Investment Banker
$120,000

Andrew knew that the kind of life he wanted -- raising a family in New York, with private schooling, a weekend home, the works -- costs money. So when he graduated from college, he went straight to Wall Street. He spent two years working as an analyst in New York (about $50,000 the first year) and then in London ($150,000 a year, with free housing). After a few years, he decided to go back to school to earn a master's in business administration at Columbia. But living off his (considerable) savings hasn't been easy.

"As an investment banker, I just always knew that I had enough," Andrew says. "I knew the sort of things I could afford to do and the sort of things I couldn't. In London, I could afford to eat in any restaurant that I wanted anytime I wanted, and I didn't have to worry about it."

Andrew left with a nice nest egg -- more than $100,000. But last December, when the $15,000 bill for his final semester of business school came due, he was virtually tapped out. The only money he had left was in euros, and he was loath to access it because of tax penalties and the exchange rates. "Paying my tuition emptied out my bank account," Andrew says. "I maxed out my credit line there and my two credit cards all at once. It's probably about six days now of absolutely 100 percent cash void." As we talk over lunch, he takes a cell-phone call from his mother, to arrange a meeting at a nearby cash machine so he can pick up a loan.

"It has been educational," he says. The biggest difference: taxicabs. "I used to take a cab to the gym and then work out. Why not walk? I would sit in my apartment watching TV, and then realize that I'm late and have to take a cab. It was ludicrous."

He also discovered resources he didn't know he had. "It's all about eating all the things that are in your cupboard, the stuff that you bought in a fit of domestic exuberance, when you were at D'Agostino's thinking I love tomato soup! and you bought eight cans and never ate them." His ace in the hole, he says, was his "change bucket," the repository of all the coins left in his pockets every night. He found $52.80, rolled it up, and took it to the grocery store. "I offered to count it out," he says bashfully, "but the cashier said, 'No, honey, that's all right.' "

How does a single man living in New York run through so much cash? "It wasn't even that great a life," he says. "I paid $1,600 a month in rent my first year in New York, for 480 square feet -- it was hardly a mansion. I'd go out to Orologio, on Avenue A, or Kin Khao in SoHo -- not like Nobu or something. But I'd drink Tanqueray martinis -- straight up with three olives -- which will set you back about eight bucks apiece. On top of rent, I spent a total of $66,000 that year. That grosses up to over $120,000 pretax -- you'd need to make $120,000 a year to live that life!"

With his first nest egg already built and squandered, Andrew faces the next milestone in a young man's life -- finding a mate. I pressed him to estimate the costs. "First there is the cost of nights out with friends, just to identify a woman you want to date, which can be pretty expensive," Andrew says. "Then you have at least half a dozen dinners at about $150 apiece -- just getting started. I'm a good dancer, so I'll take her to a couple of benefits with ballroom dancing -- that's where I've had my greatest success. But that usually costs $200 a ticket, and only sometimes includes dinner -- so $400 or $500 for the night. You definitely have to take her away for weekends, which will put you back $800, between getting the car and three nights at a bed-and-breakfast in the Hudson River Valley or New Hope, Pennsylvania. And then there are nice clothes. If you are going courting, you aren't going to do it in your shabby old Gap sweater. I invited a girl to a benefit once when I was working, and my tuxedo just was not what it once was, so I had to buy a new one -- $800! Thank God for the six suits I had made in England -- they last forever. When you are dating, you inevitably do more things in New York, too. Days out. Shopping. Museums. There's a $20 walking-out-the-door tax in New York -- $20 disappears from your wallet and you have no idea where it goes. A few taxis, some food -- a day out in New York can cost you $150 or $200. God forbid you should be dating around the holidays." For Andrew, the cost of winning a woman's heart can run over $7,000.