If you're doing a lot of remote site contracting, then maybe consider ditching town completely, and getting a ways out there. Talk to a bank, get a little plot of cheap land somewhere, build one of those tiny home things as an office, cut expenses, and focus on expanding your client base without the use of recruiters.
A ton of work, but might be a road you're willing to consider.
You can't be serious can you?
Actually, I am. I'm not saying it is your only option of course, but it is frequently a good one that is often overlooked. If you're going to work in something like software development, where you can do the job with a laptop and access to basic modern internet, then you really need to step back and look at the cost benefits of where you actually choose to stay.
How much does $1200 a month get you where you're living currently? Compare that to how far that goes towards $5-10k for a small plot of land somewhere outside of a nice small town, and $10-20k for a very comfortable snug little small/tiny home, or a little more if you don't have the friends/family talent pool to do most of the work yourself.
Careful consideration on properties are of course a very important thing if you're going to consider ditching over priced city living, simply for ease of access to decent internet. So for a software dev life style you'll be unlikely to save as much on land cost as you could if you wanted to go full off grid deep backwoods and have a little artists retreat or something, but it can still be done.
How much space do you actually need to live? Careful design can keep your costs to build and costs to down down to a minimum. Throw in some nice large garden spaces, and you can cut your food budgets long term down to something pretty low.
Will getting out of the city limit your job options? Sure. But it will also lower your job requirement, and in long term could offer you more breathing room between the contracts you do take. Lower living expenses mean lower income gets you just as far as a higher one would have back in the city. This gives you options like being able to comfortably cruise along with a lower paying job that would possibly have come up short if you were living elsewhere while you look for better gigs. Or one good contract will give you more than enough cash on hand to see you through a dry spell and let you pass on lower paying work and free up more time to pick away at your own projects while you look for a sweet deal elsewhere.
But please, for anyone who would consider getting out of town and going with the very inexpensive 'tiny home' route, do be smart about it. Don't build a death trap that you'll likely burn in. Things like building regulations on "Exits from a bedroom", and "Space between stoves and flammable materials" are kind of important. Please don't be an "I'm free and you can't tell me what to do!" tiny-home rage machine that you can find on youtube. That just gives tiny home living a bad name in general. Also, don't skimp on how big you build the bathroom...