Housing and transportation should make up no more than 40%-45% of your take home after tax income. You can put more of your budget to an apartment if your transportation costs are lower.

And like, you can pay more but things will be tighter. Somewhere in the 60k range before tax should work I think assuming you have no other major mandatory expenses. (Like is your student loan bill really high?)

I had a landlady who wanted to see our pay stubs so she could confirm we made three times the rent and wouldn’t have a problem paying.

Rule of thumb is to multiply the Monthly rent by 40 to calculate what is affordable at your annual salary. HUD defines it as being affordable at 30% of your salary and multiplying by 40 makes the math easy

I make 62k and am affording a $1580 apartment

If you don't have alot of debt, 60K. I've made nearly that much with a 26K student loan and if you include utilities I could only afford at most a $1300 "shoebox" studio that I found in a new building.

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To qualify to rent an apartment you generally need a gross income of 3x the rent. $1,500 x 3 x 12 months give you an annual salary of $54k. Qualifying for it does not mean you can actually afford it though, depending entirely on you other debts and your spending habits.

Don’t settle for less, go make the money

Spot on

You also have to factor in location.

Where is this apartment?

Take home on 60k after taxes is 50k.

1500 x 12 = 18k

18k = 37% of your take home. That's too much. Should be <30%

Also need to consider how often you are paid. Bi weekly? That's ~1900 bi weekly. Aay goodbye to 1500 + utilities from your first check every month. Can you survive the two weeks on $400? Phone bill, cable/internet, food, transportation, entertainment?

What happens if you run into a tricky spot and need cash immediately - rent this high will bleed you dry and a sudden incident/accident could leave you in a world of financial pain.

Find a roommate or boyfriend/girlfriend and lower your expenses. Or find a better job.

The 30% should be considered only if you’re paying 15% or so in transportation. If your transportation costs are less, you can shift that to housing. Here’s a good resource on thinking behind that: https://htaindex.cnt.org/

If anyone is paying 15% of their annual salary on transportation, something is wrong.

Considering all living costs are up, that rent % allocation (ideally) needs to go down.

$1500 for an individual on 60k is absolutely insane imho. I understand that market prices have made this far more commonplace for individuals, but it doesn't make it a good decision.

Focus on investing your money and making work for you long term versus paying more now for a sweet apartment. Some day you'll have to retire and your 'retirement age' you will thank you far more than the current you

Car payment, plus gas and maintenance can get high quick. I had to pay $1600 to repair my car once. It’s like adding $130 a month to my yearly transportation budget.

Well there is bad decision #1 is a car payment....

You're justifying bad decisions with more bad decisions

I mean, not everyone can afford pay cash for a car. Or the ones they can afford need repairs more often.

You’re not wrong as to what’s best but those aren’t always options for people. Where to live, where to work and how to get there don’t always line up great for folks.

The issue is the 'need' for a new car on a lease.

I've not once in my life owned a new car. It's not that complicated.

Granted, car prices are insane in general right now - even more reason to look into the 2004 accord versus the 2022 Acura RX

Edit: there is a fine balancing point between buying "money pit" and stretching to buy a reliable (but less sexy) automobile