Seven is heaven — when you’ve got two apartments.
An NYC mom of five has sparked a debate after sharing her family’s Big Apple survival secret on social media.
Kristi — known on TikTok as @kristiipartyof6 — is a content creator who moved to the city four years ago where she lives most of the year with her husband, who works in financial tech.
Along for the ride are their five children — one from each of the parents’ previous relationships and three together.
After struggling to fit everybody into their $12,000-a-month 3 bedroom, 2 bath apartment, and striking out on finding something bigger and better, the couple came up with a solution — rent a second, $6,000-a-month unit in the same luxury building.
And not only is it in the same building, it’s right across the hall.
The listing came up after their neighbor decided to move out.
“I texted my husband and said, ‘I think I just found our solution,’ ” Kristi told People.
The second apartment is now used to store clothing, shoes, kids’ winter coats, scooters and strollers — along with all the kids’ toys. The master bedroom is now a nursery, while the main living space is a giant playroom.
The family also uses the second apartment to do their laundry.
“With seven people in our family, we do a ton of laundry,” Kristi noted adding that having a second fridge is also another big help, “because, again, we’re a large family.”
The new space has also offered the family an opportunity to welcome visitors — something many New Yorkers can only dream of.
“We’ve also been able to host family and friends who visit us in New York,” Kristi explained.
“The second apartment gives them a place to stay close to us, but not in our actual living space. It’s been really, really beneficial for our large family living in the city.”
While Kristi said that her followers tend to be supportive of her posts, sharing these details with fans led to lots of questions and judgmental comments.
“I think people that live in New York get it,” she said. “They understand, but I think it’s the people that live outside of New York who I got so many comments from like, ‘Oh, what you pay in one month is what I pay in an entire year, and I own my home’ or ‘That’s my mortgage.’
“People were just saying it was wasteful and it was very expensive ‘storage unit,’” Kristi continued, noting that she calls it a storage unit because that’s how her husband refers to the space.
“And the truth of the matter is it is. We use it a lot for storage, and it is a very expensive storage unit,” she said.
“I understand that it really wouldn’t work for most people, but I feel very fortunate that it works well for our large family.”
The family also owns a large home on half an acre in Utah, which they built in 2017, where they spend their summers and a few weeks every February or March. But they love their NYC apartment setup.
“Once you find the apartment that you love and then you really build your community, it’s really, really hard to leave,” she said.
“I know that we could find a larger apartment somewhere else in the city and pay less than we’re paying right now, but community is a really big deal to us. This is our home. This is our community, this is where our friends are, and it’s really hard to leave.”
