High Income in a LCOL area possible?

[Kaplin261]

I recently read MMM's article about his trip to Hawaii. He talked about it being a HCOL area but there were plenty of opportunities to make a decent  amount of extra income offering fancypants services and using craigslist to buy things dirt cheap. 

So what about the opposite of this, living in a rural part of the USA in a LCOL? Jobs are limited, there isn't many people looking for services and the ones that are already have someone they would use. What are your options in a area like this other than telecommuting or investment income?

[swashbucklinstache]

Probably not super useful for your question, but one thing that can help is working for a company that doesn't adjust their salaries based on COL. An example might be a small-ish company with a handful of offices that are mostly located in HCOL areas but with one or two in LCOL areas. Like mine :).

[ender]

I recently read MMM's article about his trip to Hawaii. He talked about it being a HCOL area but there were plenty of opportunities to make a decent  amount of extra income offering fancypants services and using craigslist to buy things dirt cheap. 

So what about the opposite of this, living in a rural part of the USA in a LCOL? Jobs are limited, there isn't many people looking for services and the ones that are already have someone they would use. What are your options in a area like this other than telecommuting or investment income?

You can pick the right LCOL area or a wrong one. Many low cost of living areas (especially Midwest) are near larger cities that are still much lower cost of living than, say, LA or SF (my income there according to COL adjustments is 135k/165k respectively).

There are advantages of high cost of living and high salaries for MMM followers who will maximize the additional income. It is considerably easier to max a 401k/IRA when you make $150k than $80k, nearly regardless of where you live.

[Dee18]

Working for the USGovernment. 

[muckety_muck]

There are a few ways to achieve this that I am familiar with:
1) fed gov't job (relatively decent wages even in rural super LCOL areas)
2) having an awesome job in a HCOL area, then asking to work remotely/from home permanently, given approval to move.
3) have a traveling consulting-type job, doesn't matter WHERE your home base is... You just have to be on-call and ready to fly anywhere in a moments notice, sometimes for long periods of time.

[Josiecat]

I work for a virtual company doing Healthcare IT.  I make a high income. I work from home and live in a LCOL area.

[MrsStubble]

I live in Delaware near Philly and it's high income/lcol here.   You can easily make over $100k here for professional jobs (IT, project management, marketing) and buy a decent house for under $200,000.   Perk of living near major cities without living in a major city.