I just moved away from Seattle after 6 years, where some argue the tech income-to-cost of living ratio might be the best in the world, due to the even higher cost of living in SF. (If I'm wrong, no matter, just substitute SF in your mind.)

Anyway upon moving away to a much lower cost of living area I've discovered one issue with the SF/Seattle-type areas is that you can't afford to be out of a job for very long, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, without the cost of living bleeding you dry.

If you don't want to live stressed out about losing your job due to bristling against some boss/company, or you might want to take a few months off from time to time to work on a personal project or just to relax, what I might do from now on is consider the pay-to-cost of living ratio of an area under the assumption that I work, say, 9 months out of every 12.