Teach me *smaller* town living.

Neither the girlfriend or I are big fans of OKC, but when a company famous for sponsoring the America's Cup with big red signage calls, you answer. 

Assuming I continue to build my skillset and kick arse here, I should be able to go full-time remote (vs just 2-3 days per week) in 2-3 years. Which should coincide nicely with my girlfriend finishing up her degree and being able to sell the house I purchased last year and break even (let's save that discussion for another thread please).

OKC is the 25th largest city in the country, and one of the largest by landmass..........it's SPREAD OUT. We'd both like to live in a smaller community. Think less than 100k people, more than 15-20k people. I'm open to most suggestions, so here are the necessities for any place to go:

1. I have to have, ABSOLUTELY have to have, reliable, very high speed internet. Period. There is no leeway on that one. 

2. This is the tough one, the cost of living needs to be around or lower than the OKC Metro area. My company is happy to let me move and live somewhere else, but they aren't going to just up my salary 35% because I decided I want to move to a high cost area. They have two pay grades, the Bay Area and everywhere else in the country. 

I suspect by the time we are ready to move, we will be willing to spend up to $300k on a home......but preferably less.

As an example, we have been looking at places like Bella Vista, AR.....Fayetteville, AR.........southern Missouri. But somewhere around Santa Fe (I realize I'd have to be outside of town to afford a home there which is fine), etc. Close to water is a big bonus, but not sure if we want to move to the "Redneck Riviera" 

Hit me with your ideas, thoughts, things I'll miss about having access to big city amenities (the real one would be access to concerts), etc.

What is high speed internet to you? 

Also, do you care about climate?

In reply to mtn :

I imagine if he cared about climate he wouldn't live in swamp ass oklahoma in the first place.

In reply to Grizz :

Unless he despises snow...

Z31, that 100k spot is a pretty good spot to be in. You might want to look for college towns to keep concerts on the to-do list. For example, I lived in  Bloomington, IL for a few years after college (and 4 years during). In that time, I was able to see 3 doors down, Avenged Sevenfold, Kenny Chesney, Willie Nelson, etc. They get big shows. The big thing I was missing was major professional sports, which doesn't sound like an issue for you, and a good source of Bagels as we did not have a big Jewish population. I'm not suggesting Bloomington (although it actually would be a solid option for you), but just noting that at 100k you still can get a small-ish town feel, and be close to concerts. 

This list say OKC is the 55th highest cost of living in the US.. 

If you choose another city between 50-60, your ability to spend will likely remain similar.  Choose somewhere 60 and higher and it will likely feel like your making more money.  

I live in a town of about ~50k residents, if that. We moved here from an even smaller town of about 10k-15k residents.

From my experience out here, when shopping for houses, be very careful about Internet access. You usually only have a single provider (most likely the cable monopoly) and if they don't already serve the property you're interested in, it's either going to be very expensive to hook up or you're SOL.

I don't concert so I don't know how big of a deal it is but where I'm located it would only take a couple hours to get to Dallas or San Antonio or Houston. I'm sure they have concerts there. A couple hour drive doesn't seem that big of a deal to see a concert. 

I guess my point is you can pick a smaller town within a comfortable driving distance to whatever entertainment you want.

Nick Comstock said:

I don't concert so I don't know how big of a deal it is but where I'm located it would only take a couple hours to get to Dallas or San Antonio or Houston. I'm sure they have concerts there. A couple hour drive doesn't seem that big of a deal to see a concert. 

I guess my point is you can pick a smaller town within a comfortable driving distance to whatever entertainment you want.

Easy to say/type, but in reality it isn't so. A lot of concerts happen on a weeknight, so if you're driving a couple of hours to see the concert, either you don't get home until 3AM or else you are getting a hotel room. Makes everything more expensive and more difficult. On weekends it is no problem, but it just doesn't work out on weeknights, so in reality it doesn't work out.

Remember that the smaller you go, the further entrenched the Good Ol'Boy system is.

I like NWA.  I'm just outside of Fay, as you know, and work in B'ville.  And, finally, we are actually going to get high speed internet.  I mean, the rest of NWA has it in town, but we are 4 miles outside of town.  The electric co-op is doing it.  Fiber is run, just waiting for the last 100 ft now, which they tell me will be in the next month or two.  And we're talking GIGABIT and UNLIMITED GIGS.  For under a bill a month.  We're excited.

Those parts of Arkansas are growing quickly. That may be what you're going for, but they'll change.

I moved from the St Louis County area, which is essentially just an extension of the metropolitan area. Now I'm I'm a city of 8k people and love it. My internet speeds are 10x what they were before because I'm close to the city center and just off the highway. People 5 minutes away don't have the same options.

30 minutes from the amphitheatre in StL. 50 minutes from sporting events, but who needs them when Jimmy Bob is having a demo derby down the street!

All this when my house was 60k less than if i bought closer to stl. You may see a similar effect in price if you buy around the Joplin area as opposed to those rapidly growing areas of Arkansas. 

Good luck!

mtn said:

What is high speed internet to you? 

My job. With video conferencing, cumbersome VPNs, the need to use Content Management Systems to download, update, check back in files..........I have to have it. Even with my old 50mb down connection sometimes it could take 30 minutes to update my workspace. 

Climate: I don't think either of us particularly want to deal with "real winter."

Grizz: I was born here. It's easy to get used to making well above the national median salary and living in a cheap place so you can easily afford multiple cars, stamps on your passport, good food and booze whenever you please, etc. My ex-wife and I made approaching 3x national median while living in a modest $95k home. That affords you a lot of freedom to do whatever you want. 

Nick: That's typically not an issue. Twice my dad and I have made runs to Dallas (once from Tulsa and once from OKC) to see concerts and drove back afterward. My schedule is very flexible to allow me to do things like that. 

Dr. Hess said:

I like NWA.  I'm just outside of Fay, as you know, and work in B'ville.  And, finally, we are actually going to get high speed internet.  I mean, the rest of NWA has it in town, but we are 4 miles outside of town.  The electric co-op is doing it.  Fiber is run, just waiting for the last 100 ft now, which they tell me will be in the next month or two.  And we're talking GIGABIT and UNLIMITED GIGS.  For under a bill a month.  We're excited.

That's kind of what I figured. And why I'm willing to up the budget on a home. Any thoughts on Ft Smith? 

NWA is a beautiful place, which is why it's on our list. 

z31maniac said:

mtn said:

What is high speed internet to you? 

My job. With video conferencing, cumbersome VPNs, the need to use Content Management Systems to download, update, check back in files..........I have to have it. Even with my old 50mb down connection sometimes it could take 30 minutes to update my workspace. 

Climate: I don't think either of us particularly want to deal with "real winter."

 

Give us speeds. Are you saying that you can only look at Google Fi options? 

Anyways, I can't help as all of my suggestions that I have knowledge of have "real winter" 

Greenville SC is a great town. Cheaper than OKC, has a little winter but not much, close to some mountains, close to the beach, close to Columbia and Charlotte and Asheville.

You seriously need to look at Huntsville, AL.  We are consistently ranked among the best cities to live in the country and have a pretty low cost of living.  It's like all of the best of big cities in a smaller package.  

Have you thought about the San Antonio area? 

There's lots of rural places to live outside the city and still be within 30-45 min of the city if need be. Hell, you can live in SA and still have rural living. Its what I really like about this area. You can have country living at an affordable price without having to drive hours to civilization or sacrificing cellphone reception and internet. You can most def find a place for under 300k!

I only know Ft.Smith from driving through it.  We were there about 2 weeks ago for the bike rally.  I used to go to the Old Fart Gun Club... I mean Old Fort Gun Club and shoot NRA Metallic Silhouette once a month, but haven't for some time now.  From what I've seen, they seem to have a lot worse weather than us, which would still be much better than OKC or Tulsa, and I think their crime rate is probably a bit higher than us, but that's just from the news.  

Personally, I prefer being outside of any town.  And with Gigabit fiber now rolling across Arkansas, you could go about anywhere soon.

I always liked springfield, Mo. It's a college town so the internet and all of that is good and there is some activities there. It's pretty cheap to live there. It's a little bigger than 100K at 170K but still pretty small. You have great woodlands close and Lake of the Ozarks as well. I lived there for 9 months on a project and it left an impression on me. 

mtn said:

z31maniac said:

mtn said:

What is high speed internet to you? 

My job. With video conferencing, cumbersome VPNs, the need to use Content Management Systems to download, update, check back in files..........I have to have it. Even with my old 50mb down connection sometimes it could take 30 minutes to update my workspace. 

Climate: I don't think either of us particularly want to deal with "real winter."

 

 

Give us speeds. Are you saying that you can only look at Google Fi options? 

Anyways, I can't help as all of my suggestions that I have knowledge of have "real winter" 

If you look up a few posts even 50mb speeds were sometimes a bottleneck because of the VPN. I currently have a 300mb down connection and the AmpliFi setup in the house, so if I don't need two screens, I can sit at the dining room table, or on the back patio when I work. 

On the non-work side, 4k streaming and iRacing are a consideration as well. 

Asheville NC.  Cost of living may be up/down a bit, but its in the same range as OKC.

The #1 downside of Asheville is you need to 'bring your own job'.  You can do just that.

racerdave600 said:

You seriously need to look at Huntsville, AL.  We are consistently ranked among the best cities to live in the country and have a pretty low cost of living.  It's like all of the best of big cities in a smaller package.  

Duly noted. I'll add that to the list, and a city that size will likely be easier for the other half to find a job. I especially like the proximity to Nashville, that's one of my favorite cities to visit. 

yupididit - Today I started looking around Texas, and started looking at the multitude of smaller towns that lie all within that San Antonio/Austin corridor, more research is needed on my part. One of my buddies spent a lot of time in San Antonio and really loves it there as well. No income tax (although I understand TX property tax makes up for the lack of income tax).

Dr. Hess - I like being outside of town......but not toooooo far outside of town. My girlfriend sold her house last year to move down here, she lived in a town of 1600 people more than an hour from downtown Tulsa. That's really a PITA if you say, just want to go have some drinks and dinner somewhere nice, without having to board the dogs and get a hotel. Taking a $150 night closer to $400.

bmw88rider - That's an interesting one. A bit larger, but not anything like Tulsa/OKC (of course which are nothing like Dallas/Houston/LA/etc) and still very close to outdoorsy stuff which the other half loves.

I think you may overestimate the connection issue.  It is unlikely you are the bottleneck.  The place you are VPN connecting to likely can't support sending you that much data anyway.  Hell, most consumer hard drives can't write 1 gigabit/second.

For what its worth, 4k video through Netflix is only 5 megabytes (not bits)/second.  iracing requirements are far, far, far below that.  Latency is obviously a concern.

In reply to z31maniac :

I’ll plug Biloxi & the MS Gulf Coast yet again. We’ve been down here for almost 3-years now & still love it. Our overall cost of living is lower than it was in IL too.