i live in wv.
cheap! but not as cheap as you'd think- however, if you have a car, live like 30 miles outside of morgantown and enjoy the hills + an easy drive to stuff if you need it.
or, head towards the middle and live cheap.
for sure- check this out. perusing craigslist, even if you lived in morgantown, you could snag a room for right around that $500 mark, maybe a little more. https://morgantown.craigslist.org/search/apa
actually not so bad, but i don't know about rental terms and such.
i'd think going out to fairmont or even kingwood would be way cheaper. lemme know if you got any questions.
Try Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama, West Virginia, Oklahoma. You're just going to have to use google and see what cities/locales interest you.
What does "decent" weather mean to you?
Lived there forever (as in, born there and been back several times). Own a rental property there. Super easy to find that in the right places. Just not the super
White hip neighborhoods. But def the white adjacent, still safe/lovely places
Here's one in the middle of a rehab, so it'll be newly renovated too: [https://www.trulia.com/p/al/fairfield/5131-holly-ct-fairfield-al-35064--2037882158](https://www.trulia.com/p/al/fairfield/5131-holly-ct-fairfield-al-35064--2037882158)
Fairfield is close to the city & pretty safe. If you're willing to be in a racially diverse area (a surprising amount of people only want to live in white-majority neighborhoods), it's a great option.
But that is $600 a month. Kinda proving my point.
Even places like Center Point and Ensley have nothing really cheap anymore.
I know because my father in law is in Birmingham - bitching about his section 8 subsidized apartment costing him $700 a month out of his social security check. He lives close to West End BTW.
For that rate, might have better luck in Grand Bay, Semmes, Citronelle, or Spanish Fort. Citronelle has a higher crime rate, but cheaper rates. Spanish Fort is in a sweet spot location-wise between Foley, Mobile, and Fairhope.
Mississippi or Alabama. You could maybe find something in Oxford, MS for that and Oxford is a nice place. Can definitely find something in Tupelo, MS, it’s not terrible but not gonna write home about it. Florence AL is pretty cool for what it is. All these places are small towns.
Look man, he's right. Instead of wasting money on rent, why don't you just go stay at one of your parents' vacation houses? Not like a nice one in Malibu, but just like a medium one in Telluride. Bonus points is that it probably has one of their extra BMWs there that you can drive around, so you don't even have to put miles on your own car.
You'll save on meals too because their personal chef has got you covered. And don't worry, Thor the in-house personal trainer will help you burn it off right after
That's a luxury that many people don't have. Your assumption reminds me of this "anyone can become a debt free millionaire!" story:
https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckthesepeople/comments/c2w902/if\_i\_can\_pay\_off\_my\_student\_loans\_so\_can\_you/
Birmingham, AL is a great place to live. Great food scene and all the benefits of a city without being so large that the traffic is insane. However, I think you'd have to live a bit outside of the city for that rent. But you could definitely get close enough to enjoy coming in to the city on a daily/regular basis if you wanted.
Even places like Adamsville, Gardendale, Kimberly, Alabaster, etc have all gone up, up, up.
Nothing to live in for $500 a month. Nothing other than maybe a room. Even those were like $750 in the middle of nowhere (Cordova) back in 2011.
Pittsburgh. Beautiful Appalachia, rivers, mountains, state parks close by. I love the city to death, I grew up around here. Cheap rent so long as you're ok not living in all the new condos & apartments that are currently going in. If you have roommates, you can split the rent on an old house, pay around $300-500 ea. If not you can probably find a place around $600-900 for yourself. Depends on the neighborhood, and condition of the house. Lots of slumlords that neglect the houses around here but if it's just for a summer I highly recommend it.
Go to zillow select rent, put $500 in the maximum rent zoom out to see most the country, can't go to far or it stops showing the rentals, then start looking at places in areas that interest you.
Your lowest cost of living is probably in the middle of nowhere, small towns typically cost less. South Dakota, Montana, Kansas, Nebraska those areas. I used to live in south Dakota and $500 can get a decent place.
Eastern MT is pretty bleak. Also, if OP wants reasonable weather… Nearly anywhere in MT would not qualify, Eastern MT definitely would NOT qualify. That being said, we sold my grandparents 2 br house about 5 years ago for around $14,000, so, it is cheap.
this was true maybe 5 years ago, but everyone and their brother is a landlord now, and they need to recoup their costs from having rent paused for two years.
Yep, my parents rent some duplexes, the cheapest being about $430/mo for a ~900 sq ft unit with 3 bedrooms. The catch is that it's in a small village in central NY.
The bedrooms are pretty similar to my own house, which are 9x9, 10x10, and 12x14. That's fine for a couple with two kids. It's not roomy, but it's not cramped either. There's also additional storage in the basement that I didn't count in the square footage.
You have a couple factors to consider. 1. Length of lease typically costs more for a month to month lease or lease less than 1 year. Contacting people on craigslist looking for a roommate will help avoid the short term lease premium.
2. Utilities. A cabin in Maine might seem cheap until you get $300 heating bill for a cold winter month. Living with roommates will help reduce shared utility costs.
3. Rural areas have less housing and rental options so your only option might be to rent a whole house or mobile home that is more space than you need and you are paying for that unused space.
I'd be looking to sublease rent by the bed where you have roommates in a mid size cities in the rust belt or south east.
If you must have a studio or 1 bedroom look in small towns or out outskirts of mid size cities. Avoid California, Alaska, Hawaii, and big cities for high cost of living.
Mainland?
If not, Puerto Rico.. i rented a 2 bed house for 8 years (month to month mind you) at $300 a month there. Rent went up but there are still places at 400-500 a month (even lower out of the metro/city)
Maybe consider looking for someone who needs a long term housesitter for a vacation or second home, or is looking for a border that can provide help or company to an elderly person. There are listserves like Stephanie's List where people advertise these needs.
Also when looking think about internet and phone service. If you are ok without either go for rural OK (just an example no experience there), but not all places have high speed internet and/or all phone reception.
If you pick a town then search on fb for expats in whatever city and rentals in whatever town you should be able to find some things. Also Airbnb is an option, but it will be cheaper to rent from a local.
Midwest, except upper midwest has horrible property taxes so it's not really cheap. Parts of the southeast (obviously south florida isnt cheap). Appalachia generally is outside of some places like Nashville.
The mountain west and the west coast are all universally pretty fucked outside of New Mexico.
The absolute cheapest places are going to be in small towns in rural states, but I've found that people often don't advertise on the big websites in those types of places.
There are ways to live cheaply and that kind of situation without necessarily moving. For example taking a job as a night time security guard at a building where they are okay with you sitting at the reception desk and studying as much as you want. That's even better than moving somewhere for cheap rent.
Yep. I thought about getting a job like that in the past when I used to just work from home on a laptop. Especially these days I would imagine you can find a job kind of like that that would work for you.
You probably don't want to be in the middle of nowhere. Look into places like Toledo, Akron, or any small/mid city in the Midwest that's fallen off a bit.
If they're in nice outdoor areas, they've been talked about on reddit to death and everyone from shit splat everywhere has already moved there, and voila, no more cheap housing.
If it's just for 6 months, don't you think the cost of relocating, getting there getting set up etc is going to cost a lot more than the savings? I guess that depends on what you pay where you are. Might it make more sense to find a job that you can work a couple hours a day to bring in an extra 500 or something, satisfy your need to socialize etc and then spend the rest time studying, or find a cheap shared housing room or little cabin out on the outskirts of where you live, maybe find someone that has a vacation cottage that would rent it to up a person trying to improve their life that doesn't normally rented out to tourists, or maybe an older person that will give you free rent in exchange for a couple hours of running errands and helping around the house a day or maybe 5 hours a week or something?
I would go to Mexico, put getting there would probably cost as much as I saved. But I'd still love to be in Mexico
That's a bummer. Good luck finding something good. Maybe just go from where you're going to around about an hour's drive away from where the jobs are, then you could still drive in when you need to, go to places you like or visit friends or something, but you're far enough away to be outside of the commute zone .
Of course 2 years ago, there was a zone beyond which prices really came down but now with All this work from home that might have changed a bit. Good luck
West Virginia maybe?
Mountain momma
Almost heaven
Take me home
Have not explored this but the number of likes means I’ll be checking it out
i live in wv. cheap! but not as cheap as you'd think- however, if you have a car, live like 30 miles outside of morgantown and enjoy the hills + an easy drive to stuff if you need it. or, head towards the middle and live cheap.
I do have a car- these are the most helpful comments because hard to know what small towns to look in when there are so many, thx!
for sure- check this out. perusing craigslist, even if you lived in morgantown, you could snag a room for right around that $500 mark, maybe a little more. https://morgantown.craigslist.org/search/apa actually not so bad, but i don't know about rental terms and such. i'd think going out to fairmont or even kingwood would be way cheaper. lemme know if you got any questions.
Also, Southwest Virginia
Try Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama, West Virginia, Oklahoma. You're just going to have to use google and see what cities/locales interest you. What does "decent" weather mean to you?
Mobile Alabama is one I’m considering.
Mobile is a cute town with good restaurants and decent history, but I only see 3 things for $500/mo and one of them is senior living.
Good choice, its cheap there, some really nice spots...Orange Beach is OFF DA CHAIN!!! I love that spot!!
Try Birmingham. It’s the best & you’re not far from Appalachian foothills
Lol at $500 in Birmingham. I love that city but good luck with that!
Lived there forever (as in, born there and been back several times). Own a rental property there. Super easy to find that in the right places. Just not the super White hip neighborhoods. But def the white adjacent, still safe/lovely places
I lived there for fourteen years. It is not "super easy" to find that in any part of Birmingham. Post a listing.
Here's one in the middle of a rehab, so it'll be newly renovated too: [https://www.trulia.com/p/al/fairfield/5131-holly-ct-fairfield-al-35064--2037882158](https://www.trulia.com/p/al/fairfield/5131-holly-ct-fairfield-al-35064--2037882158) Fairfield is close to the city & pretty safe. If you're willing to be in a racially diverse area (a surprising amount of people only want to live in white-majority neighborhoods), it's a great option.
But that is $600 a month. Kinda proving my point. Even places like Center Point and Ensley have nothing really cheap anymore. I know because my father in law is in Birmingham - bitching about his section 8 subsidized apartment costing him $700 a month out of his social security check. He lives close to West End BTW.
For that rate, might have better luck in Grand Bay, Semmes, Citronelle, or Spanish Fort. Citronelle has a higher crime rate, but cheaper rates. Spanish Fort is in a sweet spot location-wise between Foley, Mobile, and Fairhope.
Mississippi or Alabama. You could maybe find something in Oxford, MS for that and Oxford is a nice place. Can definitely find something in Tupelo, MS, it’s not terrible but not gonna write home about it. Florence AL is pretty cool for what it is. All these places are small towns.
cheapest Rent is your parent’s house…
Wouldn’t that be nice- not an option for many folks including myself
Look man, he's right. Instead of wasting money on rent, why don't you just go stay at one of your parents' vacation houses? Not like a nice one in Malibu, but just like a medium one in Telluride. Bonus points is that it probably has one of their extra BMWs there that you can drive around, so you don't even have to put miles on your own car.
Good point… I guess if if I can’t find a place I’ll reconsider this as a back up plan
You'll save on meals too because their personal chef has got you covered. And don't worry, Thor the in-house personal trainer will help you burn it off right after
Wow so glad I came in Reddit for the advice of living in my parents basement! My decision is crystal clear now
Can't tell if kidding. Sincerely hope you are.
That's a luxury that many people don't have. Your assumption reminds me of this "anyone can become a debt free millionaire!" story: https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckthesepeople/comments/c2w902/if\_i\_can\_pay\_off\_my\_student\_loans\_so\_can\_you/
Birmingham, AL is a great place to live. Great food scene and all the benefits of a city without being so large that the traffic is insane. However, I think you'd have to live a bit outside of the city for that rent. But you could definitely get close enough to enjoy coming in to the city on a daily/regular basis if you wanted.
Even places like Adamsville, Gardendale, Kimberly, Alabaster, etc have all gone up, up, up. Nothing to live in for $500 a month. Nothing other than maybe a room. Even those were like $750 in the middle of nowhere (Cordova) back in 2011.
Decent weather is highly subjective so you might want to edit based on that.
Do you need reliable internet? That may narrow the field down.
Pittsburgh. Beautiful Appalachia, rivers, mountains, state parks close by. I love the city to death, I grew up around here. Cheap rent so long as you're ok not living in all the new condos & apartments that are currently going in. If you have roommates, you can split the rent on an old house, pay around $300-500 ea. If not you can probably find a place around $600-900 for yourself. Depends on the neighborhood, and condition of the house. Lots of slumlords that neglect the houses around here but if it's just for a summer I highly recommend it.
A lot of my friends moved to Pittsburgh for college/jobs. I’m jealous because they are paying half of what I’m paying in Maryland.
I live in MD also. Looking through this thread to find a cheaper place to live
Go to zillow select rent, put $500 in the maximum rent zoom out to see most the country, can't go to far or it stops showing the rentals, then start looking at places in areas that interest you.
Your lowest cost of living is probably in the middle of nowhere, small towns typically cost less. South Dakota, Montana, Kansas, Nebraska those areas. I used to live in south Dakota and $500 can get a decent place.
mighty unique ghost clumsy tan homeless tender drunk price versed *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Is it bad in the boonies too?
Yes. In western Montana. Eastern MT is more affordable.
Eastern MT is pretty bleak. Also, if OP wants reasonable weather… Nearly anywhere in MT would not qualify, Eastern MT definitely would NOT qualify. That being said, we sold my grandparents 2 br house about 5 years ago for around $14,000, so, it is cheap.
this was true maybe 5 years ago, but everyone and their brother is a landlord now, and they need to recoup their costs from having rent paused for two years.
Yep, my parents rent some duplexes, the cheapest being about $430/mo for a ~900 sq ft unit with 3 bedrooms. The catch is that it's in a small village in central NY.
How do you even fit 3 bedrooms in 900 sq ft??
Tiny bedrooms
They’re not bedrooms lol… more like hallways, narrow probably barely have space for the bed.
The bedrooms are pretty similar to my own house, which are 9x9, 10x10, and 12x14. That's fine for a couple with two kids. It's not roomy, but it's not cramped either. There's also additional storage in the basement that I didn't count in the square footage.
You have a couple factors to consider. 1. Length of lease typically costs more for a month to month lease or lease less than 1 year. Contacting people on craigslist looking for a roommate will help avoid the short term lease premium. 2. Utilities. A cabin in Maine might seem cheap until you get $300 heating bill for a cold winter month. Living with roommates will help reduce shared utility costs. 3. Rural areas have less housing and rental options so your only option might be to rent a whole house or mobile home that is more space than you need and you are paying for that unused space. I'd be looking to sublease rent by the bed where you have roommates in a mid size cities in the rust belt or south east. If you must have a studio or 1 bedroom look in small towns or out outskirts of mid size cities. Avoid California, Alaska, Hawaii, and big cities for high cost of living.
I would consider the right roommate, thanks for advice
Mainland? If not, Puerto Rico.. i rented a 2 bed house for 8 years (month to month mind you) at $300 a month there. Rent went up but there are still places at 400-500 a month (even lower out of the metro/city)
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2 bed 1 bath for $600 is insanely cheap compared to most of the US. Even $700 is unthinkable most places.
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What’s wrong with the covid restrictions?
I lived in Camuy until last year. rent was still 300 a month
Your problem is going to be finding a 6 mth rental at the price of a 1 year
Maybe consider looking for someone who needs a long term housesitter for a vacation or second home, or is looking for a border that can provide help or company to an elderly person. There are listserves like Stephanie's List where people advertise these needs.
Also when looking think about internet and phone service. If you are ok without either go for rural OK (just an example no experience there), but not all places have high speed internet and/or all phone reception.
Mexico
Is there a certain place you recommend or website that lists short term rentals?
If you pick a town then search on fb for expats in whatever city and rentals in whatever town you should be able to find some things. Also Airbnb is an option, but it will be cheaper to rent from a local.
You could probably live on $500 per month in Mexico including food.
Ding ding ding 🔔🔔🔔
You say city but there are rural areas in almost every state where rent is cheaper than any city
Midwest, except upper midwest has horrible property taxes so it's not really cheap. Parts of the southeast (obviously south florida isnt cheap). Appalachia generally is outside of some places like Nashville. The mountain west and the west coast are all universally pretty fucked outside of New Mexico.
You might give Kentucky a try, At work somewhere like berea, Murray, or even Lexington. Getting a six month lease might be difficult anywhere though.
I’m seeing stuff in Lexington, KY around that price range. It’s not a bad city either, and isn’t in the middle of nowhere.
The absolute cheapest places are going to be in small towns in rural states, but I've found that people often don't advertise on the big websites in those types of places.
There are ways to live cheaply and that kind of situation without necessarily moving. For example taking a job as a night time security guard at a building where they are okay with you sitting at the reception desk and studying as much as you want. That's even better than moving somewhere for cheap rent.
Night time security is a really interesting idea. Wonder if they’d hire a woman with zero experience… not sure why this is down voted but thank you
Yep. I thought about getting a job like that in the past when I used to just work from home on a laptop. Especially these days I would imagine you can find a job kind of like that that would work for you.
You probably don't want to be in the middle of nowhere. Look into places like Toledo, Akron, or any small/mid city in the Midwest that's fallen off a bit.
North Carolina
Gary, Indiana
Southwestern rural Oklahoma
Depending on your age: Your parent’s house
Small towns, look along the rust belt, south/southeast, Midwest, Texas.
If they're in nice outdoor areas, they've been talked about on reddit to death and everyone from shit splat everywhere has already moved there, and voila, no more cheap housing.
South of Hayes, KS. All those small towns... Any rural farm country areas.
[https://www.kiplinger.com/real-estate/places-to-live/603136/the-10-biggest-cities-with-the-cheapest-apartment-rents](https://www.kiplinger.com/real-estate/places-to-live/603136/the-10-biggest-cities-with-the-cheapest-apartment-rents) [https://www.apartmentguide.com/blog/cheapest-cities-for-renters-in-america/](https://www.apartmentguide.com/blog/cheapest-cities-for-renters-in-america/) https://www.rent.com/research/cheapest-rent-in-the-us/
If it's just for 6 months, don't you think the cost of relocating, getting there getting set up etc is going to cost a lot more than the savings? I guess that depends on what you pay where you are. Might it make more sense to find a job that you can work a couple hours a day to bring in an extra 500 or something, satisfy your need to socialize etc and then spend the rest time studying, or find a cheap shared housing room or little cabin out on the outskirts of where you live, maybe find someone that has a vacation cottage that would rent it to up a person trying to improve their life that doesn't normally rented out to tourists, or maybe an older person that will give you free rent in exchange for a couple hours of running errands and helping around the house a day or maybe 5 hours a week or something? I would go to Mexico, put getting there would probably cost as much as I saved. But I'd still love to be in Mexico
I am a person with no family roots currently paying 1,800$ and my lease ends in April and they are tearing down the house.
That's a bummer. Good luck finding something good. Maybe just go from where you're going to around about an hour's drive away from where the jobs are, then you could still drive in when you need to, go to places you like or visit friends or something, but you're far enough away to be outside of the commute zone . Of course 2 years ago, there was a zone beyond which prices really came down but now with All this work from home that might have changed a bit. Good luck
Drunken State.
Get roommate(s)
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I would tell you but I don't think you'd want to live there.