Where could you live comfortably on 80k a year?

[Anonymous]

Columbus, Ohio

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:54 yo retiree here in Fairfax living extremely comfortably on 72K. SFH, big yard, huge garden, community pool, kids done with college, 3 or 4 two week trips every year...

Troll harder.

Where do you live in Fairfax? Is your house paid off, I assume? And is the $72K net? I'm interested in the details, please.

[Anonymous]

Not OP but are there any places in Virginia that would meet these requirements?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can get a nice home in the Lehigh Valley in West Allentown or historic Bethlehem for that budget.

Lancaster would be an option as well. I’d prefer both of these places to Pittsburgh because they’re close to big cities like New York and Philadelphia and Pittsburgh is isolated.

An example of what you can get in West Allentown. Obviously you can go lower than $400,000 and pick up something nice, but smaller and not as updated.

https://www.redfin.com/PA/Allentown/2729-W-Allen-St-18104/home/196135126

They are an hour to an 1 1/2 hours to those cities. Pittsburgh is a million times better then slightly depressed towns like Allentown, Bethlehem (the best of the three) or Lancaster.

I’d rather be 1 1/2 hours from the best city in the world, NYC, than be 4 hours from any major city, like you are in Pittsburgh.

If you move to Pittsburgh you need to really like Pittsburgh, because it’s not close to anything except Ohio.

Lancaster, Allentown, and Bethlehem are all mid tier cities with plenty of amenities that are close to world class cities. And there are nice places in all three of these cities, just like there are depressing neighborhoods and nice neighborhoods in Pittsburgh. The house in Allentown posted above is in a very nice Pre WW2 neighborhood with big parks and a university within walking distance.

I know these three cities extremely well. They are slightly depressed and boring places to live. I don't know what "plenty of amenities" even means. Do they have professional sports teams? I guess if you include a AAA Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs or the minor league hockey team...is that experience anything similar to a Steelers, Penguins or Pirates game (yeah, the Pirates suck...but they get way more fans than the Nationals)? Of course not. Is it "easy" to get to an Eagles or Phillies or NY sports team game...heck no. Almost nobody does it.

Is there theatre...yeah, but it's mostly local and average...nothing compared to what you would see in Pittsburgh. Again, you can haul to NYC or Philly, but it's not easy.

Hey, the Allentown Fair is always fun and I love the farmers' market. Downtown Bethlehem is fun at Christmas...MusicFest is fun. Lancaster I don't really care much at all for.

Being walking distance to Muhlenberg College really isn't much of a draw. What are you even doing when you get there? It's a small school that does have some decent theatre productions, but nobody gives a shit about their D3 sports...not even their own students. Again, with Pittsburgh you can follow the Panthers with the added bonus of watching the football team play at the Steelers stadium.

As others have pointed out...go live much closer to Philly (or even in Philly which is actually quite affordable) or NYC so you can take SEPTA or NJ Transit/NYC Metro, if you want easy access to those cities.

These are C cities...not even B cities...which is fine if you want basic life things