&gt; since when do you NEED to spend less than 30% of your take home on rent to survive?<p>Yeah, that&#x27;s the same question every scumbag landlord in America started asking themselves a few years ago when demand for rental units started going up.<p>You don&#x27;t &quot;need&quot; to spend less than 30% of takehome on rent. If you assume you&#x27;re going to be running in a treadmill your whole life, and you&#x27;re satisfied working for subsistence only, then sure, go for it, blow half (or more) of your paycheck on rent. Lots of people in San Francisco and other expensive cities do this.<p>If you have life goals that don&#x27;t involve being stapled to a desk forever, it&#x27;s probably not such a good idea.