Monthly living expenses for me can top off around $1000/mo comfortably. I have a car but don't pay for the insurance (though I do pay for repairs, gas, etc.) so $1500 is definitely doable. Rent for a single person can be had for $300-$400 with some looking, and not necessarily in bad conditions. $500 will get you plenty of space. You will likely need the car, though the town bus system is very good (supposedly one of the best small-town public transit systems in the country). It's a college town so you have a younger population than some rural communities--it's not quite "truck stop", in other words, but having a large student population has its own problems. There are quiet parts of town, where families and grad students tend to live, but the "student ghettos" have loud parties, crappy apartments, and predatory lending practices aplenty.
The next town over, Moscow, ID, is about 8 miles east. It's also a college town, plus it has a nicer downtown (complete with hippie food co-op). Haven't lived there, though.
If you like variable weather, where the temperature goes from -10 to 110 over the course of the year and you see wind, rain, snow, hail, and sunshine in the course of about the same week, you'll like the area. Speaking of seasons, summers are a lot nicer and quieter than the school year, at least in Pullman.
Not sure I'd recommend living here to anyone, to be honest, but if you want to feel isolated from the real world for awhile it'll do the job.
Monthly living expenses for me can top off around $1000/mo comfortably. I have a car but don't pay for the insurance (though I do pay for repairs, gas, etc.) so $1500 is definitely doable. Rent for a single person can be had for $300-$400 with some looking, and not necessarily in bad conditions. $500 will get you plenty of space. You will likely need the car, though the town bus system is very good (supposedly one of the best small-town public transit systems in the country). It's a college town so you have a younger population than some rural communities--it's not quite "truck stop", in other words, but having a large student population has its own problems. There are quiet parts of town, where families and grad students tend to live, but the "student ghettos" have loud parties, crappy apartments, and predatory lending practices aplenty.
The next town over, Moscow, ID, is about 8 miles east. It's also a college town, plus it has a nicer downtown (complete with hippie food co-op). Haven't lived there, though.
If you like variable weather, where the temperature goes from -10 to 110 over the course of the year and you see wind, rain, snow, hail, and sunshine in the course of about the same week, you'll like the area. Speaking of seasons, summers are a lot nicer and quieter than the school year, at least in Pullman.
Not sure I'd recommend living here to anyone, to be honest, but if you want to feel isolated from the real world for awhile it'll do the job.