-E-T-S. Let me flip the script here and ask about, you mentioned taxes, so we can just know that those are much higher in New York City than they would be in Las Vegas. But what about business opportunities?

You are a podcaster, and I know that you record from your apartment, but I presume that you also get some advantages from in that business being in New York City, which would be true of almost every type of business you could imagine. But you walk us through that and how that's impacted your career as a podcaster? Oh, absolutely. And actually, when I record interviews, I record interviews face to face.

So I've got with my podcast network, they have a podcast studio down in the financial district in Lower Manhattan. And so I have started insisting that all of our interviews be face to face. And so, you know, a lot of the people that I interview are authors who are on book tour. Almost every author on book tour is going to make a stop through New York because they're going to run the Good Morning America Today Show circuit. And so when those authors are coming to New York as part of their book tour, I'm able to meet them in person. And then we sit down and we have a two-hour interview. And so that's been incredible. And I don't know, other than maybe L.A., I don't really know what other city I could do that in. I'm in that group. I met you at the studio to

record a show, what, two, three years ago. Oh, and you were in the old space. You were in like that shoe closet. It was like right after lockdown ended. So it was this huge fancy building that was very intimidating and it was completely empty. Exactly. Yeah, like the CEO of your studio opened the door for me. He was the only one there. That's right. That's right. Yeah, and that was a bit of a shoe closet. So we're in a much bigger studio now. So the one that you were in, we had like a webcam that we were using to record. And now we have a full setup with like multi, you know, we've got three cameras and lighting and there's a studio operator who's like right there in the room. That's incredible. It's like a real full-scale production. If you had to take a stab at it, how would you quantify or how would

you articulate that increased opportunity that being in New York City offers? And it's going to be so variant by every type of work. But it seems real. It's certainly been very real for the other folks that we've talked to about fire in Manhattan. And it seems like it is real to some extent for you. It's hard to quantify it because, for example, if I had a sales job, I could very easily say by virtue of meeting 100 people in person, that has led to me closing X number of deals. I have the job of a podcast host in which there's a soft advantage that comes with forming face-to-face relationships, but I think that advantage is very hard to quantify. I interviewed Nick Majuli, who I'm I think I'm sure you guys know, he's the author of Just Keep By,

and then his latest book is The Wealth Ladder. And after talking to him, I thought to myself, you know what, I know that Nick works for Barry Rittholtz. And Barry is the head of Rittholt's wealth management, which is a very, very impressive firm that has attracted a lot of top talent. I was like, you know what, let me reach out to Barry. Like I just had that idea after talking to Nick. So I reached out to Barry, and he was like, yeah, sure, happy to swing by.

And so he swung by. Now, would he have done that? Like, I don't know the counterfactual. Would he have done that if I'd emailed him from, a different location and said, hey, will you meet me on Zoom? Maybe, probably. I guess so. But it's different when I can actually shake his hand and look him in the eye and tell him that I'm a huge fan of the work that he's done and the company that he's built and that I hope to learn as much from him as possible because I think that there's a lot that all of us can learn from him.

I think there's something different to be able to like look at somebody and say that. One last question here. I started to change change it to on a, a dime here, but you said you spent 80 to 100 bucks a week on groceries. And I think that for me, the way I'm wired, that would be impossible. Like, if the best bagel in the world is like right around the corner from me, I'm getting bagels for breakfast most morning. If you get fancy restaurants, I get that, you're not going out every night to a fancy restaurant. But I'd be like, oh, wow, that place has one of the best sandwiches in the world. That's got the best pizza. Does that tent do at all in New York City personally? Or do you see that as a common theme among your peers,

your friends. Back when I used to work out of a co-working space that did tempt me more, there's a certain level of inertia when you're at home and you don't want to leave home. And so by virtue of having an apartment that I really enjoy, and by virtue of that apartment having a co-working space downstairs that's attached to a gym, what that means is that I have everything that I need under the same roof and I never have to actually put on real shoes. I honestly do think that there's a certain inertia when you know when I'm like all right if I were to leave my building right now I'd have to wear shoes I'd have to wear a jacket I'd have to put on some sunblock I'd have to you know find my keys there's a certain friction associated with that that's

why back when I used to work in from an outside co-working space for there was a period of a year and a half where I worked out of a we work. At that time, I definitely did more grab and go lunches. And then there was an academic year. There was nine months when I was a student at Columbia. And same deal. Like when I was up there, yeah, definitely a lot more grab and go lunches. But these days, when I'm like essentially in like dressed in what is one notch above pajamas for the entire day, the friction associated with leaving home is great enough that I don't want to bother. What do you think is like the minimum that someone needs to spend in order to kind of recreate a good portion of the lifestyle you have here, plus or minus? So 3,600 for my apartment.

That gym that I'm referencing, that's an additional 130 a month. Groceries will stay between 80 to 100 a week. Transportation, they max out, even if you do the maximum number of bus and subway rides per week, which I don't. They'll cap you out at, I think it's $34 a week. They might have raised it to $36 a week, but somewhere between 34 to 36 a week. That's buses and subway. Exactly. Yeah. You can spend below that, but once you hit that, they won't charge you anymore in a given seven-day period. So you know that the total spending in a seven-day period at maximum will be, I see the $34 or $36. Health insurance is stupidly expensive. That's the

other thing that, so taxes and health insurance, those are the two things in New York that'll totally get you. If you have to buy your own individual health insurance, the state of New York is just an absolute train wreck. I've been going through down this rabbit hole for health insurance for a while now, really like getting nerding out about it. New York is one of two states with Vermont, where the ACA plans in most other states can charge younger people less than older people up to a three to one ratio. So, you know, if you're if you're in your 20s, 30s or 40s, you're going to pay a much lower premium price than someone at the, that's 64, approaching, you know, traditional retirement age and Medicare, that could be way more expensive for those folks. But if I were to go shop a plan

for my family here in Colorado, I'll pay like $1,200 for a bronze ACA plan right now. But if I was 64, that plan might be $2,400, you know, $2,400 a month in terms of premium. In New York, they don't allow that age-based discrimination, basically, on these plans. They don't allow carriers to charge differently. And so everybody pays that fee. And so if you're in the younger side, you're going to feel like it's preposterously expensive. And if you're older, you're actually going to feel like it's relatively cheap compared to some of the other states. So it's a fascinating thing there. But yeah, I was wondering about health care because that would be, that seems like a big gotcha in New York City or in New York eight specifically. That's a really interesting to know. I was wondering why New York health insurance

was so insane. There are other components like competition in the marketplace or whatever, but I believe that is, I believe, I'm so oversimplifying, but I believe that is the quick answer to, why does it feel so insanely expensive for you, Paula? Well, it does, but it probably doesn't for, you know, 64-year-old Paula when you're approaching traditional retirement age. I take that as a compliment. I'm still young.

I'm still young enough to think that health insurance is preposterous. Yeah, those are the two real gotchas with living in New York. It wasn't what I thought it would be. Like, I thought it would be housing costs. I thought it would, you know, I thought it would be all of the more visible day-to-day expenses. But the two real big, big hurdles are health insurance and taxes. Is there any way to get around the taxes?

The health insurance, obviously, it can't if it's a state thing. But is there any way to reduce your taxes? And you're talking about like state income tax and sales tax. And city tax. The city of New York imposes a tax in addition to state tax. Oh, well, that's nice. Yeah, it's great. Let's use $100,000 or $150,000 a year income earner.

Do we know roughly what that difference is going to look like in New York versus Las Vegas? No idea. I'm sure there's like websites that you could plug that into. While Scott does that, I will set you up with another question. Paula, did moving to New York City change your FI timeline? Well, I was already, and this goes back to how do you define FI. I define FI as lean work optional. So I was already FI before I moved to New York, and that didn't change.

But again, I'm defying FI as work optional with a lean lifestyle. And final question, while Scott's still looking stuff up, why do you feel that living in New York City is an asset to someone's FI journey? I think it's neither an asset nor a liability. You know, I think that New York gets painted as a liability and people will refrain from living in New York because they believe that. But in all of the ways that I've just outlined, my actual cost of living has not really substantially changed since moving to New York.

And when I look at my, again, I look at my biggest expenses. If I look at personal non-business expenses, yeah, veterinary care was big. That's not, and that has no geographic relevance. What else have I spent a lot of money on? I generally travel less since moving to New York. It's not that I can't. It's just that I'm less motivated to travel.

So that cost has actually gone down. When I was living in Vegas, I was traveling a lot more. Let's see. What else do I spend money on? I have a lot of business expenses. But in terms of personal expenses, sweaters, I definitely buy a lot of sweaters. Cold, yeah, things to wear in cold weather. Yeah, if you're moving from Las Vegas to New York City, you're going to need a whole new wardrobe.

Yeah, yes. I'd say sweaters and sweatpants. I buy more of those than I should. If you can hold yourself back from overstocking on sweatpants, you'll be good. I just did the, I was trying to do the math, and it was like complex. And I was realized, I have a magic math math computation machine in chat GPT. So I just asked them what that looks like. And chat GPT says that your net take home pay on $150,000, if it's a single file or if you

didn't do anything, no 401k or anything like that, is going to be about $11,000 to $115,000 in Las Vegas, and about $125,000 in New York City. So seven, eight, nine grand, somewhere in that range in terms of the difference in tax bill on an annual basis for that $150,000. So it's real. That's real. That's a big difference. But for our fire folks, they don't pay those taxes generally. They don't have to, depending on how they want to realize their income. So it may not be that much of a barrier. Right. Right. Exactly. Paula, thank you so much for sharing your version of FI in New York City. I think that Scott was very incorrect when he said, you can't be FI in New York City. And for all the reasons that you've listed and so many more. Did I say you can't be FI in New York City? Or did I say that? at the appeal that it's harder to get to fire New York City and that you probably don't want to

as much in New York City. We should actually go back and listen to what you said because I thought you said you couldn't. The specific argument was there. So Kant is a very strong word. I have a friend who is in, she lives here, but she's in the New York City, a FI, WhatsApp chat. And she's showing me, she's like, oh, you guys caused quite a stir here with your comments. Well, good. I'm glad we're getting corrected. That's what we do. That's it. So this has been wonderful. Paula, thank you for being our third New York City friend that has come on and put the record straight here. And it sounds like you live an absolutely wonderful fie life in New York City, in Manhattan, in Hell's Kitchen. So love that for you. It sounds wonderful. And I hope you have a

great rest of your week. Thank you. You too. All right. That was the Paula Pant. And she has such an amazing story. I always love talking to her. Do you want more financial independence information? Hop on over to biggerpocketsmoney.com and sign up for our newsletter. We all have free resources, calculators, and templates to help you accelerate your journey to FI. We can't wait to see you all again tomorrow for our last episode of the New York City series. We'll be talking with Kim Hunter Borst. That wraps up this episode of the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. He is Scott Trench.

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