I'm in Oklahoma. I have a masters degree but my full time, degree required job only pays 32k a year. I'm a single parent of a teenager. We have lots of animals on our small farm. We have a mortgage. We do make about 2k a year profit off specialty rabbits(pets). We make some money with our cows (we specialize in family friendly pet cows). We do a petting zoo at a farmers market on Saturdays in the summer. We flip other poultry or ag related stuff when we see an opportunity. We are in a supposedly low cost of living area but we struggle everyday. My truck has 210k miles and I've had it 18 years. My car has 269k miles and I've had it 12 years. My daughter is going to high school and working at Walmart 25 miles away. We work hard everyday but really struggle. I wish people would stop saying that everyone would be fine if they just worked. Believe me we work. My daughter will graduate this year. People keep ignorantly saying to me that I'll miss her when she heads off to college. She will be going to college but living at home as she is trying to grow a beef herd, show cattle, do play days with the horses. I feel pretty fortunate that she scored very high on her ACT test (32) so she should get a full ride scholarship to Okstate which has a great ag program. I had hoped she could complete college without having to work but she has to work already in high school so she can keep her cattle on show feed as I cant do it. Just cant make enough between my job and the other scrappy things I do to earn money. I see people around me living on a farm that their family gave them. They work part time or not at all. They get food stamps and other benefits. They just let their land sit because they dont run cattle or anything else. They wont lease it. They dont pay taxes like i do. There is no tax on their food at the grocery store since they are using food stamps. I pay about 10% tax on my groceries. I buy lots of gas to get to and from work and to go get hay as there is rarely any for sale within 10 miles of me. My point is that due to low wages and high taxes on the people that work, this is not the low cost of living area that it may appear. By the way for all the racist people out there, my town is 97% white, 1% Hispanic, 1% black, 1% Indian. I'm white and my daughter is biracial. The first few years of school here were tough for her as she was the only non-white kid in the whole school. Now she has been in school 12 years they have forgotten she has brown skin. Also she is stronger than most of the boys and has attitude so no one wants to mess with her. The world is diverse. Raising your kids in a diverse community helps prepare them to get along in the world. The racial makeup of a community isn't the cause of crime, low economic status and lack of opportunity is the cause of crime in an area. I have a degree in sociology so I've read thousands of actual research articles on crime and other social issues.
I liked that!! 
Over all I guess it's not a horrible place to live. Don't say I didnt warn you about the humidity. 
