Over the past 7 years, I have lived pretty much everywhere from the minimum wage scenario to all the big expenses being taken care of for me, and to be quite honest, both ends of the spectrum have their pluses and minuses. Back on the minimum wage end, I was forced to live with my parents (which is a big deal - they abused the shit out of me my whole life), and it was quite uncomfortable - I was paying almost $600 a month for insurance (and that's way cheaper than out of pocket for me). But I lived close to work (Qdoba), gas was still cheap, and I always ate at work and at home. I very rarely went out, and I certainly didn't have money for weed (sad, sad, crying face!), but I had damn near zero responsibility and lazed around as much as I wanted, when I wasn't at work, of course. I transitioned from that to moving out and working 80 hours a week at two jobs (six days a week or 13 days then one day off, not at Qdoba anymore, thank god, lol), and believe it or not, that was the happiest I've been in years. I had extremely little stress in my life, and I controlled every aspect of it. My rent was only around $600 for a pretty big place near my day job, and even with my expensive insurance payments, I was finally able to save up a little cash, and I put a buttload into my IRA. Now that I'm back in school, my parents cover my tuition and rent (I have a bit of scholarship money, but it's not much), but honestly, I'm more stressed out and pissed off at the world than ever. It's hard to make money because I can't ever have a "normal" job because of the intense amount of schoolwork and needing weird time off for exams and all that (and even though my parents pay rent and tuition, I still take care of everything else, so I need to make *something*). I have been extremely fortunate in that I have been a good saver all my life so I've had a little cushion and lucky that my parents are covering a big chunk of the expenses, so I will be graduating debt free. Honestly, the graduating debt free thing feels amazing. It's just another thing I won't have to worry about in this job market - two of my friends with a biochem degree (what I'm getting) from my university haven't found shit for jobs and are working at completely unrelated places.
Really, a lot of it is a function of what you're most comfortable with. If you're young, single, and healthy, it's really not that hard to live on minimum wage. Yeah, it's not real fancy, and you're not going to have nice things or go nice places, but you can still have a fun time of life. I know I did.
(This was all in Milwaukee or Madison, WI. My parents were in the North Shore (mke), I lived in Wauwatosa (mke) when I moved out, and I currently live on the UW campus in Madison.)
