On the bright side, with lower cost of housing the mortgage will cost you less and will be easier to pay off. I'm in my early 40s, have three kids, and we actually own our house. If we had lived in a similar house in a larger city we'd still be grinding through the mortgage.
I guess what I'm tring to say is that there plenty of middle ground between living in San Francisco and living the Unabomber dream in the Montana forests. There are a lot of places on the face of the earth where there are not hundreds of nerby companies hiring, but maybe five or ten within driving distance. And where you can actually afford to buy a house.
Texas offers more sun and a solid stable economy as well as much lower costs. Something to consider?
And all of these cities are downright cheap compared to pretty much anywhere on either of the coasts.
This is the specific reason why I have self-limited my living situation to one of the major tech centers in the US. The downside is nearly unlimited if you're in a rural area: particularly if you have a house. You must be able to get a job if your company collapses, and most companies get shirty about remote work for people they don't know. So you're stuck trying to move in a hurry, to a place where you have no network. Hopefully it's not a down economy and lots of people are looking... then things are even dicier.
Move to the city, young man (or woman). There be jobs there.