If you practice frugality, find cheap housing (which does exist if you look hard enough), and don't spend money on things you don't need, then it's quite easy to save a lot of money.
Being a 400 sq. ft. studio that you pay $3k per month for to live in an area where you won't get stabbed when you go out at night and is close enough to work where you don't need a car.
Well, that was uncalled for. I’m willing to bet a paycheck that someone named “Nikolae” lives in a place where “studio” might have a meaning different than it does in the U. S. And so they wonder why you’d live in such an expensive place if you’re trying to save, whereas in the U. S. a studio is the bottom tier of apartment inventory.
Perhaps you're not familiar with American apartment terminology or I'm missing something? A studio apartment is as cheap as you can get normally.
Many in this thread seem flabbergasted that a studio would be expensive or could ever be cheap, it's probably based on whatever market they're used to.
Having roommates! Rent a victorian with a few roommates in West Oakland. One train stop to San Francisco, way less than 3k a month.
what's cheaper than a studio?
For example, where I live [1] a studio is $1,700 but one room in a 3br is $1,100.
The "best" deal I've found in LA is when you have a partner and can split the one-bedroom with them.
Unless you're strongly introverted, and/or suffer from social anxiety, having roommates is a great way to a) meet new people and b) save lots of money.
Not everyone is a student anymore.
(We've lived in four places since getting married, one without housemates and the other three with. We've definitely preferred the latter.)
An American studio apartment is essentially a hotel room with kitchenette. It has only two doors, one for the bathroom and one to the exterior. Thanks to fire codes, it will usually have at least one escapable window.
While it isn't the lowest tier of city housing, it is the smallest type of apartment with significant supply in the US. Dormitories aren't tremendously common away from university campuses, and communal barracks are uncommon outside of the older military bases--where they are generally mothballed until a particular need arises for large quantities of temporary housing.
I lived with 3 roommates to save money, I sold my car, you won't get stabbed anywhere in SF (so live in the sketchy area it'll get nicer each year). My rent was $1,200 a month, a lucky find.
Now don't get me wrong I hated living there, no girls, homelessness everywhere smelled like garbage, and a self-obsession that pretended to be health-minded but was really wealth-minded ($9 juice OMG).
But the earning power change by having lived there is night and day. To have companies people have heard of on your resume goes such a long way.
> I lived with 3 roommates to save money, I sold my car, you won't get stabbed anywhere in SF (so live in the sketchy area it'll get nicer each year).
I'm not willing to test that theory and there's an inherent value to not thinking about getting stabbed on a daily basis.
> My rent was $1,200 a month, a lucky find.
To live with 3 other people in the sketchy part of town? Yeesh.
Even if that's not you, you have to realize that everyone else needs that option if we're going to have a functioning community.
This is flatly untrue and bad advice - there are absolutely areas of San Francisco where you run the risk of being the victim of physical violence. Some people will be comfortable living in that kind of environment but many won't, and suggesting that all of San Francisco is uniformly safe is irresponsible.
Now consider: what would you do if you were already married and wanted to do this? (Meaning, move to the Bay with your SO, not leave them behind.)
Then yea you can make it work...just no fun.