From experience I can tell you some things that may help. My family moved from Conyers to the country (corn fields and cows) of New York State about 2 1/2 years ago. The cost of living in that town is MUCH less than it was in Conyers/Atlanta area. Now in NYC you are looking at a different story.

Living Conditions-
yes it gets cold, i caint really tell you how cold it gets in the CT area but I know in Central NY it was -15 for most of the month of Febuary this past winter. It snows until April also! The snow is nice to look at for the first month, then just gets annoying (IMO). When your looking for an appt. look for one with AC, not just heat. Alot of the houses/apartments up north were not built with AC, but beliieve it or not it does get pretty warm there in the summer (it hit 90 for a week strait in NY this past summer) and its annoying if you dont have AC. The house we bought when we moved there was about 3 years old, it was a show house for a company there in the city and didnt even have AC. We had to put the window units in most of the rooms.

Take into account that the appt expense may be a little more up there also, the complex usually has to pay for things like snow plowing during the winter,etc... and heat is used for much longer than here.

Like i said, these things may be different in CT compared to NY State but just tryin to help.