How much can I afford to pay in rent?

[Sooga]

The thing is, in certain places, renting is the only option for some people. For instance, in the L.A. area (where I live), if you want to buy a condo, you won't find a decent one in a decent neighborhood for less than $350k, which, unless you can put at least 20% down, will run you about $2k/mo or so (I asked around and did some research on that this summer). Contrast that with paying about $900/mo on rent, and it's not really much of a 'choice'. My plan right now is to keep renting apartments for a few more years until I have a good chunk of money saved up, and then move to somewhere a lot more affordable (i.e. probably out of california).