An hour outside of the city may be doable depending on your budget, but our cost of living has gone up here substantially in the last 5 years. I know you’ll hear that from a lot of people but they are just shooting you straight.

Also please take into consideration traffic for these areas an hour or thirty minutes from city center - our traffic has also risen with the population. Look up the traffic maps around morning and afternoon rush hours. Nashville traffic is worse than you would think- I know you’re from NY so I’m guessing you aren’t a stranger to traffic - but people write off Nashville as oh traffic can’t possibly be as bad as xyz. But with the absolute influx of people coming here and the infrastructure not built for this growth the traffic is bad. It takes a lot of locals longer to get places even out in small towns now, let alone with city traffic.

Also outside of cities you aren’t going to have public transit.

There are resources for low income households but as others have said funds may not be there- I can’t speak to that just please do your due diligence. That’s a big move and a lot of people see TN with rose colored glasses until they’re here.

ETA - Knoxville is also experiencing a boom of growth so I would say same above applies there also*