Times are rough and we’re all trying to cut back a little. You buy a few less drinks at your favorite Happy Hour and you’ve been skipping your favorite dessert with dinner. But you can’t control the costs of most of your necessities- like where you live. But you sure can try.

The apartment hunting blues can be enough to bring any little miss sunshine down, but StreetEasy (the popular New York City-centric real estate guide) looks to bring clear skies with its free iPhone/iPod Touch application. It uses the iPhone/iPod Touch’s built-in GPS to find all of the available places in your immediate vicinity, which you can filter by roomsize and price.

The Gothamist ran a story yesterday from the NY Times about the increasing frequency of families with multiple children living in one bedrooms. They pointed out that many parents are opting to stay in tiny lofts and apartments meant for two in Manhattan, rather than moving to the suburbs (or the boroughs, for that matter). The most common reasons cited being a reluctance to commute and having more options for weekend activities.

Being young, single and broke in New York almost always requires splitting costs. Sharing a space with roommates can have many beneficial results: living in a neighborhood or apartment that would otherwise be out of your reach, cutting costs and allowing you to maximize your savings, and potentially building life long friendships.