<prompt> Human: I am currently a college senior 21 years old, but when I graduate I will be working full-time in New York City. Right now I am trying to find roommates, but I need to first iron out how much I am willing to budget for rent. My financial situation is as follows: My gross annual salary will be 85,000 per year. I currently have about 15,000 in my Roth IRA, which is money that I have earned and saved throughout college through interning in the summer and during the semesters. I expect utilities to be 100 per month. I also will receive a performance-based bonus, but I dont want to count on that in my calculations. Given the fact that NYC is an abnormally expensive place to live, Im not sure if the traditional spend no more than 25 of your gross salary on housing rule applies. What is a reasonable amount to budget for housing?  <response>: In places like NYC I look at housing and transportation together. You should be saving money by not having a car. So add a couple hundred a month to your 25 of gross for that and you are at about 2,000 even. That should be doable with roommates. 