I moved to NYC after finishing graduate school when I probably should have stayed in Atlanta and saved money. I think either way you are ok - 10 years later I can say that I would have saved more money initially if I stayed in Atlanta but I enjoyed NY and if you have always wanted to do it and made up your mind ... the lost savings won't kill you.

Something else to consider is that, assuming you don't want to work with IBM forever, NYC is a great place to meet people and you often bump into interesting career opportunities. I am convinced I make more money now because I lived and worked in the area for 5 years.

I lived in Queens (Kew Gardens) the first year I was in NY. I had no money and lived with a roommate. Mine was great but the roommate situation can be a challenge, especially if you are going to try to work from home one day a week or more. I couldn't afford a studio but I would have preferred it to the roommate. If you are trying to work and they are home it is difficult, you have to navigate their BF/GF in your space all the time, your significant other bothers them, inevitably food and cleanliness issues arise. I had this vision of living with roommates being like a Friends episode (naive, I know but I was only 23!) but it definitely wasn't. Everyone I knew who had a roommate had drama around it so a studio isn't a bad option. Actually, a studio will be larger than your 1/2 space in a shared apartment and since you'll be (presumably) trying to work sometimes and will need quite and privacy you'll likely have to put the computer in your bedroom and hang out there all day in a shared space anyway. Just my 2 cents on that -

I moved to NJ after a year in Queens. I'm prepared for the Queens residents to throw rotten fruit at me, but Queens didn't have the NYC (Manhattan) feel and when I lived there most younger broke people in the NYC area lived in Brooklyn (which has gotten very expensive now) or NJ. You can still take the train into the city almost any time from NJ (and about as quickly as from Kew Gardens) and are close to Newark airport. Jersey felt much "closer" to Manhattan than Queens in both geography and mood, if that makes any sense. I mention it because Jersey never occurred me to when I was looking for a place in the NYC area initially.

I'm not sure of the tax issues - since I worked in Manhattan I paid NYC city and state taxes - but it seems to me that you would pay lower taxes in NJ (and avoid the high NYC state and local taxes) but still get as good of or better a NY experience than living in Queens.

I have relo many times for work and found that renting a hotel room in the area I am considering for a long weekend is the best way to get to know a neighborhood. You see who lives there, what people do on weekends, how long it takes to get places, etc. If you can, I advise trying that for Queens (and then try it for NJ )

Good luck and congratulations!