Homesteading is a great way to work significantly harder for a lower standard of living.
> Your math/programming skills will help immensely if you want to build and automate everything yourself
Your math/programming skills will help a lot more by helping you exchange your labor for money, which you can then exchange for food, clothing, and shelter. Your average developer salary can buy you more and better food and goods than you can make yourself in a cabin in the woods.
If you prefer to spend 30 minutes a day collecting $6.00 worth of eggs and milk, that's a lifestyle choice, not a financial one.
I disagree with the lower standard of living. My standard of living hasn't changed any. In fact my sense of well-being and satisfaction has increased dramatically. My peace of mind that I know where my food comes from, from beginning to end is immeasurable. I will agree that it was a bit of work to set up, sure, but most of it takes care of itself. It takes 60 seconds to collect the eggs each morning.
I also disagree with your labour for money purchasing better quality food. Most of the food you buy in the store and at restaurants is packed full of stuff that's bad for you (look at the world's obesity and allergy problems that are escalating every year).
Homesteading is not analogous to living in a cabin in the woods (contrary to common belief). You can live a modern life with modern amenities while growing/making your own food which is more satisfying and better for you. We still have running water, a flushing toilet, a dishwasher, washer, stove, TV, cable and broadband internet - and I still live within an hour's commute of work and still buy clothes and other goods. Without having to buy all our produce/eggs, we free up a few grand a year for other projects/vacations/trips/excursions/events. So counter to your argument that it's a lower standard of living, our standard of living has increased.
Of course, you can sit in a restaurant eating high fat food joining the rest of the sedentary obese population and call that "a higher standard of living" if you choose; or you can use your time at the gym or out running or doing other exercise to keep your calorie balance in check, to keep our bodies healthy which takes what? Half an hour, an hour a day? I used to be like this, living the high life, enjoying the luxuries, increasing the size of my pants and my hours of exercise as each year passed. I'm done with it. I spend less time doing physical activity homesteading, I'm eating more nutritious food and I'm losing weight.
The other plus is that knowing how to provide all that stuff for ourselves eases our burden on the rest of society having to provide it for us and when stuff goes wrong and there's a run on the grocery stores and shelves are emptied, us and our neighbours barely notice the difference.
Here in the states, you still, at a minimum, have property taxes, utilities, car/gas, etc to pay for even if you want to live a homesteading life. I lived this way for a decent portion of my childhood. We had no running water and a 12 volt electrical system in the middle of nowhere in Northern California.
For sure taxes still need to be paid... do you have a spare room? Could you AirBnB to supplement your income? Could you reduce your utilities by switching up some stuff in your house? Perhaps it would be cheaper for a gas stove than electric? Could you put solar panels on your roof to sell electricity back to the grid? Could you get a bike and ride more places to use less gas? Would having septic save money on waste? Could you hang dry your laundry instead of using a dryer?
Not saying that all or any of those are feasible for anyone/everyone, just offering some solutions that many people overlook when they think they're stuck and unable to reduce their costs any further and these things can be switched up without changing your lifestyle much/any. Some of them have a (in some cases large) up front cost, but then your monthly expenses can be reduced significantly which reduces your longer term income needs.
...and I don't know how you lived without running water, that's something I just can't give up, along with my washer and dishwasher.
Obtaining running water was the first thing we did but it consisted of hiring a well witcher, drilling for water, putting a well in, putting in a pressure tank and piping to the house. It was a major expense. We had gray water for a few years, but eventually had to put in a septic system when we ditched the outhouse and installed a toilet.
Nowadays a professional hydrologist is who you'd contract for the task. They will do a geologic survey and fracture trace analysis using data from satellite imagery, the USGS and related state agencies in order to identify fissures within the underground rock formations that are most likely to hold a suitably sized pocket of water with good recovery. Then they might conduct electrical resistivity tomography to directly measure and image the density of subsurface material to identify water pockets and narrow down good drilling spots. It's a far cry from the sort of thing that might be characterized as dowsing.
I've also had experience installing a catch box (there's another term for it that escapes me right now) in a creek and running miles of pipe always with a slow decent to gravity feed several holding tanks. A word of warning, bears are curious about the sound of running water through pvc pipe, so bury that pipe...
I'm working towards this myself. Homesteading is an easy way to move in this direction without needing such riches. It's not as much work as everyone says - though the work there is, is mostly physical. Your math/programming skills will help immensely if you want to build and automate everything yourself, which will make your life even easier in the long run.
Your dollar buys much more when you grow all your own produce, dairy and meat. Seeds are cheap, a couple of cows, a couple of pigs and a handful of chickens will cost you far less than your annual meat/dairy bill and give you all the meat/dairy you could want indefinitely. The only thing that's prohibitive is growing enough wheat for flour - and only prohibitive from a space standpoint; but flour is cheap and making your own bread is easy. You don't need to live off Ramen and Squirrel. Rabbits breed like... well, rabbits and they're pretty tasty, cheap to keep, pretty hassle free and their manure is great for compost. Of course, slaughter isn't a pleasant experience, it's not all sunshine and light.
I'm just an average guy, with an average income working an average 40 hours a week with a family. If I can afford it, then I'd wager that a decent portion of HN readers can afford it too. Life can be expensive if you let it, but there are many ways to live cheap and have a fulfilling life.
If city life is too expensive for you to have a good work/life balance, you're living in the wrong place and working in the wrong job or working for the wrong company... unless you live to work, if you do, then more power to you.