For example, finding roommates is a good way to save money, but you have to be careful about who you room with. Roommates can both increase social opportunities for a busy software developer, but can also damage career opportunities. I had a roommate that got a homeless boyfriend. I was apprehensive about it but supportive at first. My employment depends on me having minimal interactions with police and when I found out he was bringing drugs into the apartment, I had to end the lease and got my own living space. I now live alone and I lost a friend. This is more expensive but less risky. It will slow my financial independence, but less so than job loss.
Renting a cheap apartment sounds good on face value, but the problem with it is that the quality of people you’re around is lower. When you get dragged down, you enter a world where there is no respect or affirmation for your time or goals, everything is an emergency demanding your immediate and full attention, this is cancer for your attention. If you want to develop your skills as an engineer or learn a new technology on your own time, guess what you’re not going to do in that situation? One example, when my car was broken into at my cheap apartment, police assume that since you’re a victim of crime, you’ve got nothing better to do and you have plenty of time. Guess what I didn’t do that day? I didn’t go to work. I would say living in a more expensive area ultimately saves you time and lets you grow because it takes away a lot of the barriers living around poverty introduces.