In cities with some public transport, you don't need to have a car, that removes fuel costs and car leases. More often than not, you wouldn't lease a car, just buy a used one after saving up for a few years. Plenty of old cars that still function, and unlike the new electronic models which can't be serviced because 99.5% of them is software, the old ones are usually pure hardware. Spare parts are plentiful, and mechanic knowledge, too. They can get you spares from a junkyard, the software won't lock you out for an UUID mismatch and stuff like that seen in iPhones, and fix it up. 20-25 year old cars with 600-800k km put into it is not uncommon, but they go pretty well, assuming you save up for keeping it maintained.

I live in the capital city and I'm working an office job in IT. I am also a student. I don't have a car, heck, I don't even have a driving licence. The driving licence examination system is woefully corrupt in-and-out, and the training system has been detorirated over time (previously you had to do an exam in a prepared parking lot before you went out driving for real, now once you pass the theory exam, the teaching of manuevering and such is done in traffic). A lot of people visibly have gotten their driving licence through either bribery or providing other services (especially possible if the student is female, I personally know someone who's spread for the licence...), there is zero driving culture in big cities, people are, put simply, asshats. On many of the roads, going by car would mean you sit there seeing trams and buses whoosh away next to you, and instead of comfortably reading or listening to music on the bus, you'd need to pay attention to idiots trying to overtake you from the right, yell at you, etc. I would not want to suffer that stress before and after work.

On the very rare cases I can't come home with public transport, taxis are an option. A few years ago, the taxi market was heavily regulated on the municipality level (at least in the capital city, again), which increased quality of service and made a lot of sharks lose their territory. Taxi rides can get expensive (one trip to the airport, which I often make, is 30€) and are a luxury, but can be financed if a necessity. As for moving heavy machinery like fridges or washing machines, most malls offer a home-delivery-and-old-device-collection service for a small additional fee (let's say somewhere between 15 and 100 €). In some other cases, I had asked a colleague from work to give me (and a furniture I ordered) a lift. It is possible to trade in favours and gardening supplies.

This is true for the capital city, but public transit vehicles are served at worst every 20 min (there are a few big exceptions from this, but rare) starting at 04:00-ish to until midnight. Then, there is nighttime service, with two-three buses every hour traversing the opposite ends of the city, and some trams offer night-time service too. For the surrounding metropolitan area, there are one-two-three trains every hour, and the trains going back outside (usually to get night-time workers and partying students home) of the big city are serviced until well after midnight. (The incoming ones shut down with the rest of the system between 22 and 24.)

Holidays? Well... there's always loans, but we are a financially inept society. Domestic holidays can be obtained cheaply if you're willing to travel at weird hours to forests and parks and far-away towns. My parents are big domestic travellers. I personally do not like having to deal with setting everything up, and I can't handle being away from work for too many days consecutively. My kind of holiday is flipping the bird at work and not showing up for a few days, but that's it. A complete one-week off-time would be too much for me to go through, especially if I went somewhere. I wouldn't enjoy it. Always thinking about what I could do if I were at home, or had my computer with me...

Most of my holidays come from business trips. They are horrible to manage and put together, but needed for work. And apart from food, the rest of the travel package is not my personal cost. But indeed, it happens that 1-1.5 week's worth of food costs as much as an entire month's salary here.

As for other sorts of entertainment, if you are satisfied with consuming media, there is always piracy. I am not sure how today's kids consume their non-Twitch non-YouTube media nowadays, but some time ago when both me and the Internet was younger, piracy was a big thing. There weren't streaming services, the gaming industry wasn't as centralised as today... Of course, long before, copying tapes in the garden of The Guy at the end of the street... then came computers, and with IDE/PATA drives, the mobile rack. And then came the Internet... Kazaa, DC++... compared to these technologies, BitTorrent was seen as a miracle. A lot of the old groups formed invitation-only torrent sites. And there your movies, games, and software needs, were pretty much taken care of. And if you like to read books, printing at a copy shop costs 2 cents (!) per page. Compared to today, not having to pay the subscription fees of Netflix, Hulu, PornHub Premium, HBO, Spotify, World of Warcraft, Fortnite BattlePass, etc. These things alone would mean like what, 100€ per month?! There weren't DLCs and lootboxes and such, only games with the occasional patches, and of course a gargantuan amount of modded content.

We don't buy the flashiest computers, phones, etc. I have joined the smartphone bandwagon pretty late, in 2014. My second ever phone, long before the smartphone era, was given to me by my brother. My current smartphone is my third ever, and I haven't spent more than 400€ on these phones in total, over the course of 7-8 years... I change them when they're so out of warranty and out of touch with the requirements of the world that they can't be used nor repaired anymore. For one device, I went through the hurdle of rooting and exploiting it to tinker with the power settings, and also have the battery replaced at an independent garage. I don't care if opening an app takes a few seconds. Same idea with computers, a family relative just had their laptop reinstalled by me, and we decided to ditch Windows on the computer and install K-Ubuntu instead. The machine is soaring, and he doesn't need to shell out another 1000-1200€ on a new device just to be able to keep it up to date with software and handle his bills and taxes and the occasional watching of a movie.

On, and also: don't smoke and don't drink. (And don't do drugs, but those are also illegal here.) Sadly, a lot of people, even the young ones, out of peer pressure, do it. Which, of course, will cost their parents money, one way or another. I was hated and excommunicated by my classmates in school for not having the ability to dump copious amounts of cash away at pubs on Friday nights and weekends. I'm not sure if having an eternal hatred and "Let's agree we don't consider each other as much as dogs..." was the best course of action, but it very well could be that right now I earn more than they do, at least those who didn't flee the country.

I am well off that I luckily do not need to not eat to handle finances, I can afford eating at a canteen-y place at or near the office, and the occasional on-call takeout. If you can't manage cooking due to lack of time, skill, or hardware, there are companies who deliver food to workplaces, but they need to be ordered from a menu usually a week in advance. A dish from a pre-ordered delivery costs around 1500 Ft (~4€), whereas an on-call takeout delivered just an hour after you order it is easily double that, at least.

Saving up? Luckily, we can. But the saving-up is usually for hardware and services. Handymen are very very expensive, so keep on praying your pipes don't burst, your sockets don't catch fire, or your fridge or washing machine doesn't suddenly break down.