It's because it's not unless you're wildly outspending your limits. Having personally done it, living in Brooklyn was fine around 90k right in Carroll Gardens a

It's because it's not unless you're wildly outspending your limits. Having personally done it, living in Brooklyn was fine around 90k right in Carroll Gardens a pretty nice area with a 1 bedroom. Living in Manhattan was fine at about 120k and very easy when I was making about 150k. I have high student loan debt too. I haven't lived in a non luxury type building for years now at this point and only had a flat-mate once by choice while being able to save thousands a month. The narrative of the poor struggling highly paid engineer doesn't really jive with me. I moved to Jersey City last year to have cheaper rent but I did that because I don't care for NYC much and am migrating out in general but it wasn't like I was struggling as an individual engineer before hand.