There are 60 something free museum or museum like activities here to do, and each of those museums offer a host of free activities every month, highly recommend attending them if you don’t have plans already.

Networking is HUGE here, but don’t like that dictate your life and your mental health. Everyone here is doing something spectacular they can’t want to tell you about, don’t let comparison be the killer of your joy.

The city has crazy amounts of free events, tons of them multicultural or at the least a different culture than yours (US or otherwise). Attend them, broaden your horizons.

You’ll never run out of food options, you can really eat all around the globe here.

Living in DC or any DC adjacent city/town, get a library card. You can get a card for literally every library system adjacent to dc in addition to dc and the library of Congress. The resources these places offer is absolutely nuts.

Last but not least, budget.

Me and my wife try to buy things in bulk and look out for sales, Safeway/target/Harris teeter/giant, we go through most of those and a friend with a car will often take us to Sams/Walmart when they go. We spend anywhere from 300-450 per month.