Fine then. Make it 1hr on the east coast and 2hr on the west coast. If you don't mind living in a city/town that makes your upper middle class coworkers cring

Fine then. Make it 1hr on the east coast and 2hr on the west coast. If you don't mind living in a city/town that makes your upper middle class coworkers cringe you can still find places with a reasonable cost of living. They won't have the greatest schools but living somewhere for the "good schools" is overrated (that's outside the scope of this comment).