A 26-year-old bookstore manager earns $53,000 a year in New York.

This story is part of CNBC Make It’s Millennial Money series, which examines how people earn, spend and save money.

In August 2022, Eileen Tyrrell was in a rented moving van on her way to New York City, where she was preparing to build a life. A recent college graduate who moved from the Chicago suburbs without a full-time job lined up, she relies on freelance writing and her $3,000 savings to survive.

“I remember seeing the skyline in the distance, and all of a sudden I thought, this is real,” Tyrrell told CNBC Make It. “Now all my worldly possessions are in this van and they’re coming to that city with me. It was really scary, but I was also really excited.”

Tyrrell says it wasn’t easy to survive on an uncertain income in one of the most expensive places in the world, especially in the early days when she was doing a combination of freelance work and seasonal work. But Tyrrell still lives in Manhattan and earns about $53,000 a year, including a $45,000 salary as a bookstore manager. She says that even if money is tight, her life is meaningful.

“I love my job,” she says. “I feel very lucky to be able to say that because I have a lot of friends who hate their jobs.”

Here’s how Tyrrell, 26, makes ends meet in New York, living with two roommates, having little debt and keeping daily expenses low.

Tyrrell graduated from Iowa State University in 2022 with a degree in civil engineering, even though he knew before graduation that he didn’t want to pursue a career in the field.

“I remembered that I’m not really a math or science person. I’m more of a language person. I love books. I love reading and writing,” Tyrrell says.

That same year, a close friend who was already living in New York found an apartment in the city’s Chelsea neighborhood for about $4,410 a month and invited Tyrrell to be one of his roommates. Split three ways, the rent would be $1,470 per month. The apartments are also rent-stabilized, meaning there is a cap on annual rent increases, making housing costs more predictable over the long term. Tyrrell accepted her offer.

After moving there, Tyrrell was offered a $67,000-a-year engineering job, but he turned it down. “I didn’t come to New York to check a box or do the same thing I was already doing. It didn’t fulfill me,” she says.

Instead, she covered her expenses through a combination of freelance work and odd jobs, including a seasonal part-time job at a bookstore.

“I always thought of it as a stopgap job,” Tyrrell says. “But once I started working at a bookstore, I fell in love with it. It’s so rewarding to recommend books to people and be surrounded by a community of readers and writers all day long.”

That experience eventually led her to a job at another bookstore in Brooklyn, where she now works full time as a store manager.

“When I moved here, I told myself to slow down a little bit and think about what I wanted to do in terms of finding meaning in life and finding a job that was really rewarding for me,” Tyrrell says. “I wanted a job that filled my cup every day.”

In addition to her $45,000 salary at the bookstore, Tyrrell will earn about $8,000 this year from side jobs such as freelance writing, pet sitting and, most recently, TikTok, where she earns money by watching videos.

As of September 2025, her total expenses amounted to about $3,477, which she said was higher than normal because she was trying to keep up with her bill payments. Here’s a breakdown of her expenses:

Rent: $1,566 for her share of a three-bedroom apartment Food: $531 for groceries and eating out Discretionary: $527 for travel, donations, household items, entertainment Utilities: $312 for Wi-Fi and electricity (includes last month’s backpay) Insurance: $158 for health insurance and renters insurance Transportation: $131 for public transit and ride-hailing Subscriptions and memberships: $109 for AMC A-List, Preply language apps, cloud storage, HBOS Savings: $93 Student loan repayment: $50

People often ask Tyrrell how she makes a living in Manhattan, but she says, “I’m not going to lie. I’m not going to gloss over it. It’s hard, but it’s worth it.”

“For me, it’s three things: I don’t have a lot of debt, the rent is very affordable, and I don’t spend a lot of money,” she says.

Her biggest expense is housing, but because she lives in a rent-stabilized apartment with roommates, her monthly rent is much lower than the market rate in her neighborhood. Tyrrell said annual price increases are limited to about $30 a year. Similar three-bedroom properties in the area are currently listed for about $7,000 a month, but Tyrrell and her roommate are paying $4,698 a month.

Her only debt is about $2,800 in student loans, with monthly payments of $50. She always avoids credit card debt and pays off her balance in full every month.

“My parents and grandparents paid probably 60% of my college costs, so the student loans I have are very small,” she says. That is also a great privilege.

Other than rent, they are keeping expenses down by limiting eating out and shopping. Most of her furniture and household items were brought from college or given to her by friends.

As of September, Tyrrell had about $1,900 in savings and investment accounts, including about $425 in a high-yield savings account for emergencies. She is restructuring the fund after a higher-than-expected tax bill in 2024 and hopes to grow it to about $12,000 before shifting her focus to investments.

When she does splurge, it’s often on trips to visit friends and family in other parts of the country.

Otherwise, much of her social life in New York often revolves around long walks in the park, getting together for coffee instead of drinks, or spending evenings at home watching TV with her roommates.

“A lot of my friends are in similar financial situations, so a lot of what we do is very affordable,” Tyrrell says.

Recently, Tyrrell has gained an audience on TikTok through a series of videos documenting his daily life in New York as a “regular person,” often showing him commuting to work, working shifts at a bookstore, eating at home and relaxing after work.

“New York content is far too glamorous and over-the-top,” she says. “We want to show people that normal life in New York is not what you often see online.”

And at this stage in her life, Tyrrell says she’s happy with the tradeoffs she’s making.

“Where I am now is very rewarding and very meaningful,” she says. “I have a job that I love and a life that I love, but I’m not financially stable yet. But for now, it’s a tradeoff that I’m happy with.”

Tyrrell says she’s not focused on pursuing what she calls a “capital C career.” Instead, she says she finds meaning in building a life rooted in her neighborhood and community, like volunteering weekly at a local mutual aid group and feeling connected to the people around her.

She says she often remembers Oscar Wilde’s line, “Who wouldn’t be perfectly happy with freedom, books, flowers, and the moon?” — as a way to frame how she thinks about money and fulfillment.

“It’s such a cliché, but I’ve used it so many times to reassure myself that it’s okay to not make a lot of money, that it’s okay to live on this tight budget,” she says. “I have my freedom, I have my books, I have my moon, and often that’s all I need.”

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