Based on your username I’m assuming you’re around NYC. My wife is from West Islip on Long Island and faced a similar quandary as she was coming of age. $2000 a month to rent a crappy apartment in the mid 2000s, so she moved out to the Kansas City metro area. We bought a 2200 square foot house in the suburbs that cost us $245,000 just a few years ago, maybe $300,000 now.

I’d say the stop-the-rat race mentality is to move to a smaller city, unless you’re literally working on Broadway or some job that’s uniquely tied to a large city, there’s plenty of jobs and lots of space out in flyover country.