Where to move?

[Augie]

Me and my fiancé are looking to start our family soon, both of us being 28. Originally from PA but been living out west in MT for nearly a decade. The obvious spike in cost of living here over the past several years has us to the point where we can't afford to buy a house and rent isn't any better unless every dollar we make goes to the house. Currently we both work full time but when we have children we'd both prefer if she was a stay at home mom and she only work a few hours a week at a part time job if necessary, ultimately to avoid daycare costs and raise them the way we'd prefer.

With all of that being said I was wondering if anyone had recommendations on different states/towns to live in where there are jobs and a decently affordable cost of living? For background my work experience is in factory automation sales and as a manager of a manufacturing plant which I do currently. We have been looking at a lot of southeastern states including NC, TN, and AL in particular. I'm fine with humidity and my fiancé loves it hot. Also I know the hunting would be significantly different, but in MT I've lost all of my whitetail properties I had permission on to outfitters and elk hunting isn't what it used to be here. So my thinking is I'll have to try and keep a tight budget and just travel to go hunt several times a year. I also enjoy golf a lot so the southeast has a lot of benefits. Any opinions or recommendations would be greatly appreciated, just want to be somewhere that I can financially take care of my future family. Thank you!

 

[Weldor]

That's a bummer you have to leave Montana to be able to afford to live. The states you mentioned are all great but they are also the destination for the mass exodus from the west coast. Just food for thought.

 

[RADunfee]

Georgia is full.

 

[HingleMcCringleberry]

Arkansas seemed nice. I was in the Bentonville area a couple of weeks ago.

 

[bowhuntercoop]

South and North Carolina are pretty amazing.

 

[wesfromky]

Might put KY on the list. Long whitetail season, lots of public land, decent sized deer. Plenty of golf courses. Lowish cost of living. Couple of bigger cities with jobs, auto/battery factories, etc.

Plus we have Elk, but drawing a tag is crazy high odds.

 

[SDHNTR]

Any place nice is expensive. Just a fact of life. I don’t mean to be overly blunt, but the only solution is to make more money than the next guy.

 

[maxx075]

Georgia is full.

Har har har, that's a knee slapper.

 

[RADunfee]

Har har har, that's a knee slapper.

Nothing funny about it. It's gotten ridiculous.
Let me guess..........

 

[Augie]

Georgia is full.

geez never heard that one before

 

[Augie]

Might put KY on the list. Long whitetail season, lots of public land, decent sized deer. Plenty of golf courses. Lowish cost of living. Couple of bigger cities with jobs, auto/battery factories, etc.

Plus we have Elk, but drawing a tag is crazy high odds.

thank you for the input!

 

[Augie]

Any place nice is expensive. Just a fact of life. I don’t mean to be overly blunt, but the only solution is to make more money than the next guy.

Obviously making more money than the next guy helps. But a nice home in some places could be $200k-$350k for 2-3 bed 2 baths on an acre or two meanwhile where I live you have to have over $450k minimum for a 650-1100 square foot dump with zero yard. Meanwhile wages here in Montana are not anywhere near able to afford that, more of the people buying these properties are the "other guy" from Texs, California, etc. who work remote or own multiple properties.

 

[MuleyFever]

Any place nice is expensive. Just a fact of life. I don’t mean to be overly blunt, but the only solution is to make more money than the next guy.

Not true. Tons of amazing places out there with affordable living, especially east of the Rockies.

 

[11boo]

Sad. So many young people in the same boat.

 

[Augie]

I have often said if I couldn't afford to move to WY when I retired (which we did, but expensive and getting worse by the day), I would move to Arkansas. Missouri and Arkansas are very inexpensive and both the Missouri Ozarks and Arkansas have beautiful landscapes, lakes and rivers, but Arkansas takes the cake with natural splender and great trout fishing.

Both have abundant fishing, camping and hunting and both have very liberal hunting seasons.

Groceries, regular supplies/staples and eating out here in WY are 25-50% more than what we were used to in MO. Here locally food and eating out are double what we paid in MO.
The house we had in MO would cost 3x as much here. Of course gas prices are about 30-50% leas there also.

the costs of anything out here is pretty crazy for what you're actually getting anymore. Hope all goes well with retirement and you enjoy Wyoming, spent a lot of time wandering around WY over the years especially in the bighorns. I'll definitely take a loot into Arkansas, appreciate it!

 

[Augie]

Sad. So many young people in the same boat.

Definitely, it's a big problem especially here and an unfortunate part of life in the rest of the country at the moment, but we move on and try to make the best of it!

 

[JFK]

Sounds like you are fairly open to different states/locations. I’d take a look at job openings and salaries in some of these areas. Reason being is that low cost of living areas often have low wages. Finding a job that pays adequately so that the move improves your position would be key.

 

[11boo]

Good luck man. We’ve been through a lot in my years, I want to say my first mortgage was 11.5%. But the place was only 65k.
You have to wonder where the housing market would be if we hadn’t let in the multi millions that have stormed the border the last 3 years.

 

[Augie]

Sounds like you are fairly open to different states/locations. I’d take a look at job openings and salaries in some of these areas. Reason being is that low cost of living areas often have low wages. Finding a job that pays adequately so that the move improves your position would be key.

definitely open, I know anywhere I go will be a lot different than I'm currently used to but as long as I can find salaries that are somewhat proportionate (or close considering the current state of things) then I'll be happy and able to support the family without stringing ourselves out too much

 

[nubraskan]

I have a similar field of work in Automation Engineering and might have a few areas you could consider.

I currently work in Eastern Nebraska, and there is a surprising amount of automation work around the Lincoln and Omaha area. Being centrally located in the US is an advantage both for travel and for businesses looking to centralize their US operations. A major downside is that, surprisingly, private property taxes here are not cheap. As far as local hunting here, you have to get in on private land 99% of the time...but there are massive whitetail here and in Iowa. I've also taken an antlerless elk in Western NE on some private land, but tags are hard to get and hard to fill unless you are in tight with a farmer.

Another state to look at is Wisconsin. They have a lot of automotive and marine manufacturing around the Fond du Loc area that I've toured several times. Some of the plant owners I met with there were big hunters and spoke highly of deer opportunities there, but had concerns about their wolf population.