Can't afford NJ anymore !

[GladeMasterB]

My wife and I are considering moving out of the state. We live in a 2 bedroom condo right now and the thought of having to spend nearly half a million dollars on a house is depressing. I'm already so close to the PA border I'm practically living on the Delaware river. Even houses out here are through the roof. We love the mountains and have no need to be near a beach or NYC type city. What I do need however is a job. I work in I/T and my wife is a nurse. Her getting a new job in another state is no problem(every state needs nurses) but not every state needs programmers. Both of us went to "findyourspot.com" and came up with basically the same results. We are considering the Ogden Utah area. We don't have any kids right now but we hope to have some in the future at some point. We make a pretty respectable combined salary right now but it still hard to save anything living in NJ. Just the trip up and back to K each weekend in the winter costs a 100 bucks in gas. I guess we could cut out those trips and ski locally but you all know how much that sucks. We really don't spend much in the summer. Anyway, the biggest worry we have is quitting my job of 5 years, leaving family and friends behind and me actually finding a job in SLC or somewhere nearby. With 50 K in equity in our condo and finding a nice house out there for 150 k we are looking at 700 bucks a month for a mortgage. I'd probably be fine making half of what I make here. Anyone else ever think about bailing on your northeast location and starting new out west ?