- Jasmine Ball didn’t want to spend half her life sitting behind the wheel of her car in Los Angeles.
- Ball, 32, found a program that paid her $10,000 to move to Tulsa, Oklahoma, so she packed her bags.
- Ball said she may never leave Oklahoma, where the cost of living is lower and the work-life balance is better.
This essay is based on a conversation with Jasmine Ball, a 32-year-old financial planner who I was paid to move from Los Angeles to Tulsa, Oklahoma in 2020 with the Tulsa Remote program. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
I had never heard of Tulsa in my life – sure, I had heard of Oklahoma, but never of Tulsa.
I first heard about the city through a YouTube video made by a pastor in Tulsa. It piqued my curiosity.
I saw that the cost of living was low, then I discovered Tulsa Remote.
I was looking for places with a lower cost of living. I compared the cost of living in different states and Tulsa came up. I did some more research and Tulsa Remote came up.
I thought, “This looks pretty good.” And then I decided to move.
I had already decided that I was going to move there, and then I looked at the house prices and told my dad I was going to buy a house. He said, “You haven’t even been there.”
I had never been there before and went there to look at houses. During this week-long stay in Tulsa, I found a house and made an offer.
What made Tulsa more interesting to me was the history of Black Wall Street.
I thought, ‘That would be great, to be a financial firm that also went to Black Wall Street.’
Obviously it was super cool to have that program and that motivation, but it was only part of the decision to move there.
I knew I couldn’t stay in California forever
I’m from Orland, California, which is the middle of nowhere. I went to school in Minnesota, came back to Northern California briefly, and then moved to Los Angeles.
I don’t know if I would have started my own business if I had stayed in California – certainly not as quickly.
I started my own company in December 2021, so I’ve been in Tulsa for about a year. I worked remotely at my other company for a year before that.
If I had stayed, I think I would have continued working for someone else. But once I went to Tulsa and created that distance, I thought, “Well, I might as well do it myself.” So I did.
Finances were a big factor. But what really made me think that living in Los Angeles wasn’t a long-term option was that I was getting up and leaving the house at 4:30 a.m. and not getting home until 10:30 p.m. every day.
Half the time I was in my car, stuck in traffic. I was like, “I can’t live my life like this.”
I literally did the math: I would spend years of my life in my car. I didn’t want to live like that. I can’t imagine being here at 60, after spending 20 years driving, when I could be living my life instead.
That’s what motivated him.
The financial aspect obviously played a big role. In California, finances were so tight that you had to work hard all the time.
I decided I didn’t want to compromise. I wanted to have the finances I wanted to have, but I also didn’t want to have to fight that much.
Finding a place that could create balance really changed my life.
I got a house for almost what I paid for a room in Los Angeles
In Los Angeles in 2020, I lived with three other roommates: one was my sister and the other two were friends.
There were four of us in this five-bedroom townhouse, and the rent was $3,800 a month, which was pretty good.
My share of that rent was $1,100 because I had the master bedroom.
I purchased the house in Tulsa in November 2020 and it sat vacant until I moved in in December.
It’s a three-bedroom, two-bathroom house with a two-car garage, and my mortgage is $1,185.
It was a perfect time to act because interest rates were around 2.25%, which is insane. So it was a no-brainer.
Electric bills are significantly lower. I joke that I still suffer from PTSD from the electric bills we used to get, especially when I was a kid. I remember one summer we had a $600 electric bill, that’s ridiculous. In Tulsa, you can run your air conditioner all day and it only costs you $100 or $200.
Water, gas, everything is cheaper.
In California, gas is like $5 a gallon, and in Tulsa, it’s like $3. By the time I moved, it was like $1.70, and I thought, “What the hell?” I’ve never seen gas that cheap in my life.
It’s not just the cost of gasoline, it’s also time.
I can maximize my time in Tulsa much more than I can in Los Angeles. I can actually increase my income because I can increase my productivity because I’m not spending as much time doing unproductive things.
In Tulsa, there is something as simple as parking. You can find free parking everywhere. It is always free after 5pm and it is free on weekends. Parking in Los Angeles is atrocious. You are lucky if you find a $10 parking spot.
I don’t think I’ll ever leave Tulsa
In Tulsa, there are always free events happening, like concerts in the park. If you want to do something, there’s bound to be something to do, and it’s probably free.
There are so many different suburbs of Tulsa that have parades. I don’t remember really having a lot to do in Los Angeles.
I spend most of my free time in Tulsa doing one of two things: playing volleyball or volunteering.
California has beaches, but I never really played beach volleyball, mainly because it took so long to get there. To get to Santa Monica on a bad day, it took an hour and a half. On a good day, it took maybe 45 minutes. And it wasn’t worth it after driving all week.
Tulsa has several different volleyball leagues.
In Los Angeles, it was hard to find places to volunteer. Sometimes you had to fill out a whole application, a 10-step process, and you were like, “I just wanted to do something this time and see what it was like.”
But in Tulsa, it’s super accessible.
I volunteer a lot at the Tulsa Dream Center. They’ve been giving away free rides every Saturday during the pandemic, rain, snow, or shine. So I just showed up every Saturday, and I didn’t have to do any training. At least in Tulsa, they make it so easy, instead of finding barriers and reasons why you can’t participate.
I didn’t necessarily move there thinking I was going to leave, but I always thought, “You can always come back.” If it doesn’t work out, I don’t like it, I can always go back to California.
But what’s surprising is that I really like it.
I don’t see myself moving anywhere else one day.
I love to travel and I may buy more properties in other places. At first, I thought Tulsa was more of an experiment to settle down in Tulsa. And then it turned out to be something I really enjoyed.