Post AzaLKeiDPrbcafjXSC by DrPen@mastodon.social
(DIR) More posts by DrPen@mastodon.social
(DIR) Post #AzaLKdPkF3EkZ65H1c by paninid@mastodon.world
2025-10-25T04:52:08Z
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https://www.threads.com/@njunp/post/DQNjPf0j2SvI've lived in NYC for almost 18 years now. That's basically the entire lifetime of someone before they become an adult. I moved here after selling my car that put $7,000 in my pocket. I lied to my parents and said I had a full time job offer. I had a part time job that paid me $2,500 a month and $32,000 in student loan debt. (1/9)
(DIR) Post #AzaLKeiDPrbcafjXSC by DrPen@mastodon.social
2025-10-25T04:59:00Z
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@paninid Great thread. Im a brit now living abroad but I echo everything you say mirrored in London (lived there 30+ yrs). Every major large city is this. And they will die (London is dying on its feet) if the young and the lower economic strata aren't supported. It isnt the rich that make a city, its everyone else.
(DIR) Post #AzaLKfwQqUZWP3OPFg by tg9541@mas.to
2025-10-25T05:31:24Z
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@DrPen I wonder why it was so much easier for me, a small town child. Maybe it's because money shuns small towns? Because I never needed a student loan? Because my 1st salary, low as it was, supported a family of 3, then 4? Because the old family members, lower class, had lifetime savings that they used to help us buy a flat? We also lived below our means, and still do that. Autonomy oriented habits stick. Autonomy, that's avoiding deep money hierarchies, which you get in big cities. @paninid
(DIR) Post #AzaLKm2KBUqnJ4CCGm by paninid@mastodon.world
2025-10-25T04:52:08Z
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My first apartment was a few blocks south of Spanish Harlem on 91st and York. My rent was $800/month living in someone's walk-in-closet in a railroad apartment. I had to walk through his bedroom to get to mine. Just to get to the subway I had to walk to 86th street and take the bus four avenues or walk 15 minutes to the 6 train. (2/9)
(DIR) Post #AzaLKuWkcFwTdkUbo0 by paninid@mastodon.world
2025-10-25T04:52:08Z
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My commute every day to get to my first job was 75 minutes each way. 15 minutes for the bus. 6 train to 51st street. Transfer to the E at 53rd street and take the E to West 4th. I packed my lunch and ate a $3.00 BEC every day for breakfast. I ended up getting a second and third part time job because I was eating through the $7,000 so fast and was only making the minimum payment on my student loans which meant after my first year in NYC, my student loans went from $32,000 to $33,000. (3/9)
(DIR) Post #AzaLL34Mr9aO8KHZJY by paninid@mastodon.world
2025-10-25T04:52:08Z
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I didn't have health insurance for my first two years. In my second year in NYC I got hit by a biker in the bike lane while crossing the street. This was before smart phones. I wasn't looking at my phone. He just sped through and ran a red light. I needed 18 stitches in my right shin and ended up with $3,200 in hospital bills. (4/9)
(DIR) Post #AzaLLBOrsojnyDw3NY by paninid@mastodon.world
2025-10-25T04:52:10Z
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I worked hard. By year 10 I had paid off my loans by bunkering down and living below my means. I was doing well salary-wise but had chosen to live in a 200sq foot rent-stabilized studio that was $1,125 per month even though I could afford more. (5/9)
(DIR) Post #AzaLLKWzvxaYI2oAng by paninid@mastodon.world
2025-10-25T04:52:14Z
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I went from surviving, to getting by, to making ends meet, to having a little, to thriving, today. My husband and I are fortunate and financially secure. Although we sit in the highest progressive tax bracket in the US, we're middle class by NYC standards... that's how insane NYC wealth inequality is. We don't qualify for the 2% proposed millionaire tax that Mamdani is running on -- but we might in a few years. I appear on the exterior as the elitist class but I didn't come from that. (6/9)
(DIR) Post #AzaLLTaWGEkkNZWc2S by paninid@mastodon.world
2025-10-25T04:52:14Z
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Why am I saying all this? Well... I know what it's like to struggle in NYC. I know what it's like to deal with crippling student loans. I know what it's like to not have health insurance. I know what it's like to live in a shitbox. I'm also educated enough to know that the likelihood that Zohran Mamdani will be able to accomplish all of his campaign promises is low. But he's the only candidate who has committed to working for the 26 year old version of myself. (7/9)
(DIR) Post #AzaLLcTPE3PVw7GYhU by paninid@mastodon.world
2025-10-25T04:52:14Z
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We deserve the chance to have someone who's not bought and paid for by corporations and billionaires who don't even live here. We deserve the chance to have someone who's not bought and paid for by AIPAC. We deserve the chance to have someone try. (8/9)
(DIR) Post #AzaLLlI2RgfJHT16jQ by paninid@mastodon.world
2025-10-25T04:52:15Z
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If you're in NYC and you didn't have to struggle, I'm glad for you. I wish I had that experience. But if you can walk down your sidewalk and look at people struggling and below your means and not have the desire to have them have a better chance, I wish you would. I'm early voting for #ZohranMamdani tomorrow. Not because I believe he is going to accomplish everything he's running on. But because I fully believe he's going to try to. (9/9)