A few weeks ago I received a comment from a reader who lives up North and is considering moving to Roanoke. They asked me to write about Roanoke and what I think about living here. What are some of the pluses and minuses of Roanoke? What to expect and what not to expect? And, overall talk a little about the quality of life here.

With the next few posts I’ll do my best to answer these questions from my perspective, and generally so that they can apply to all ages. These posts hardly aim to cover everything about Roanoke, and I encourage you to leave comments below and add your own perspective. 

I work and probably earn somewhere in the neighborhood of the median or average income for a US household. Ocassionally, I pick up another 1-2 part-time jobs when I want (not including this blog).

I’m not rich and I don’t live my life in such a way to encourage people to falsely believe I’m rich. I dislike debt and live within my means. I say this not to brag or anything of that sort, but to say that, relatively speaking, money seems to go a pretty far distance in Roanoke. Especially for those that are conscious of their budget, save appropriately, and don’t live outside of their salary range.

The beauty of it is that Roanoke is fairly laid back to the point where one doesn’t have to live extravagantly just to fit in with the rest of society.

Now, there is poor and homeless in Roanoke. In fact, there seems to be more homeless downtown recently than I have ever seen before. I mean maybe a half-dozen instead of 1 or 2 that I used to see. There is probably more than that but it doesn’t seem like Chicago or DC where on nearly every corner there was a homeless person.

But as for me, I can make all of my payments and still eat out infrequently or go to the mall every few weeks and splurge on some new clothes. At the end of the day I’m not struggling to pay bills, and I have plenty to save for retirement (or to pay for child expenses if/when that occurs). Money seems to go farther is my point.

In short, I live OK on an income that would probably be considered the low end of the spectrum if I did the same work in a bigger city. So, in Roanoke, I realize I make less, but it’s just a cheaper place to live overall I think so it evens out.

In closing, I can only speak for myself. I went to college, learned a desirable skill, work hard, and live on a modest income. Roanoke helps to provide me this life and hopefully will continue to do so for years to come.

I see Roanoke helping to provide the same or better life for others, and see no reason why it can’t to do the same for anyone else willing to take advantage of the relatively low cost of living here.