I got paid $5,000 to move to a place I'd never heard of

I got paid $5,000 to move to a place I'd never heard of

Brianna Beyrouti says relocating to a cheaper part of the US means she can afford to take her children on holiday

Looking back on her old life in Portland, Oregon, Brianna Beyrouti says she was financially "drowning".

"I was absolutely living paycheque to paycheque. Every time the smallest thing came up, it was like 'Oh, gosh, the kids need shoes, how am I going to afford that?' As a single parent, everything falls on my shoulders."

Last year, Brianna left Portland and its metropolitan population of 2.5 million people.

She and her two children moved 2,000 miles east to Muncie, Indiana, a small city of 65,000 people with a university and plenty of open space, using a scheme that paid $5,000 towards the cost of moving in an effort to increase population growth.

The move has transformed her finances. She still works remotely for the same bank, so her annual salary of $107,000 (£79,000) has not changed, but she has been able to buy a home for the first time. Her mortgage is now lower than the rent she used to pay.

In Portland, she paid $1,290 a month in rent for an apartment, while the combined cost of her mortgage, home insurance and property tax for her detached house in Muncie is $1,100.

With Indiana’s lower state income tax, plus reduced car insurance and energy bills, Brianna says she is $600 a month better off.

"I'm able to live my life more than I was before," she says. "When my kids want something, I'm much more inclined to say yes. My quality of life has increased dramatically."

Brianna is far from the only person to trade a major city for a smaller one.

As the high cost of living continues to squeeze people in the US, many of the biggest cities are seeing their populations decline as residents look for cheaper housing.

A 2025 report from the National Association of Realtors found that for people moving to another state, affordability was their main reason.

As a result, major cities including New York, Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon have seen their populations fall.

By contrast, some small towns and cities across the US, including Muncie, are growing after years of decline. Official figures showed Muncie’s population reached 65,466 last year.

That is up from 65,194 in 2020, but still well below its 1990 population of 71,828.

To help it stand out and attract remote workers from outside Indiana, Muncie’s local council offers $5,000 in cash to cover relocation costs.

It does this through a website called MakeMyMove, which lists a number of similar relocation incentive schemes offered by small cities and towns across the US. These locations pay MakeMyMove a subscription fee.

Other incentives offered to potential new residents include complimentary cinema tickets, restaurant vouchers and even free bottles of wine.

Brianna and her children are among about 100 families who have moved to Muncie through the MakeMyMove programme. She says she had never heard of the city before.

Across the US, MakeMyMove says it helped 1,000 people relocate in total last year, and it is on course to raise that figure to 1,500 in 2026.

Scientist Elena Chrysostomou also used a relocation support scheme to move from a big city to small-town US. In 2024 she relocated from San Diego, California, to Jacksonville, a town of 17,700 people in rural Illinois.

The move was supported by the Jacksonville Regional Economic Development Corporation (JREDC), which gave her $5,000 in cash, along with a "quality of life package" worth $4,000 that includes free gym memberships and golf passes.

The JREDC says that although the region is "already a great place to live", the support scheme helps to "sweeten the deal".

Elena was paying $3,000 to rent a one-bedroom apartment in San Diego, but she now owns a three-bedroom home with a mortgage of $1,868. At the same time, her salary has risen 22% after she changed jobs, and her commute has dropped from a 15-minute drive to just one minute.

"I never thought that I'd be able to afford a house on my own, I always thought I'd need a partner, and even then, in San Diego, it would be so tough," she says.

"It's just more freeing. There's more security and independence."

Although both she and Brianna say they have no regrets, they do acknowledge some downsides to their new lives. These include a narrower range of activities and restaurant options, leaving friends and family behind, and, for Brianna, the challenge of settling her children into new schools.

And while Brianna used to enjoy walking to parks and shops in Portland, she now depends on her car to get around.

Still, she says she is delighted overall. "I have the biggest savings I've ever had in my life, and I'm a homeowner, and I can do things with my kids – we actually went on vacation for the first time in my youngest's life."