Thoughts on good places to go if you're low income, in the USA?
tl;dr at the bottom because I ramble on. So I work remote, about 38k a year reliably for rental applications. I'm in a unique position of having a good savings and some retirement because I frequently manage to get overemployed during my main/reliable jobs slow period, so I can handle moving costs, first/last, etc.
I'm currently near Austin, and my landlord let me know he plans to sell within a year or two and its unlikely ill stay. Originally from Oregon, and hate the southern heat, ended up here for family that has since left. Which is all just background for:
If you were in a position like mine where you could afford to move, single, no pets and no attachments... financially, where would you go? I don't have a car and don't particularly want one working remote, it's just a depreciating asset. So my thoughts are somewhere modern enough to have services and such within reach via public transport, but it doesn't have to be great because I'll only need it for groceries and doctor visits and the like, not to commute.
Which opens up.... a lot of options. I personally want to go back north for the weather, but really deep snow can suck so it needs to be somewhere major city enough to have plows and what have you, infrastructure, that kinda thing? I'm looking at St. Louis as an easy to find city, but there's Champaign-Urbana that's one of those lesser-known areas with great public transport and seemingly managable cost of living at this income. And the more I search around the more I'm realizing that the good places for poor people aren't big cities that will show up in searches, but... spandrels to the major cities? Those towns/cities that are close enough the city is bleeding into them, infrastructure-wise, but are far enough out that the rents are still low.
tl;dr: If you had 40k a year remotely guaranteed, and could afford moving costs... where do you think would be a good place to live, ignoring the usual family/familiarity limitations?