What areas of the country are inexpensive and offer lots of outdoors (read: space to roam!)? Trees & seasons are a must, no deserts, please! :lol:

Job availability is also important.

East Illinois, by St. Louis MO is pretty nice.

St. Louis has lots of jobs, and you can live about 30 mins out of the city and be in the 'country'.

Cost of living it very reasonable compared to other areas in the US.


Florence, AL is also a pretty good area, you have the job availability, and the country life all in one.
That area is really growing, but you can go to like Muscle Shoals (About 10-15min) and it is more country than city type area.

That's funny you replied, I was going to email you (there's a twilight zone song going in my brain right now). DH is from that area (Chester) but there are NO jobs there. Both DH and I greatly dislike St. Louis. :eyes:

I was going to pm to ask where your DH works at. We were looking at Carbondale today but even the school isn't hiring right now. Menard prison is usually hiring but they don't have anything either.

I also don't know if I can take MIL in such a confined space. :nono: She pro-spanking, racist and pro-junk food for kids, as in shoving-in-the-face junk food. :shake:

East Illinois, by St. Louis MO is pretty nice.

St. Louis has lots of jobs, and you can live about 30 mins out of the city and be in the 'country'.

Cost of living it very reasonable compared to other areas in the US.


Florence, AL is also a pretty good area, you have the job availability, and the country life all in one.
That area is really growing, but you can go to like Muscle Shoals (About 10-15min) and it is more country than city type area.

My city (Beloit WI 53511) is cheap, surround by more expensive housing. Although I don't think my definition of expensive matches what some places call expensive! 5 minute drive and you're in the country. 45 minutes to Madison WI, 20 min to Rockford. That's where all the jobs are really. I can give more info if your interested or you can search it yourself.

http://www.visitbeloit.com/intro.asp

Chole

We recently moved to the Northeast Kingdom, in Vermont - lots of beautiful countryside, housing/land still affordable, and there are quite a few job openings.... we moved up without a job, and my husband had a full time job within a week. We love it!

Warm wishes,
Tonya

What's your dh's field, Tonya? From talking to people around here, doesn't seem there are a lot of jobs available, unless you're highly skilled or specialized. I was going to post the same thing but wasn't sure I could really say jobs were available up here.

What's your dh's field, Tonya? From talking to people around here, doesn't seem there are a lot of jobs available, unless you're highly skilled or specialized. I was going to post the same thing but wasn't sure I could really say jobs were available up here.


Sounds nice to me though...I'd love to live where I could wear my hand knits. Wow, what kind of stuff do folks do for a living up there? My DH is army...and we're looking for a retirement hometown for 10 years from now.

Maine, no jobs here though :(

Sounds nice to me though...I'd love to live where I could wear my hand knits. Wow, what kind of stuff do folks do for a living up there? My DH is army...and we're looking for a retirement hometown for 10 years from now.

My dh is a teacher and I'm a massage therapist and starting-out freelance writer. If you can make a living off the ski towns, teach, or work in healthcare, you're pretty much set. The farmers are struggling really badly to keep going but if you do organic or value-added products like artisan cheese you're doing better than most. Still most farms up here make what they did in the 1970s.

They desperately need paraeducators in the school district but only pay $7.50-$10/hr. Likewise if you're willing to do child care for a child with special needs or adult personal care assistance you can be employed at $10/hr just about anywhere in the state.

I love it though and we're about to buy a place quite reasonably...never thought I'd be able to afford a small home with 25 acres of land and a "mini farm" already started, yk?

My husband's career was turfgrass management - for 18 years since college... we knew moving up here that was probably not an option. He was able to get a job with a construction company with just minimal skills - he is only making $12.00/hour, but for up here that is pretty good. We also have our hand craft business which helps a lot and hope to farm when we buy our land as well. He is also planning to begin an organic/no impact lawn care business - and while the market is VERY small up here - there are some well off, earth consious people that may be interested. He will be mowing with a reel mower, using organic lawn fertilizer, compost, etc... and no fossil fuels! - So he hopes to put his education and experience to use both in his small business and on our someday farm.
From many families I have spoken to thus far, people do a bit of lots of things to make ends meet. The living standards, though, are far different up here. People don't generally have large homes, new furniture, new cars, etc.., etc...
We truly love it.

Warm wishes,
Tonya

I'm from West Virginia. It has more nature than you will know what to do with, tons of backwoods places to live and real estate is dirt cheap.

I was going to say Alabama too. Dirt cheap.

Job availability is also important.

That cuts out most of the places I know of right there. lol...

Val

Depends on what kind of job you need or would work. As far as blue collar jobs, the money is really good in minerals. (a person with a high school degree makes as much as my husband does and my husband is working on his PhD!!!) However, due to the high salaries and lack of education for many people in the state, we do have a higher than average meth problem in the state. (from what I am told by those in the social services field and from the news and state government reports)

Other areas where it is easy to find work and the pay is decent: teachers, some medical jobs, construction work.

Wyoming has all those things you mentioned. We love it here...and the state has various types of scenery depending on where you live. The only expensive place is Teton County (never live there!!).

We are the least populated state in the USA so we have tons and tons of wide open spaces. Lots of clean air, four seasons, low cost of living, excellent schools (due to the wealth in the state), and our state is really flush in money which is nice.

The newest thing the legislature is doing with the extra money our state has is coming up with a lot of scholarship money for more families to use to send their child to our own University of Wyoming.

You do have a lot of rednecks in this state. *lol* However, people are really genuine and kind for the most part. If your car broke down, you'd have someone stop right away. (and they would not be stopping to kill you...but to help you)

We are quite rural. Biggest areas to live would be Casper and Cheyenne. You do have to drive quite a bit, especially if your family needs specialized medical care.

There are areas I'd avoid due to...how can I say it.....one religion dominating the area and if you are not of that religion, they make life very difficult if you don't join. (especially on the children) I know about this from friends and family....not making that up.

We are in central Wyoming. In a town of about 10,000 people. Most temperate climate in Wyoming (this state is cold in the winter!) We have mountains, rivers, lakes, trails...you name it. We are only 3-4 hours from any part of the state. Last summer we went to Yellowstone National Park for vacation and it was so great!! (and we are on a really tight budget)

There are some areas in this state where they will give you land if you agree to build a house on it in a set amount of time and agree to live there for a set amount of time. Chugwater is one town that was doing this and it is close to Cheyenne but is a really small town.

Housing and taxes are low in my opinion. A home here like we are in would sell for a million or more in California for example. (and we paid lower 100K for it and are in the nicest part of town)

Here are some examples of homes in our general area: (hope the links work)

One for $75,000:
http://www.realtor.com/FindHome/HomeListing.asp?frm=byxmls&xlid=1051808965&fh=on&lnksrc=feathome&poe=realtor



Here is a local realtor to get a idea of more houses: http://www.windriverrealty.com

Or go to http://www.realtor.com and some communities in my area to search on are: Riverton, Lander, Pavillion, Casper, Dubois, Greybull, Shoshoni, Thermopolis.

There are lots of other towns in the state that are nice...just shared some in my neck of the woods.


My dh and I plan on staying in this state. If you ever want to come check it out, let me know and I can answer questions. (dh knows the state really well and I know it pretty well)

Michelle

It's such a small world.

Chester is about a hour from where I live, dh used to work there (Gilster Mary Lee) years ago... and the drive sucked! LOL

There aren't many jobs in this area, but it is just depending on what you are looking for.
For prisons, we also have Big Muddy (I *think* it's in Ina or Sesser)

Marion (about 15miles East of Carbondale) is really growing... and honestly, if I was going to be moving in this area, that's where I would want to go.
House costs are still relatively inexpensive (NICE house for about 150) and the taxes and school systems are decent.

A friend of ours is a developer in that area and he has tried talking us into buying some property there, just to hang onto and resell later on since there is so much getting ready to go in there.

I know we're getting a water park (I *think* in 07), they have a bunch of hotels going in right now (3 new ones either built or being built within a year) and there have been lots of areas being 'cleared' lately... not to mention they are trying to bring a major league baseball team to the area... so there will be a lot more growth going on.

As for jobs right now, other than some basic labor type jobs, I really don't know what you're looking for, so it's kind of hard to say, kwim?

I will tell you one thing, I absolutely HATE it here. The area is great, lots of outdoorsy stuff... wonderful lakes, you get all 4 seasons, and all that jazz.. but the people here are HORRIBLE!
I have never seen so many ignorant people in my life.. and yes, I'm serious.

Now granted, I'm not in Marion, and I do like Marion a lot better than where I live.. but it still is wierd.

The people here are just, I don't know... most of them are plain out ignorant. In everything.
There is alot of poverty here (I think median income is like 27K) and a ton of people get public assistance (not because they have to, but because they are a bunch of lazy a$$ who don't want to work) or they slip and fall at a job they've had for a month and then sue.
Honest to God, before we moved here, I don't think I knew one person who sued their boss(es), here I know at least 10 (and probably more, those are just the ones that come to mind)

I hate the mentality in this area, and there is like next to nothing for the kids to do (community wise) short of baseball, and football. We have to drive to Marion/Carbondale for our boys to play soccer (and even then, it's mediacore)
The park districts offer nothing, and there is nothing in the town the kids can do except hang out on the street corners.

I guess if your dh is from Chester, you have an idea of what I'm talking about, but that's quite a ways from here, so I'm not sure how people are there.


We are planning on moving, matter of fact we're going over the next few weekends to look at the places we're considering.
We are looking at areas that have decent cost of living, offer things for kids, have good schools, a decent median income, and low crime rates.
Other factors for us our taxes and weather (we like mild winters, and not as many tornado's)

Florence, AL (My aunt lives here, and I LOVE it there- but my mom doesn't want to live close to her, so it's out for us! LOL)

Rainbow City, AL (outside of Gadsden, close to Huntsville/Birmingham)

Carmel, Fishers & Noblesville, IN (outside of Indianapolis)

Cobb County area, GA (outside of Atlanta - don't have the list in front of me, but I'm thinking Smyrna, Marietta, etc, you can google it)

Murfreesboro, Smyrna & Hendersonville TN (outside of Nashville)

Hope that helps you some, feel free to pm me with any questions.

I do not know about yall .. but houses around here are starting to drop in price like ROCKS around here .. yesterday in the newspaper there were 10 houses that were under $70,000 .. which before it was $100,000+++ for a 2br one bath on no land and needing fixing up. Although the Economy isn't doing well either .. unless you are willing to travel to Charlotte everyday( which is taking your life into your hands any more .. there are BAD wrecks everyday on I-85). But you make $12 for secretary jobs there .. so its somewhat worth the risk KWIM.. wish i could find some of those jobs * NODS *

We were looking around for houses or anything to rent .. we found a 2 br 1 bath for $450.. i went by and looked it was in a nice area, but it was REALLY run down although they were renovating it. ( i would much rather be WAY WAY far away from my inlaws.. like a different state.. preferably atleast 400 miles north or to the west of here .. before i ever have a child.. ME BAD )