I work and live in the Bay Area. It is a cruel joke to say that any FANG engineer (or other $200k+ earner) working here is living "paycheck to paycheck". Even i

I work and live in the Bay Area. It is a cruel joke to say that any FANG engineer (or other $200k+ earner) working here is living "paycheck to paycheck". Even in your reply, you provide a solution (just one of many) to this hypothetical renter's problem: switch to a yearly lease and save $66,000 a year. People who are actually living paycheck to paycheck don't have the luxury of making these kinds of financial decisions. Meanwhile, I know a number of Bay Area grad students who still get by on a salary of $30,000, and even they wouldn't say that they're living "paycheck to paycheck" for the most part.