As a consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers, she spent most weeks out of town traveling for work. She often wondered whether she could do her same job for cheaper — and more easily — while based in her hometown, Pittsburgh.

Over the past month, she has gotten a sneak peek of that life, moving back in with her parents to avoid the wall-to-wall density of New York and working out of her childhood bedroom. She is now savoring life's slowness, eating her father's soup and watching movies on an L-shaped couch with her mom.

"Part of it feels like, why am I even living in New York?" said Ms. Brajovic, 24, who pays $1,860 in rent each month for her share of an apartment with two roommates in Manhattan. "Why am I always paying all of this rent?"

With her lease up for renewal, she is contemplating whether to make the move more permanent.

"I have no idea what I am going to do," said Ms. Brajovic. "But it is a thought in my mind: the potential of not going back."