This doesn't quite jive with my experience living in SF. I have an older but comfortable apartment close to BART and an active social life (had lol). Pre-pandem

This doesn't quite jive with my experience living in SF. I have an older but comfortable apartment close to BART and an active social life (had lol). Pre-pandemic my CoL was ~40k. I'm fortunate to be on the higher end of dev salaries so I don't need to spend this little but living a life I enjoy this is just how much I end up spending. I have friends and colleagues whose experience matches yours, some have come to me for help with their finances. I've found it fairly easy to slash 30-40k/yr from their budgets by simply forcing them to think about which things they're spending money on actually add happiness or utility to their life.