Laura Werkheiser knew she would have to make many sacrifices to live in Manhattan. Foremost among them was shopping for clothes.

Anticipating, rightly, that her Manhattan digs would be cramped and her budget stretched, Ms. Werkheiser, 26, shipped 18 boxes of her clothes to her parents’ house in Omaha before moving here from San Francisco. The boxes sit in her parents’ basement. When she feels she needs to freshen up her look, Ms. Werkheiser has her mother ship her several outfits from what she dryly refers to as the “Nebraska boutique.”

“If I shop,” said Ms. Werkheiser, “I can’t have a social life and I can’t eat.”

Having one’s mother mail rotating boxes of old clothing is just one of the myriad ways that young newcomers to the city of a certain income  that is, those who are neither investment bankers nor being floated by their parents  manage to live the kind of lives they want in New York. Every year around this time, tens of thousands of postcollegiate people in their 20s flood the city despite its soaring expenses. They are high on ambition, meager of budget and endlessly creative when it comes to making ends meet.

Some tactics have long been chronicled: sharing tiny apartments with strangers. Sharing those apartments with eight strangers. Eating cheap lunches and skipping dinners  not just to save money, but so that drinks pack more of a punch and fewer need be consumed.