moved from – After earning a computer science degree in 2023 and landing a $60,000-a-year job, one new software worker said New York costs nearly wiped out savings. Moving to San Antonio, Texas—where rent is lower and there’s no state income tax—made homeownership feel pos
In 2023, the job offer sounded like the kind of break young engineers dream about: a software company said it would pay $60,000 a year. The only catch was relocation. No office near her parents’ home meant she would have to move away from home—across the country.
She had grown up on Long Island. Packing up for Texas felt daunting even before the numbers came in, because the decision wasn’t just emotional. It was financial. With a difficult job market and rising costs in New York. she said there was effectively no other way to keep her postgrad life from collapsing under rent and taxes.
The math started with housing. She said the average rent for an apartment in most East Coast states runs $2,000 to $3,000 a month. Over a year. she calculated that could reach $30. 000—about half her annual income. before food. insurance premiums. utilities. and any “rainy-day” savings. On top of that, she pointed to what she described as high New York State income taxes, plus federal tax.
By her own estimates, that left her with less than half of her annual salary after taxes, again before basic expenses. What would remain, she said, would be “next to nothing” for student loan repayments. She also saw no path to saving toward a house.
Texas changed the equation, and she treated it like a decision she had to justify with receipts. She learned the company had an office in San Antonio, and as she researched an unfamiliar city, the differences in cost stood out.
Even in a large city like San Antonio, she said rent averages $1,000 to $1,500 a month. Texas, she added, has no state income tax. With the same job, those two factors translated—at least on paper—into far more money left for spending and saving.
The move still carried uncertainty. She said she had never been south of Virginia until she moved. and she had no family or friends there for support. She found her apartment in San Antonio remotely. scanning Google Maps and making a list of apartments with “ideal locations” while reading tenants’ reviews. She focused on listings with two to four stars to avoid being misled.
She also looked for safety signals, checking crime statistics and saying she was happy to see it was very low. Then she narrowed her daily reality down to a detail that mattered more than she expected: her commute ended up at five minutes.
After the relocation, her monthly housing cost came in at about $1,250 for a 700-square-foot, one-bedroom apartment with an in-home washer and dryer, a community gym, and a pool.
To explain why it felt different from the East Coast on an income level—not just a rent level—she leaned on a personal finance framework she said is widely known: the 50/30/20 rule. She said the guideline is that you spend 50% on needs, 30% on wants, and save 20% of what you earn. In Texas, she said she easily spent less than 50% on needs and saved more than 40% of what she earned.
For her, the point was blunt: she believed none of that would have been possible on the East Coast at an entry-level, new-grad salary.
Finally, she connected the monthly budget to a long-term goal. She said home prices in Texas are much lower, and that her goal of homeownership finally felt achievable.
Her story is also set against the employment turbulence she said new graduates are facing. She described low salary expectations, frequent mass layoffs, and high job volatility. In that environment. she said she found a way to make her first professional step count by moving away from a state with a high cost of living to one that offered. in her words. a “50% discount on life.”.
For her, the cross-country move wasn’t just where she landed—it was the mechanism that let her keep paying student loan repayments, build savings, and imagine a future beyond survival.
She ends with a practical message: new graduates and early professionals may find success by doing the same—if the numbers, and the life they buy, can support it.
New York Texas San Antonio software job computer science graduate cost of living rent income tax student loans homeownership personal finance