Industry: Behavioral health
Age: 46
Location: Queens, NY
Salary: $58,765
Joint Income/Financial Setup:
Assets: My one-bedroom co-op apartment purchased in 2024 for $265,000 (I put almost 50% down, thanks to my parents, so that I wouldn’t have an insane mortgage payment every month. My immigrant father joked that it was the money he saved for the wedding I will never have, so he might as well help me get a home).
Checking Account: $11,485.93
Savings Account: $15,508.92
Schwab Brokerage Account: $320,935.13 (stocks gifted to me by my mother right before I started shopping for a home to improve my chances of getting approved for a mortgage and by a co-op board).
Debt:
Mortgage: $138,084.19
VISA Sapphire credit card: $2,345
Paycheck Amount (1x weekly): $1493.88
Pronouns: She/her
Monthly Expenses
Housing Costs:
Mortgage: $945.29
HOA: $1034.25 (covers electric/gas, water, heat, property taxes, maintenance). This was recently raised for the second time this year due to increased utilities and operating costs; however, the board and most elderly residents are resistant to making any changes that would bring down said costs, like installing solar panels on all of our roofs or upgrading boilers to deliver more efficient heat. This is one of the drawbacks of cooperative living, but it was the only way I was going to become a homeowner. The jump to homeownership came from a pretty traumatic experience in the rent-stabilized apartment I lived in for almost 10 years. I could never rent again after that, but I also didn’t have $700K laying around to buy a home in a semi-decent neighborhood, which is what the more affordable options go for these days in the boroughs.
Loan Payments: None. I paid off my two student loans in 2023 and 2024, respectively.
Internet: $49.99
Phone: $16 (family plan)
Planet Fitness/gym: $20.89
Fidelis Health Insurance: $431.39
Subscriptions: $9.99 (Discovery Plus); $11.99 (Hulu); $19.59 (Netflix); $0.99 (Apple Storage); $29 (Psychology Today); $86 (Simple Practice management software); $136.10 (insurance management services).
Personal Therapy: $500 (my provider doesn’t take my insurance so it’s all out of pocket).
Annual expenses charged in different months of the year as follows:
Chase Sapphire Rewards: $99 (Jan); Planet Fitness Black membership: $40.76 (June); ACA (professional counseling association): $189 (Oct); HSPO Professional Liability Insurance: $108 (Nov); Home/COOP owner’s Insurance w/ Plymouth Assurance: $383 (Dec).
Was there an expectation for you to attend higher education? Did you participate in any form of higher education? If yes, how did you pay for it
There was a lot of pressure to obtain higher education as an eldest daughter and child of immigrants. My father had a fifth-grade education, but my mother was able to attain a Master’s degree. This created a lot of tension and mixed messages about what it means to be highly educated and female in my culture. I was simultaneously encouraged to soak up all the knowledge, but also told to “dumb it down” so as not to intimidate men. I chose to attend one of the city colleges so that I could afford to pay for it on my own without loans. Once I completed my undergraduate studies, I spent most of my twenties in a spiral of “dumbing it down” while also trying to figure out what I wanted to do outside of my family’s expectations of me. At age 30, I decided to complete a two-year associate’s program in a health-related field that informed my path to becoming a mental health professional. I took out loans to pay for this, but my mother supported my living expenses at that time, in secret, so as to avoid my father’s disapproval. This was the case in her family during a time when most women were getting married right out of high school, but my grandmother told her never to be dependent on a man. I think this “you can only rely on yourself” mentality has helped me achieve a lot in my current career, including paying for grad school without any loans and establishing a private practice to work for myself once I became licensed.
Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have about money? Did your parent(s) educate you about finances?
My parents have a solid immigrant work ethic, but a huge scarcity mentality stemming from the war and poverty they grew up with that was passed down to their kids. It was ingrained in me never to owe anyone ANYTHING, so all debts get paid in full, and you don’t borrow money unless there is no other way. My father was able to establish a comfortable middle-class lifestyle (when that still existed) for us growing up, but you would never know it by the way he would qualify everything with, “We don’t have money for that.” I tend to be tighter with the purse strings than a lot of my friends, and I used to wonder how they complained about being broke when they made three times my salary. It felt like an achievement to exist on so little, but I have come to realize how “non-negotiable” setting aside funds for quality-of-life expenses like nice dinners, art shows, and travel is for my mental well-being.
What was your first job and why did you get it?
I worked 15 hours a week in my senior year of high school at a local retail chain. One of my childhood friends was already working there and got me an interview with the general manager, this older Italian lady who treated us like her grandkids. I used the money I saved to pay for my first semester of college.
Did you worry about money growing up?
I did and I didn’t. I felt safe and secure in my parents’ ability to provide for all the necessities of life, but shut down and shamed for wanting anything beyond that. There was always this anxious dread of having to ask for money to pay for things my father wouldn’t approve of, which was almost everything. I couldn’t wait to start working, but my father initially disapproved of this, too, because he couldn’t control what I did with my own money.
Do you worry about money now?
I do, but more so about securing my future. I always have enough to eat and pay my bills, but I worry about the rising costs of everything and my ability to save for any kind of retirement tract with the way the world is right now. I’m riding the wave for now, but there are just too many unknowns.
At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself and do you have a financial safety net?
While I began paying all of my own expenses at 17-years-old, I became financially emancipated when I moved out of my parents’ home at age 24. I had to move back for a few months at age 34 and again at age 44 while I secured new housing, but I paid for all of my needs myself to avoid any kind of dependency that could lead to guilting. I know that I can rely on them in an emergency, but their financial help is often conditional and comes with a cost.
Do you or have you ever received passive or inherited income? If yes, please explain.
My parents gifted me the down payment funds for my current apartment purchase. My mother also transferred stock funds over to me so that I could boost my assets on paper for my home purchase. I treat these like an inheritance since it all came from the sale of my late grandfather’s home back in 2017.
