How I Got a Luxury Nose-Job on 5th Ave NYC While Making 30K and Paying Rent

Don’t get me wrong, I love 5th Ave. There is something soothing about the atmosphere: any of your worldly problems can be solved by shelling out some Benny Franklins.

I knew I had to go to 5th Avenue for the surgery, no other place in the entire world is so concerned with looks. Except maybe L.A. Therefore, I was determined to get the most expensive and most stunning nose-job of my life. A nose-job is like a marriage — you want to do it right the first time. I don’t usually brag shamelessly on the internet (okay, maybe sometimes I do), but I must say I am impressed and shocked with how well I pulled this one off. Let me give you some background. I graduated with a B.S. in psychology in May of 2020 and I have since been living in a Boston apartment with my boyfriend. The pandemic really threw off my whole life plan to become an esteemed professional. I had no motivation to go to graduate school in the midst of a global crisis, so I did what I assume many other recent B.S. in psychology grads did during the pandemic: I became an essential worker.

I worked at a large department store for fifteen bucks an hour. I had never cashiered before. I had barely made my own living before. On one fateful thirty-minute unpaid, mandatory lunch break, I sat by myself facing a glaring white wall. I stared at my phone and slurped Maruchan. I swiped through social media stories but paused when I got to one. My jaw dropped open in surprise.  A girl with a bandaged, banged up face smiled back at me. No fucking way. My friend got a nose job and she’s posting about it! I became instantly jealous. I messaged her immediately and asked where she went. She told me, with pride, that she spent ten grand with a Boston surgeon and she could not be happier with the results. Her nose did look incredible.

A couple months later, I began the hunt for a surgeon. The first one I found had an impressive selection of before/after photos posted proudly on his website. Many of the Boston surgeons, including the one my friend went to, did not show more than two or three before/afters on their sites. The surgeon I found had over twenty cases shown.

If you are considering a nose job, it is extremely important to LOVE the before/afters of the surgeon you choose. It is a great sign if the surgeon is proud and confident enough in their work to show all the before/afters on their website.

So, I called up his office to book a consultation and *spoiler alert* I chose his office.

Another good sign is when the office charges a consultation fee. It means they value the surgeon’s time. The fee usually goes towards the surgery anyway. A free consultation may seem enticing, but this might be a sign that the surgeon is having a hard time finding clients due to a shady track record.

Anyway, I called up the office and the lady who answered the phone was very brisk and very blunt: “No we do not work with insurance agencies, this is a private practice. Yes you will have to pay out of pocket, it may be anywhere from fifteen to twenty grand.”

“Perfect!” I said back, trying to pretend like I was some makeup mogul or trust fund baby. In truth I had about two hundred dollars in my bank account and maybe three grand in my savings. I booked the consultation anyway. Then, I booked the surgery for October 2021, six months away. The surgery cost $17,180, almost two thirds of my yearly earnings.

I would not recommend this sort of expenditure to anyone, quite honestly. But I really fucking wanted this and I was going to do damn near anything to get it. I needed about fourteen racks in six months. So I saved. And I opened a CareCredit account. And a Discover card. CareCredit is a credit card company for health-related purchases, AKA plastic surgeries. Miraculously (AKA I lied and said I made more money than I did), they gave me an $8700 credit limit.

Totally did not deserve it, but this limit was the reason I could afford the surgery. All in all I used about $5k of it. I also saved about $9k that summer.

The day came to pay for the surgery and my bank account, still a “student account”, wouldn’t even let me empty the full amount at once. I had to break it up into two transactions two days apart. (So much for my image of a bratty trust fund kid.) I could barely afford the bus rides to and from the NYC surgeon’s office. It was an absurd time in my life. I could barely afford groceries yet I was paying for a huge luxury purchase.

And yet it was oddly empowering.

My risk-averse brain translated this slightly psychotic, extremely impulsive adventure into the narrative: I can do anything. Everyone told me I was crazy — that I could never save enough in only six months. But I did it, by the skin of my teeth, and that gave me confidence that maybe I could take other financial risks if I want something bad enough.

Oh, I wanted it bad. I emptied my retirement savings (again, I cannot recommend it), and I drank free beer all summer (I worked at a beer garden). I ditched my expensive smartphone plan and bought a thirty dollar Tracfone flip phone, with a nine dollar per month plan that included 90 minutes of talk and text (not for the faint of heart nor the basic gen-Z-er). There were times when I ran out of minutes and had to use an old smartphone on free wifi to message people. Oh yeah, and I ditched my apartment wifi. My monthly expenditure looked something like this:

$800 rent

$100-200 groceries/utilities

$100 student loan repayment

$700+ nose-job savings

I told you people thought I was insane.

I stayed in an affordable AirBnB in Harlem for the day of the surgery. My boyfriend came along to take care of me. Luckily, we made lots of Jell-O the night before. Jell-O was the only thing I could eat post-operation for like…two days.

The surgery day came and went without a hitch.

I arrived at the lobby of the surgical center on the rainy, dark morning of my surgery. It was all marble and quiet. Fresh orchids. Skeletons and spider webs. It was almost Halloween. As I was prepping for surgery, the anesthesiologist smiled at me and told me he’s from Boston too.

“Welcome to New York,” he said.

I smiled back as I drifted off on the warm, cozy operating table.

I opened my eyes and the doctor came over and assured me he, “put a lot of love into it.”

I have a new nose.

The pain began to well up in my face on the ride back to the AirBnB. I shuddered and creaked, still coming off the anesthesia. My boyfriend helped me up to the fourth floor walk-up apartment. Not my best work booking a walk-up, but no harm, no foul.

Now, it has been four whole months post-operation. I am about half-way done with my credit card payments. I love my new nose, although I sometimes feel like a Frankenstein-esque character, all my different parts sewn together to create a living, pretty girl.