Couple quick things:
1. Do you have parents you can live with while you save? Can you stand each other? If yes, live with them until you save enough or make enough hourly to sustain.
2. If no, live further out than suburbs of a major city. When I lived in NEO, I lived about an hour south of Cleveland. The further you live out, the I cheaper the rent/houses should be.
3. Is a small studio apartment or 1 bedroom apartment an option? Again, the further out from a major metro area, typically cheaper. Imagine this is hard to find regardless in the current market though. Can you get roommates?
4. Look for remote jobs. If there is no travel, saves a ton on car maintenance and gas. Which in turn helps make your actual take home income higher.
5. If you do live in way out from city, drive far to work, and say you need reliable transportation. Buy a civic, a Prius, or some other affordable car. Don't go buy a Tesla (or other expensive electric car) or a big SUV that sucks down gas. Buy something small that can grow with you some. Maintain it, don't trade in for shiny new model. Within 5 years car will be free and clear and last you at last another 10 plus years. If you don't put a lot of miles, could last you 20 more easily.
Don't be discouraged. This market is fucked. My house almost increased in price by $150k in 3 years. It's not sustainable. I still live 30 min from my job because of housing costs in general. Even before COVID, I had major sticker shock in NC compared to what I could find in Ohio.
I miss some of my family, def. missed the friends I grew up with too. Can usually only go back and visit once a year or so bc kids are little and cost to travel / renting hotel. I kind of miss the overcast, honestly. In NC, it's too fucking sunny and hot at times. I had to find a house that had some trees so kids could play outside during day, but since my backyard is woods, it brings mosquitos. If no woods, less mosquitos, but kids couldn't play in the middle of the day bc no clouds and hot as fuck.
My point in all this is, life is never truly perfect. You are the one charged to make a change and navigate these obstacles, life doesn't always seem fair either. If peoples lives are perfect and they don't have to make any sacrifices, great for them, but I really don't think that's a true reality. Even a really rich NBA player has to make some sacrifices they might not like. While being away from your children and wife can be a respite in some cases, some might really miss their kids and want to be around their wife and the travel sucks for them. Some might cheat on their wives, hate their kids and believe their lives are perfect. Nothing is perfect though and we all have decisions we can make.
You just need to keep in mind life is not fair and we all don't have the same starting point. You should focus on the decisions you control and make the best/ most logical choices for your predicament. You really need to decide on what makes you happy most and what you are willing to sacrifice though to attain those things that make you happy.
In my experience, material things like even new houses, new cars, boats, ATVs, girlfriends who are hot but you actually can't stand, all the new and glisten wears off pretty quickly. Those moments of euphoria are very short lived and unless you are really well off financially you cannot be chasing it all the time or you'll put yourself in a hole or be perpetually depressed because you cannot attain it.
