This Is Why You're Broke

Midtown East–ers Spend $1,196 Per Month Eating Out, Brownsvillers Spend $25

If you’ve ever wondered whether spending half your salary on eating out is normal, you may want to turn to Bundle, a site that combines data “from the U.S. government, from anonymous and aggregated spending transactions from Citi, and from third party data providers” to show you what people spend by city and even zip code. By using it, we discovered (if we’re to trust the stats) that the average New Yorker spent $348 dining out last December (the last available month of data), which is less than residents of Boston ($404), Los Angeles ($372), and San Francisco ($499), but more than Philadelphians ($229). But New York is a city of neighborhoods, so it’s no surprise that when you break it down by zip code, you get far more interesting results.

Using the Department of Health’s zip codes by neighborhood, we ran all of the city’s zips through this nifty little tool and discovered that New Yorkers spend anywhere from $25 per month (Brownsville) to $2,398 (Rockefeller Center) on eating out. That latter figure is an anomaly, since Rock Center’s zip code is tiny. But consider the residents of the Upper East Side’s tony 10028 zip, who spent $1,136 in December, with average purchases of $53 — the upper 90th percentile of those spenders blew $2,919 in restaurants last December. Keep in mind that doesn’t even include grocery shopping. Check out the rest of the results.*

Manhattan
Gramercy–Murray Hill: $983–$1,196
Greenwich Village–Soho: $932–$1,014
Chelsea-Clinton: $754–$2,398
Upper West Side: $709–$1,056
Lower Manhattan: $619–$1,373
Upper East Side: $543–$1,136
Union Square–Lower East Side: $251–$972
East Harlem: $175–$258
Washington Heights–Inwood: $151–$202
Harlem: $121–$311

Brooklyn
Downtown–Brooklyn Heights–Slope: $290–$711
Greenpoint: $200–$265
Bensonhurst–Bay Ridge: $148–$264
Coney Island–Sheepshead Bay: $116–$234
Borough Park: $116–$193
Sunset Park: $105–$151
Williamsburg-Bushwick: $56–$80
Canarsie-Flatlands: $55–$187
East New York: $51–$57
East Flatbush–Flatbush: $48–$237
Bedford-Stuyvesant: $25–$388


Queens
Fresh Meadows: $257
Astoria: $233
Woodside: $160
Flushing–Clearview: $139–$295
Elmhurst: $120
Jamaica: $123
Ridgewood: $118
Bayside–Little Neck: $56
Rockaway: N/A
Southeast Queens: N/A
Southwest Queens: N/A
Jackson Heights: $194

Staten Island
South Beach–Tottenville: $218–$235
Willowbrook: $202
Stapleton–St. George: $161–$256
Port Richmond: $87–$190

Bronx
Kingsbridge–Riverdale: $300–$444
Northeast Bronx: $58-$165
Pelham–Throgs Neck: $57–$364
Fordham–Bronx Park: $55–$81
High Bridge–Morrisania: $43–$90
Hunts Point–Mott Haven: $45–$75
Crotona–Tremond: $39–$45

* Since the areas listed are broad and include multiple zip codes, we’ve displayed the average spending in these areas as a range. For instance, the average person in Murray Hill–Gramercy’s 10010 zip spent $983 (the lowest spending out of the area’s four zip codes), while the average person in the area’s 10022 zip spent $1,196 (the highest spending), so we’ve displayed the result as $983–$1,196. If this is all too wanky for you and you simply want to search by your specific zip code, hit up bundle.com.

Midtown East–ers Spend $1,196 Per Month Eating Out, Brownsvillers Spend