Seattle

how far from Seattle is too far

That’s the central question, and it’s a question you need to ask yourself. Is your job in downtown Seattle? Are you planning to get a car? How much time do you want to spend commuting each day?

Housing and food are expensive in Seattle, as well as the surrounding area. Gas is expensive. Insurance is expensive. PARKING is extremely expensive. If you want to keep your costs low, you will want to rely on public transportation to get to/from work. Living somewhere within walking distance of a light rail station may be do-able, or somewhere that is close to one of the "commuter" bus routes.

https://kingcounty.gov/en/dept/metro/routes-and-service/schedules-and-maps

Make a spreadsheet of different potential locations and the estimated time it takes to get to your new job. Decide whether the time/money offset is worth it for you. If I was going to move somewhere new, that is what I would do. It's always time or money.

We're going to need more specifics. Where are you working or planning to work? What kind of neighborhood are you looking for? The Seattle area is very diverse, from one neighborhood to the next you'll find a wide variety of housing, density, accessibility, entertainment, services, and community. We can help you find the right fit but we need to know what you want.

What do you consider "expensive"? And like others asked, where are you going to be commuting to, and what do you consider "too far"?
I don't know if I'd agree with the people on Reddit who told you to avoid Tacoma. It's certainly cheaper than living in Seattle itself, if you can deal with the commute time. Also keep in mind that Seattle is one of the safest large metro areas in the country, so pretty much everywhere is "safe" compared to other large cities.

You're gonna be paying a lot for groceries as well as housing. Unless you're moving from inner SF, get ready for sticker shock.

As others have said, you'll want to consider your commute, unless you're moving just to work remote. You'll probably also want to consider is you want to be able to get downtown or to other parts of the city with relative ease, like if you're young and want to do hip young person things.

If all you want to do is shop at Fred Meyer, stare at identical houses, and have to drive an hour to get to anything, you can move to Bonney Lake.

Congrats and welcome to Seattle! What part of Seattle will you be commuting to and at what times? There’s a lot of newer rental communities both south (Tukwila) and east (Bellevue/Kirkland) that might work out depending on your answers to the above and what you consider a bearable commute.

It is hard to find a place that’s not very expensive, even in many not safe-ish areas at the moment, but there are lots of one-off opportunities to keep an eye out for like mother in law suites, split level house multi-family setups, and that sort of thing.

As an engineer in my thirties, my options a few years ago were overpay for a mediocre apartment with my partner, or split a house with a few more roommates. We ended up renting the cheapest spot we could find on the eastside (Woodinville) at the time for a few years since our jobs were also around the eastside, then moving further down highway 2 once we could buy a cheap house and commute down highway 2.

Hope some context here helps! I genuinely hope you love the Seattle area and good luck with your new job!!

Just kinda stumbled upon this; why avoid Tacoma?

Just saw your edit and comments to others and something really doesn't make sense. "East Seattle near I-90" is basically either Mount Baker or Leschi. Both of those are primarily neighborhoods without much in the way of businesses and mostly comprised of houses rather than apartments. It's also a rather expensive area, since it's in central-Seattle and right on the lakefront. I have a hard time believing that there's a company in that part of town that's big enough to relocate a candidate. Did you perhaps mean the Eastside instead? That's a very different thing. The Eastside is everything east of Lake Washington and is outside of the Seattle city limits. The Eastside near I-90 would be south-central Bellevue (Factoria and Eastgate area) and Issaquah. There are large companies and quite a lot of places to live near there. Recommendations for where to rent on the Eastside near I-90 will be very different than recommendations for where to rent in Central (or East) Seattle. The Seattle metro area is split in two by Lake Washington, and while it's possible to bike across the I-90 floating bridge (I have a coworker who does), it's probably not going to be done in less than 45 minutes and is probably going to be rather unpleasant for part of the year.

It really would be helpful if you gave us a better idea of where you'll be commuting to (like, the cross-streets, or the name of the neighborhood, or a nearby landmark, or the name of the company if you're willing to reveal that info -- lots of us in this area have worked for the major tech companies or have friends who have, and know where all their campus buildings are), as well as what your budget is. Budget is really crucial since rent varies a lot based on location. For instance, doing a quick search it looks like average rent in Factoria is about $1800 per month. Average rent in Lake Union (where Amazon is) is almost double that at about $3200 per month. And if you think even $1800/mo is expensive then I've got some bad news for you about your desire to not commute by car for longer than 1.5 hours.

near a market where groceries are not expensive

Look for WinCo and a Grocery Outlet.

What's your budget? And are you planning to have roommates?