This is a common critique I've gotten! It was definitely something I considered heavily when buying - and is actually the reason I chose to eat the cost of sta

This is a common critique I've gotten! It was definitely something I considered heavily when buying - and is actually the reason I chose to eat the cost of staying close to the city, rather than move to some far-flung place where the cost of living is three or four times cheaper. Yes, I got less space. Yes, my mortgage is larger than it could have been. But my quality of life will _continue_ to be much higher next year - it's not a short-term personal gain for a long-term social loss. I did spend some time time making myself a map of the surrounding area, and choosing to buy within some geographic criteria: 1-mile radius of public transit (that doesn't end at 8pm, which some lines here do); 1-mile radius of a grocery store; sub-1hr commute to work. By sheer luck, I'm now closer to my gym than I was before. And while I'm now on the opposite side of the city from many social opportunities, getting home at 11 versus 10 afterwards doesn't faze me much.