Originally Posted by gloopy

Pads around 200-250 per month and rooms around 40 per night. Positive space home every 2+ day break so you could buddy up for around 20 a night each for 5 days a week and have more privacy for around 400 for the month-ish long post indoc footprint, or totally splurge and spend 800 for your own room.

My advice would be to put yourself first. Everyone is on a budget and first year pay, while actually very good compared to most, is still a pay cut more often than not. But stressing over a few hundred bucks at the front end of a career likely worth well into the millions is something IMO you shouldn't revert to "cheap pilot mode" for unless you're literally a couple paychecks away from losing it (which in most cases is another story entirely).