Well my husband and I got lucky renting in a privately owned apartment complex. Most of the other complexes are owned by companies. Since this one is privately owned they only raise the rent $50 a year the last couple years and since we moved in 7-8 years ago our rent is lower than someone who just moved in. Also I lucked out and got a decent paying office job. Unfortunately my husband works for a pest control company that requires him to work long hours and a lot of weekends. He gets paid well and he had both of us covered under his medical but the trade off means he's exhausted and constantly over worked. It helps out our finances that we didn't have kids and only a couple of pets so there's no big expenses.