Current job ending and coming to a fork in the road

The place I work at has started outsourcing all network routing, firewalls, switching, servers, VOIP etc... to outsourced vendors. They are implementing an outsourced help desk in the next few months which means my job here as a Network Admin( I call my self jack of all trades since I am the sole network guy for about 75 employees and 8 locations in a region) will be pretty much gone. The area I am currently living in is in a poor county on the east coast but after talking with my wife we have decided we would like to move out of the area and into a place where their are more plentiful IT jobs in case something like this happens again. We both like the cold weather so we were looking into MN, WI, New England states etc.. but it just feels like either you have a good place to work but cost of living is outrageous or cost of living is low but the jobs don't pay well. We are looking and hoping to add to our family so we were also looking for family friendly and animal friendly areas since we have pets currently. I will be taking a Beta Comptia Server+ exam next week and wont know if I passed until the summer time to see if I can add this to resume. My other thought was maybe this should be a good opportunity to do a different path or continue with my strong suit which is hardware repair, network engineering and troubleshooting. I am just looking for suggestions or advice if anyone has come to this type of situation before.
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Goals: CCNP Enterprise(ENCOR + ENARSI), AWS CSA - Associate, Azure AZ-104, Become better at python, learn docker and kubernetes
Degree: A.S. Network Administration
Pursuing: B.S. in I.T. Web and Mobile Development Concentration
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Goals: CCNP Enterprise(ENCOR + ENARSI), AWS CSA - Associate, Azure AZ-104, Become better at python, learn docker and kubernetes
Degree: A.S. Network Administration
Pursuing: B.S. in I.T. Web and Mobile Development Concentration
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Goals: CCNP Enterprise(ENCOR + ENARSI), AWS CSA - Associate, Azure AZ-104, Become better at python, learn docker and kubernetes
Degree: A.S. Network Administration
Pursuing: B.S. in I.T. Web and Mobile Development Concentration
Echoing what Infosec_Sam said...
For WI
Milwaukee and Madison seem to have a lot of IT jobs. You might have a hard time finding IT work if in WI if you don’t live close to these areas.
Cost of living
You could live in smaller cities in WI that are close to MN/Twin Cities. This would be a longer commute, but you might be able to save some money on your house/land. Take a look at Hudson,WI , and surrounding cities if you want to go this route.
For MN/Twin Cities— Minneapolis/St Paul
Some cities you could check out to save money on your house/land would be Forrest Lake, Shoreview, White Bear Lake... i there are more, but I cannot think of all of them right now
Jobs in MN
There are a lot of medical based companies in MN
Star Tribune 2018
List of the top 50 public in MN
. http://m.startribune.com/our-top-50-public-companies-with-no-1-at-226b-in-revenue/506438451/
Here is a link for the MN based paper The Star Tribune that lists the 2019 ( they run this article every year)150 best places to work in MN. The employees vote for there company.
http://m.startribune.com/ranking-minnesota-s-150-top-workplaces/511089882/
Good Luck!
--Alexander Graham Bell,
American inventor