For another 2¢ from me, there are a lot of paid DMs out there if you can swing the bill.

After turning in my own DM cloak, I decided to jump into a beginner friendly PF2e game and met a ton of friends. Also became good friends with the GM there and they don't have our group pay any longer. It's just friends playing for fun now.

Not to say that will surely happen, but it's a great way to at least expand the social circle if you want to work your way toward free games some day ahha