It's interesting to view this from a different perspective. I wonder if the whole concept of the barrier to enter New Hampshire has other effects. Sure, for a single person you can pick up a room mate and live on the cheap, but I have a family of 6 and a cat to worry about. Some of the prices I've seen for a 1br home in New Hampshire have been more expensive than our 3br trailer in Texas. As far as buying power goes, we may not have sales tax to contend with up there anymore, but we're very minimalist when it comes to buying as well. We don't exactly pay out a lot in sales tax. Since we don't own, we don't have to pay residential tax, and Texas has no state income tax. We've pretty much come to the decision that when we leave we're leaving as much behind as possible. We've never had problems finding free or cheap furniture and the like (all of our furniture but my bed was free) and it would be a great time to downsize on toys and the like, but I'm a little worried about living in a place that many would consider too small with four kids. Are there landlords that would want to rent a 2 bedroom to a family with four kids and a cat? Honestly, we've done it before (with one less kid at the time) and would do it again until we can get set up, but it's something to consider.
I'm not saying that we're totally writing the whole thing as "too expensive". Truth be told I'm ready to just buy an RV, pack it with everything essential, and if there are more things we're just not ready to get rid of and can't cram in the RV, then get a small trailer to haul the rest of it. We could live in an RV for the cost of the space we're staying in without having to worry about a landlord telling us how many people we can have, and it would probably be significantly cheaper, but I also have to take my ex-husband's opinion of the older kids' situation in mind. We're also low income and have lost some financial stability as a result of losing our car a year and a half ago. By the end of 2013 we should be back on our feet and by the end of 2014 or the beginning of 2015, we're planning to move, unless circumstance affords it to happen earlier. We're still planning the move, but it would be great if financially we had the same freedoms as a single person or a couple with no children to say, "the heck with it, let's move!" We would be able to swing the move at the end of our lease instead of a year or two.