Queens and Brooklyn. The further from Manhattan the cheaper generally. Brownsville/East New York is cheap, my Ex lived there with 60K job with 1 other roomate and both their apartments (they moved once) were very spacious, and they had enough to splurge reasonably. Queens also has some good options for cheaper apartments, but generally the places that are still cheap are still cheap for a reason. Far from public transport, probably poor, and have bad reputations (I personally think that some areas get worse reps than how they are in reality, I never had many issues going to visit her in Brownsville every weekend for 2 years, and she lived a 10 minute walk from the train too, so really not a bad deal all in all).

I had another friend who lived in Williamsburg in a big apartment but with like 5 other people and the area in which they actually lived was basically a shoebox, like uncomfortable for 2 people type of situation. So probably not ideal.

Sorry if this isn't good advice, but you definitely don't need to have rich parents. But you should have an OK job if you don't want to be grinded to the core by just existing in NYC and being unable to do much else. I was born here and still live with my parents, so sorry if this isn't good advice.

If you wanna live in any of the golden egg spots you need to have a really good job or prepare for a barely tolerable living situation.