Howdy Flying Devildog, welcome aboard. I don't know much about the lusk area, I spent most of my time in the western half of Wyoming. As far as boom and bust. I think there are a lot of folks who travel around following the booms. During these times there is generally a lot of construction type work, large capital investments in manufacturing and utility sorts of workplaces. Once things are built things slow down again and the construction workers move to the next big job. The housing takes a little bit longer to catch up so this type of work stays a little longer. So at the end of the boom cycle there are actually still a lot of jobs, it all depends on what you do for a living. For example , the coal mines will probobly be around for a long time, the railroad, gas companies, hospitals,etc etc. If you can get a job at one of these places the "bust" probobly won't effect you as much. If you are a business person and have your own business, all the better.
Housing all depends on what you buy, how you want to live. You can buy a piece of land for cash, put a trailer on it and pay cash and not have a monthly payment or you can buy a 500,000 dollar home and pay each month. I would bet that groceries and other things are about the same anywhere, at least not to much different. So what I'm trying to say is that the amount you will need to live in Wyoming will all depend on how you choose to live. How much money do you spend each month VS how much you have coming in. Hope that helps? Miles