I'm often curious why more people aren’t moving to low cost of living areas. I don’t know if I’ve just been fortunate, but I’m a college drop out who honestly hasn’t tried very hard in my “career”, but I moved out to Cincinnati which has a low cost of living at 23 (8 hours from my family) and I’ve managed to do very well for myself with a modest paying job (20ish an hour). I have 40k saved up and plan to buy a house this year. I wonder if other people who have went or started on a similar route are doing well for themselves.
And if you are in a high cost of living area, would you ever consider moving somewhere significantly cheaper?
I think one thing is that affordability looks different in different places. The suburbs in the midwest may still actually be more expensive than the ungentrified parts of the urban core. But I've gathered that in places like Cali, and much of the east coast, distance from the city is almost like, proportional to the rent you pay and nothing in/near the city is affordable. That's never been true for me.
But comfort has something to do with it too. I used to live in the cheapest place I could find that I didn't think was going to kill me with mold or whatever (and this was always still in the city, short of leaving the state, going suburban/rural didn't seem to actually be much if any cheaper on rents, and you pay for it in gas and groceries). Now I live in a place that costs like 25% more than the absolute cheapest options, because I've become more financially stable