Hey all,
I'm about to move to NYC for work, making a solid income. 23 YO, new graduate, happy to me a yuppie soon enough. I've lived there before, so I have some historical samples of how much I tend to spend, and have developed a corresponding budget. My problem is deciding on housing/location. In my budget, I can afford to live alone and walk to work, while still saving 30% of my pre-tax salary. To me, this is like a dream come true. After having roommates throughout college/grad school, I am exhausted with dealing with other people's shenanigans.
However, I realize that if I either A: Live farther from work, or B: Live with roommates, or C: Both, I could dramatically increase my savings rate. For example, if through any of these options I lowered my rent from say $2,000 to $1,500, that's an extra $6,000 a year! Part of me is saying "Move out to New Jersey with roommates, tough it out, and save yourself a year or so of working."
While my argument to live cheaper makes sense, I find myself dreading one seemingly silly thing: social life. I realize this sounds ridiculously anti-mustachian, but I feel like I cheap it out in Jersey City, I will literally have no friends, no dates, never get married, die alone with my horde of tax-advantages retirement schemes.
Considering no one IRL shares my views on spending and financial planning to begin with, I'm hoping to bounce this problem off someone else. Is 30% savings rate "high-enough"? Are my expectations of not having a social life completely out of left field? It's hard for me to calculate how many years to FIRE this change would reduce, since at 23, it's hard for me to do any life predictions beyond 5 years.