Thank you all for putting in your comments and VERY helpful notes in my plea post here: Moving to a new country with a new budget.
I know that Canada and the U.S. are similar in many ways, but hey… it never hurts to ask more knowledgeable natives 
I am pleasantly surprised that I won’t be paying $300/month for car insurance (more like a third of that), so that money can shift over to paying for health insurance.
Few things I want to note!
- Moving date? ASAP. I don’t have anything concrete yet, but I like being prepared
- I will have to work for a company, I cannot go as a freelancer
- Why? Well to make a long story short, the word of the day is: visa
- I am going to get some benefits from a company: health, mostly
- Company retirement benefits are negligible because on a temporary visa, I can’t contribute to them yet
- I will still be a Canadian which means access to health insurance
- I will be traveling a lot for work
- …which means I could do what I did 3 years ago & perhaps not have an apartment at all*
- …but it means I will still have to pay the difference in taxes to Canada, so I won’t get the benefit of no personal taxation in Texas quiiiite yet
*That’s where I run into the conundrum of my car insurance and license, as I don’t have a ‘permanent’ address for that purpose. Must think about this.
So enter my revised budgets because I have two scenarios:
- “WORST” CASE: I pay for my own hotel** living costs (quite possible if my projects end up in my ‘home city’)***
- BEST CASE: I don’t pay for any hotel living costs — covered by the client so I can be there 24/7 (theoretically )
**I am seeing that I probably won’t take my own apartment if I have to pay 1-year leases. If I can take it month-by-month at an apartment, I will do it.
If not, I am staying put in apartment hotels in between projects & paying out of pocket for in between projects.
***I absolutely recognize that earning $100,000 gross a year is not a bad case at all for anyone. Please don’t think otherwise! This is more of a ‘worst case scenario for expenditures’ for me.
“Worst Case”: $2500/month
Best (Dream) Case: $600/month
Somewhere in between $600/month to $2500/month is what I’m expecting to pay in expenses.
Not only that, I haven’t factored in BF.
If he is in another city working, I may not have the luxury of $0 rent or $0 food. I might have to pay the differences, etc.
A lot of variables are in the air, and will be for a while, but at least I have a budgeting scenario where I can say: The max is $2500 a month.
Thank you very much for chiming in! It’s really helped. 
Just a girl trying to find a balance between being a Shopaholic and a Saver.
I cleared $60,000 in 18 months earning $65,000 gross/year.
Now I am self-employed, and you can read more about 
