Comment by subsubzero

One thing this doesn't mention is the pay cuts that happen if you do decide to relocate to cheaper areas. Both me and my Wife's company have pay bands based on geographical region(most employees know nothing about this and most companies employ these salary COL changes for relocation) and certain regions you can take a big pay cut. Say your salary in the bay area is 100k for example, move to the South, say Florida and it typically drops 30%(typically as low as they chop your salary) so your new salary is 70k, Denver area is 15% paycut etc. These numbers change somewhat from company to company but they do exist for most companies and should be factored in.