I got paid $10,000 to move to Tulsa. My mortgage for a whole house is about what I used to pay to rent one room.

• 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 $10,000 to move to Tulsa, Oklahoma, so she packed her bags.
• Ball said she may never leave Oklahoma, which has a lower cost of living and better work-life balance.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jasmine Ball, a 32-year-old financial planner who got paid to move from Los Angeles to Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 2020 with the Tulsa Remote program. The conversation was edited for length and clarity.

I had never heard of Tulsa in my life — of course, I'd heard of Oklahoma, but never Tulsa.