<prompt> Human: Hi personalfinance,I work in New York City but live elsewhere. 2 hour commute to work, but living with family, so no rent. The monthly commuting costs are roughly 430 train passes, bus passes, etc.However, a colleague is offering me an apartment near my job for 1000mo a steal for the size of the room, the location, and the fact that is an 8 MINUTE WALK TO WORK!.Basically, if I took the apartment Id save 4 hours a day that I spend in round trip commuting. BUT Im spending roughly 570 more a month just to live close to work.What would you do in the situation? NYC is so prohibitively expensive.My job is in research, salary is btwn 33 - 36k a year.Id be living there for a year, so its approximately a 6700 loss over 12 months. That could make a huge dent in college loans!  <response>: Generally, the tradeoff seen in this sort of situation is commuting via car vs moving, in which case one can save a lot by giving up the car. However, your transit costs are comparable to owning a car. So its coming down to whether you want to pay 570 a month to get 4 hours a day, or roughly 80 hours a month of your life back: 7.13hour. As rainbowsalamander says, theres many other costs to consider too though: living in NYC is expensive, where living with family lets you share many other costs with them. You havent posted details about the reset of your financial situation: your loans, assets, etc.Personally, I cant see a 4 hour commute as anything other than soul-crushing. But can you make productive use of this time: for example, work on courses to improve your education, and perhaps increase your salary potential? Work on marketing yourself?Because while living in the city might be preferable from a lifestyle point of view, financially, it looks like a costly decision right now. 