Spoiler alert: It takes more than a waitress salary to afford a decent place to live.
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Whether you watched Friends when it first aired live as a young adult or you discovered it through a streaming service, the show certainly appeals to viewers of all ages. For Generation X, there’s the nostalgia factor. For younger viewers, there’s the relatability of six adults in their 20s trying to navigate life and relationships in a large city.
But while you may have, at some point, been envious of the seemingly nice lifestyle the characters on Friends got to lead, as many critics have pointed out through the years, the way their lives were depicted just wasn’t realistic.
How our favorite Friends lived
Monica and Rachel had a rent-controlled apartment Monica took over from her grandmother. And while we never heard that Joey and Chandler’s place across the hall was rent-controlled, it also wasn’t quite as spacious as Monica and Rachel’s.
But even so, Joey and Chandler’s place had way more square footage than your typical Manhattan apartment. And even with Monica and Rachel’s discounted rent, it’s a little suspicious that all of these people managed to cover their expenses and have enough money left over for daily lattes on incomes that can only be described, for the most part, as minimal or inconsistent.
Rachel was a waitress, so it’s likely that the bulk of her income came from tips. And even if customers tipped generously, the average Central Perk bill couldn’t have been that high given that people were mostly downing a cup of coffee. So chances are, Rachel wasn’t sitting on tons of money in her savings account.
Then there was Monica, who, at times, was gainfully employed as head chef of different restaurants. But there was also a point when she was nothing more than a glorified line cook in a costume — yet she still managed to make rent.
Joey, meanwhile, was largely an out-of-work actor who mooched off of his roommate until he got his big break. And Chandler — well, we never really quite figured out what it is Chandler did for a living. (Is a transponster even a thing?) But even with his unwanted promotion early on in the series, it’s doubtful he was earning enough money to cover the rent on a two-bedroom Manhattan apartment, all the while supporting a roommate with a voracious appetite.
The cost of living like the cast of Friends today
Living in Manhattan was never inexpensive. But the $3 lattes the Friends were sipping back in the 90’s would no doubt fetch $7 today — not to mention an added fee for using a credit card, which more and more independent eateries have taken to imposing.
But let’s forget the lattes and the gazillion pizzas Joey and Chandler ordered night after night. Let’s talk rent. These days, the average cost of a two-bedroom New York City rental is $4,800, according to RentHop.
Now as a general rule, housing costs should not exceed 30% of one’s income. For homeowners, that 30% should encompass mortgage payments, homeowners insurance, property taxes, and HOA fees. For renters, though, that figure generally applies to rent alone (or rent plus renters insurance, but the cost there tends to be fairly minimal).
For someone to be able to comfortably afford a two-bedroom apartment in Manhattan costing $4,800, it would take an income of $16,000 a month, or $192,000 a year. Now this is 2023, not 1994, which is when Friends premiered. But if we adjust that $192,000 salary to 1994 dollars, we get $97,000.
The only members of the Friends crew who could’ve possibly been making that much money at the time were Chandler and Ross. It’s fair to assume that Phoebe’s massage parlor job didn’t pay quite so generously.
But again, Chandler had a host of expenses. And Ross had a kid and a divorce to pay for (and maybe some therapy — he certainly needed it). So all told, it’s really difficult to see how these characters lived the way they did.
Actually, it’s not so difficult — it’s called TV. And the enjoyment of TV often hinges on our collective suspension of disbelief.
Either way, you can enjoy those Friends reruns and laugh at the antics of those six lost souls trying to build careers they didn’t hate, find love, and live in the moment — not on their cell phones and social media pages. But if your goal is to live like the cast of Friends, well, unless you’re a super high earner, it’s probably not going to happen.
However, if you manage to amass your own close-knit group of 20-somethings who love coffee, pizza, and the simple act of just hanging out doing nothing, well, that’s something you can pull off on a waitress’s salary. You’ll just be doing it in a much smaller apartment.
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