IT in buffalo really won’t take you very far.
I’m in a similar situation as you, but I live in/around NYC, and it’s just as bad if not worse.
But I have parents to leech off of 
I dunno man, buffalo and IT just don’t go together, you’ll never really advance…
There’s not a huge market for upper level IT work and there are a very large amount of IT people just sitting around waiting for things to open up.