Cheap Places to Live

Trying to find a cheap place to live? There are two simple rules you should follow when choosing a place to settle down:

The further you are from a big city, the less it costs to rent or own a home.
Cheap places to visit are usually the cheapest places to live.

Choosing to live in a location with a cheap cost of living can make a tremendous difference in your quality of life. When your cost of living is low on the regular basis, you can afford to enjoy many of the finer things in life. Many people who love to travel settle in an area that is very inexpensive. This leaves them with plenty of money in the budget to enjoy seeing the world.

Finding a cheap place to live will mean making a few sacrifices, but to many, the trade-off is well worth it.

Things to Consider

There are many factors to consider when researching cheap places to live. Your first consideration is your work. No matter how inexpensive a place is to live, if you have to commute two or three hours each day, it is probably not worth the savings. If you are not employed or looking for employment, you also have to consider the opportunity in an area. Though you might find several cheap places to live, you might not be able to find reasonable employment close by. There is usually a good reason why a location is so cheap.

Also consider things like property taxes and crime rates. Just because a home or apartment is cheap does not mean your overall expenses will be cheap. Property taxes can drive monthly and yearly expenses through the roof. Another consideration is the safety of an area. Sometimes inexpensive areas are cheap because nobody wants to live there. If you are concerned for your safety, the savings are not worth it.

Also evaluate the overall cost of living in an area. Isolated areas might appear cheap at first glance, but if you have to travel long distances or pay high prices for necessities, your actual cost of living will increase a great deal. A lot of times, expensive homes cost a lot because they are so convenient and save money in other ways.

If you are searching internationally, there are several places that are considered cheap. Remember, cheap does not always translate to safe or high quality of life:

Iraq
Afghanistan
Nauru
Turkmenistan
Bhutan
Tuvalu
Bolivia
Mayotte
Paraguay
Kiribati
Mexico

According to a 2011 survey by Yahoo, the cheapest cities in America include:

Sherman, Texas
Fort Smith, Arkansas
Ft. Hood, Texas
Pueblo, Colorado
Brownsville, Texas