I get it. I am barely past living paycheck-to-paycheck having changed nothing about my lifestyle since I made half as much (using the same same rental, car, laptop, and everything), so making 30k today would be worse than making minimum wage was just a few years ago, when it was already shamefully low.

I do have a new job that pays way more, but my commute is absolute dogshit because the place I work is SUPER expensive. I work for a city where literally 100% of the households are multi-millionaires, and we have a few 11 and 12-figure residents.