Living in New York Series

Stores and Places of Interest

Drugstores

New York drugstores carrying everything from snacks to that much needed aspirin after 5 hours of cramming.

Here are the two largest chains:

Walgreens

http://www.walgreens.com/

Duane Reade

http://www.duanereade.com/

Rite Aid

http://www.riteaid.com/

There are other smaller drugstores as well. These two have weekly sales so pick up the circular on sundays and see what you need.

Target and K-mart are also large stores that are like a clothing, grocery (minus the fresh veggies and fruits), toy, stationary, electronics, etc. store all in one.

http://www.target.com/

http://www.kmart.com/

For all these sites you can look up the nearest store under 'locations'. You can just type in your address or pop in the zip code. And you can use google maps (mentioned earlier) to get directions. :)


United States Postal Service

http://www.usps.com

Locations are all over New York. Read up on mailing packages, forms, and other services provided by your local post office (minus the attitude, but actually, some post offices are quite civil, just not my local branch).


Banks

The largest banks are:

Chase

Citibank

HSBC

Bank of America

Capital One

And a plethora of Chinese and other Asian banks especially in Elmhurst, Flushing and Chinatown. A few Chinese banks include:

Asia Bank

Chinatrust bank

HSBC

Amerasia

and many others.

To get tho their websites just pop in the name to search.

Personally, I bank with Citibank because of convenience. They even have offices in Tokyo and I can access them through Japan's post office atm machines. Otherwise, my local branch has way too much attitude for me to bank.

As for service, I've received the best from HSBC and Amerasia. Amerasia is very stable but only has a few branches whereas HSBC can compete with the Western banks in terms of branch locations.

I personally don't like the service at Capitol One. Waiting over an hour to receive help from a customer service rep is just unacceptable.

When I visited Chase, they just tried to push too many things on me I didn't need such as loans which would just put me in debt.

The people at these banks are essentially sales people and will try to push you in to services you don't need or want. Learn to say 'no' or 'I'll think about it' and avoid 'limited time deals'. That's just a catch phrase to push you in to something.

Credit Cards

Always good to get a credit card. If you lose it, call up the company as soon as you know and cancel it. Some have good fraud protection. Credit cards can be used almost anywhere in NYC. Just remember to carry a piece of ID.

But the big thing about credit cards that people don't do: READ THE FINE PRINT

Sure, the person pressuring you to sign up for that Bank of America card was just so friendly and you got a free mug to go with it but what they neglect to tell you is the 29% late fee. Yes, it is in the fine print.

Here are the biggest:

American Express

Mastercard

Visa

Discover

Usually, the Discover card is the easiest to get, but it's not accepted everywhere. Check to see if there are any student specials.

My favorite card is the American Express Clear card. No fees of any kind and the rewards are clear. I call it the no bs card :)

All banks carry Visa or Mastercard, however, I have heard some pretty bad things about Capitol One and Bank of America, not to mention Citibank concerning fees as well as really bad customer service.

If you do a search on and 'complaints' you can usually see the experiences other people have had.

The best cards to get have no annual fees or fees of any kind. If this is your first card, you may have to settle for a student card from a bank.

Some words of advice:

Always pay off what you owe. Letting the money pile up will hurt you later on.

Don't use the credit card for needless things, especially if you are living on a budget.

Keep track of what is on the bill. If there are any charges you didn't make, call the company right away and dispute it. All cards can be checked online so you can see what's going on.

Don't pay late. If you can't pay off a bill all at once pay a little at a time every week or every two weeks online. This also gets you in the habit of checking your transactions and keeping track of how much you spend every week :)

Some of this advice may sound self explanatory but you'd be surprised how many people think of credit cards as 'cash for free'.

Supermarkets / Grocery stores

Whole Foods is the big one in Manhattan. In my neighborhood I've seen Food Bazaar and Ctown. Check out your neighborhood. Also, every week they have sales so check them out.

Computers and Electronics

Ahhh, I will go into a whole section on this at another time. I never pay full price for electronics unless I am in a hurry. The big stores:

Best Buy

Circuit City

CompuUSA

Radio Shack

J&R

and there are others that are slipping my mind. As usual, you can check out where the nearest stores are through their websites' 'location' link.

Personally, I buy all my computer and electronics needs online.

http://www.buy.com

http://www.staples.com

http://www.officedepot.com

These sites also have office supplies. Officemax is another but I get the best deals from those sites above.

I will have another article on discount sites where you can save a bundle and I do a lot of research on products and where I can get them the cheapest. I'm not a electronics nut but I look carefully in to everything I buy from headphones to digital cameras.

I'll probably think of more stuff later. Until then, enjoy your stay in NY!