Anonymous E joined in and replied with this 2 years ago, 19 minutes later, 35 minutes after the original post[^][v]#1,264,151
Here is some advice from a privileged white man. Pretend to be dirt poor for a while. Pinch every penny as tightly as you can. Live off of beans and rice. Bike to work. Cancel all of your streaming services. Turn down the heat in the winter. Etc. Embrace minimalism. Pay off all interest accruing debts asap. Put everything else into a savings account and don't touch it until it is time to leave, pretend you don't have it. Find a city you'd like to live in. Calculate how much it would cost you personally to live there per month with your new minimalist lifestyle, rounding everything up so you overestimate. Better to save too much than not enough. Multiply that number by 12. That's how much you need to save up. Once you hit that number, rent a long term Airbnb, 1-3 months (sidenote, this is the only way airbnbs are ever a good value). The day you get to your new city, start applying to every single job you can. It doesn't matter what you do, so long as you have some money coming in to supplement your savings. Work at McDonald's or Amazon if you have to. They will hire anyone. Keep spending as little as possible and keep looking for better paying jobs. Don't be afraid to quit a job for another one that pays more. Once you have received a couple paychecks, start applying for cheap apartments. If you don't mind roommates, you can save a lot on rent. Once you have an apartment and a job, then congrats. You've made it out of your hometown and you've got a little cushion of savings in case things ever go sideways.
Anonymous E replied with this 2 years ago, 1 hour later, 1 day after the original post[^][v]#1,264,271
@1,264,222 (Fake anon !ZkUt8arUCU)
Almost, I got all the way to the "start applying for apartments" phase and for various personal reasons came back home. I'm currently working on building back my savings to try again. Hoping to have my savings where I need it to be sometime around March or April. I've spent a lot of time thinking about this topic, I hope my condensed thoughts help OP to figure out his path.