I'm pretty perpetually broke, all my family and friends eat meat, and I live in good ol' purple state Pennsylvania (not Philly or Pittsburgh).

In my personal experience, being at the very least vegetarian IS easy, even in my far-from-ideal conditions. I want to take people at their word when they say it would be hard for them, but it's kind of incomprehensible to me. I even still eat at restaurants! Honestly I don't even really cook that much, 'cause I'm lazy and don't have a lot of free time. When eating out, you just try to do your due diligence to avoid getting any hidden meat, and if you wind up with some anyway, well at least you tried. I will admit it's somewhat harder when I'm visiting rural Alabama, but not even by that much really. More on the level of minor inconvenience than anything. It's not even more expensive, meat costs a fortune compared to like... beans.