To be honest. I love reading posts like these and immediately started laughing my ass off when you mentioned living close to Boston on a teacher's salary.

Honestly. Your best option would be Western Massachusetts specifically the City of Springfield. This city had a bad reputation something like 20 years ago, hell in 2011 it was bad but today Springfield is an amazing place to live in.

There is so much diversity, history and things to do. Oh and the jobs, lots and lots and lots of jobs. Specially in the public sector.

It is surprisingly affordable not as much as it used to be in 2019 but it is a lot more affordable than Worcester or Boston Metro.

People from other states have this idea that the further away from the city the cheaper it gets... that is not true in Massachusetts, people here value their privacy. The further you go the more expensive it gets. The cities are the usually the cheapest areas to live in with the exception being Boston Metro

Check out Springfield and it's surrounding towns. Don't listen to the people who shit on this city. Most of them don't live there or have never even visited they mostly mouth off what someone else has told them.

This city has changed so much, there is so much money being invested here. You have access with a relatively short drive to Boston, NYC, Hartford, Upstate NY, Connecticut, Vermont and New Hampshire.

If you are adamant on living near Boston, your cheapest option will be to rent a room which are going for about $1000 at the moment.

Western Mass is the place to be in my opinion.

I love living in this state. This winter was extremely mild if we could even have called it a winter. But most winters here are harsh. Even with the harsh winters we chose to live hete because the quality of life is high, the incomes are high, the quality education is high even on public schools. There is good public support that the state provides (with your tax dollars) to get you back on your feet if you fall on hard times. Like Mass health and the FMLA.

Overall this state is awesome and wherever you chose to go you will succeed.

Note that we have a lot of traffic. This is true. We moved out of Chelsea Mass because the traffic was awful it was fucking awful. A ten minute drive without traffic was usually 50 minutes bumper to bumper at peak hour.

Traffic used to be light in Springfield but after covid hit holy shit we had so many people move here. The traffic has definitely picked up.

The houses here are still affordable on a 45k yr wage. Have a good time searching for your next place to live.