First year rent in CT

(also, importance of central AC?)

Wait first year out of UG? Where you getting that kind of comp from??

250K total comp and is worried about a couple thousand bucks in housing? Must be a troll.

has to be AQR right

cant be AQR. they dont pay first year this well. i am thinking Citadel. 

you need to think about living a real life. you should either get a car or pick a place near the train station. you will travel to places other than your office (meals/groceries/going to NYC on some weekends?). Uber is not common in CT depending on the locations. No Uber drivers in NYC will take you to CT on a weekend night unless you give them $500 tip, bro. 

Live in Harbor Point (Stamford).

My brother works for in CT and got a car + an apartment in Stanford. Have been a few times and it’s a massive apartment for around 2k/month (lives alone), seems very worth it. There’s a lot to do in/just outside the area so a car seems like a good idea as well. He got a VW Jetta and it’s pretty sweet. Makes almost half of what you make and is still saving a lot. Would recommend something similar to what he is doing.

If you really want to be close to Greenwich and save money, then live in Portchester. You’re about 5-15 minutes from Greenwich Ave. There are plenty of spots but you need to see them in person, otherwise you’ll be living in a shithole in a shitty neighborhood.

As said above, you should just live in Stamford with this comp. There are tons of ubers, decent sized apartments for cheap. You can also go further up the train line but further from the city and you’re getting smaller sized towns like Norwalk and Fairfield

How are you smart enough to land a job like the one you have yet too stupid to figure out how to house yourself and create a personal budget

Some folks are trashing you in this thread which I don't understand, so I'll offer some real advice as somebody who has lived in 3 cities over the last 4 years, but started out living at home in my first year as a banker earning below street (it was hell). This advice is applicable to anybody living anywhere, and I don't know anything about Stamford or living in CT. This'll be a long rambling post as I tend to write when I'm 4 coffees deep and my workday is slow.

Understand that there is no perfect answer for you, because this is subjective and also depends on your avg. hours worked per week. But you have to also understand what gives you more utility - higher $ savings or higher comfort levels in your home, your commute, and your home office. I personally spend more for a nicer/larger place with better furnishing closer to the office (I can walk in 10 minutes). For context, I earn in the mid-to-upper $300k range all-in, live alone in a 2BR downtown, with the 2nd BR as my WFH office. I don't regret spending the additional c. $800/mo on rent (c. $2,800 total) for this bigger apartment at all. I also financed a vehicle that I don't require for commuting which is costing c. $700 all-in for payment, gas, and insurance per month.

The difference between a 1.3k apartment and 2.4k apartment is c. 13k savings per year. For one/two/three years, taken in the context of your career earnings, this is nothing. Unless you are trying to FIRE by 30 and want to be frugal, or if you attribute a much higher marginal utility to seeing numbers in your accounts go up faster than you do to your living comfort, I think the answer is to spend more for a better living environment.

My $0.01 is to go with whatever option you feel provides the most comfortable living situation. In this industry you will get grinded and beaten down as a junior. If you're living in a shoebox to try and save 1k a month in rent you will be coming home to (or working in) a sub-optimal environment and the impacts to your mental health will far outweigh the benefit of modest incremental savings. My personal approach is to ball out on your living situation to make yourself as comfortable as possible, since your job will be a huge mental drain on you. I try to make my apartments into sanctuaries. Get a nice apartment with good natural light, a separate space for a home office, and furnish it comfortably. Get houseplants. Hang wall art. Get a giant TV and a comfortable couch. A/C is not even a question - you want it. In my experience, the incremental impact of these $ will be far outweighed by the utility you get from being comfortable. Coming home from the grind to a nice and comfortable space is a huge benefit to my mental health.

Do not underestimate the cumulative impact of commutes. I used to commute 1hr one way to and from the office and those 2 hours of 'lost' time per day hurt. While you may be able to be productive on that commute (IE, reading news, e-mails, etc.) the lost time is substantial when you may only have 1-2 hours of 'free' time per day. By the end of my commuting stint I was a zombie on the commute in and a zombie on the commute out. I fell asleep on the train and missed my stops on more than one occasion.

Requiring a car also adds monthly expenses. Depending on what you buy (lease, financed, used, new, etc.), and your insurance, it could be substantial. The apartment in Stamford that requires a car and X minutes of commute may be 1k cheaper, but how much of that 1k goes to car expenses?

TL;DR: Go with whatever you feel gives you the most marginal utility. But don't discount the net utility gained from spending more for a comfortable living environment.

Disclaimer: I will not answer any specific questions about my firm or my city as I seem to be getting more and more DMs about this stuff whenever I post advice and detail my personal experience