Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, May 13, 1990                   TAG: 9005090448
SECTION: DISCOVER THE NEW RIVER VALLEY                    PAGE: 26   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: SCOT HOFFMAN CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Long

NEW RIVER HOME TO SOME OF CHEAPEST PRICES AROUND

The following is a kind of treatise on the affordability, or at least potential affordability, of life in the valley.

It does not pretend to be thorough; it is merely an attempt to give a cross section of ways to cut costs - a sort of Reader's Digest version of a bargain shopper's guide.

First, assuming you have a place to live already, you'll need to furnish your apartment or house.

Any apartment, even a one-bedroom, is virtually unlivable without some furniture. (And, incidentally, unless you can get a TV and cable free, do without. TV's overrated).

If you begin your furniture shopping around Labor Day weekend and can get your hands on a big truck, take the hour's drive to Hillsville for the annual flea market extravaganza.

There's more than enough antique furniture, knickknacks, `60s deco household appliances and velveteen Elvis posters at this three-day garbage-collectors paradise to transform every unfurnished apartment in the New River Valley into Big Daddy's basement.

Now, your best bet is the end of the school year when all the Radford University and Virginia Tech students start thinking, "What am I gonna do with all this junk?"

That's when you can go for the throat.

Check out the classifieds in the Collegiate Times at Tech and The Tartan at Radford. A few hours and half a dozen phone calls and you could furnish the Hearst mansion.

OK, you're going to get hungry, you're not going to want to cook and you don't have enough money to eat at the Farmhouse on a whim.

Make a scrambled egg and some toast for breakfast. You can do that much. For lunch, the cheap-food menu is wide open.

If you can get to Our Daily Bread in downtown Blacksburg, (and can get over the fact that every time you stand up from one of their chairs it mysteriously falls over) it's well worth it.

A bowl of their soup of the day and a glass of water is about a buck; this includes all the bread (GOOD bread) you can eat. A bargain at any price.

If you happen to be in Floyd at lunchtime (of course, when does anyone just happen to be in Floyd?) there are a couple of great drive-in restaurants that not only serve good portions for a good price, but also a nice taste of how fast food was done in the days of yore.

You can find similar establishments in Radford, Pulaski and throughout Giles County.

When you get to a drive-in, WAIT. Don't beep your horn. They kill you for that. The waitress or waiter will come to your car - not on roller skates, like in the halcyon days of drive-ins - and fasten a tray to your window.

Burgers or beef barbecue and fries are pretty much the standard bill of fare at a drive-in, and you can fill up for about $2.50.

Dinner: There must be 2,000 places with salad bars in the New River Valley. Find one. When ordering the salad bars, you'll usually be given a choice from a menu full of unnecessary items like steak and chicken. Just pay the $3.50 for the soup, salad and dessert bar and pig, , PIG out.

If you've got the time (a half-an-hour drive and always an hour's wait - no reservations), get to the Homeplace in rural Catawba, in neighboring Roanoke County. They're open only on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, so that gives you all week to fast.

Then for about $7, there's all the ham, chicken, roast beef, green beans, mashed potatoes, biscuits, cherry cobbler, etc., you can eat. You'll leave there hating yourself.

The truth is, though, if you were smart, you'd buy your own food and learn to cook. But groceries aren't cheap.

In terms of any discount grocery stores in the valley, just go to the one closest to you. Whether you're shopping for two or 10 people, the difference between, say, Food Lion and Kroger would be determined by pennies.

There is, however, the ever-intriguing Thrift Discount Bakery Store on U.S. 460 in Christiansburg. This is essentially a day-old or returned baked goods store operated as an of outlet of Rainbo Bread Co. And remember, day-old is a figure of speech. The bread could be as much as four or five days old and still be called that

You can get three loaves of returned bread - bread that for whatever reason was rejected by a buyer - for a $1.09.

There's also the option of getting involved in the monthly food-for-community-service deal run by New River Community Action. The program, called SHARE, let's you buy about $35 worth of groceries (chicken or beef, pasta, vegetables, fruit) for less than $13 with the agreement you'll work two hours of community service somewhere in the area.

Now, you're fed, but you're naked. You need cheap clothes:

Two interesting sources of used clothing are Second Seasons in Blacksburg and Believe it or Not in Pulaski. These take good clothes on consignment.

There also are some non-profit businesses that rely on donations, such as Goodwill in Christiansburg and the YMCA Thrift Store in Blacksburg. These clothes are usually in real good shape (if you can stand plaid and madras) and you can get everything from golf shoes to prom dresses.

Incidentally, go to the YMCA Thrift Store on the first Wednesday of the month: clothes are half-price then.

There also are the Salvation Army and Goodwill stores in Pulaski and the Clothing Bank in Radford.

Now on to the fabled outlet stores. Of course, not everything that calls itself an "outlet store" is actually a discount factory outlet of out-of-season, out-of-style or slightly imperfect products.

You should check out the usual retail prices of items and and look them over before you buy. Many of these places don't allow returns, exchanges or refunds.

Big Lots in Christiansburg is an unusual type of outlet. It serves as a clearinghouse for several manufacturers and sells seconds, overstocked items, out-of-season, discontinued and buy-out merchandise.

Now, what shall you do to get out of your newly furnished apartment with your new clothes and your full belly.

There must be 50 things to do every night, either free or dirt cheap, at one of the three college campuses in the area: Radford, Tech and New River Community College.

Among the three, there are probably 20 different movies a week, lectures, demonstrations, concerts. Also, these things tend to have an educational or intellectual slant to them, so you may learn something while you're at it.

If you don't want to deal with college kids on their turf for your fun, you can always go to a bar. Blacksburg and Radford have dozens of them, and you shouldn't have to go too far in any other town (except maybe in Floyd) to get a cold beer and some good conversation.

Your best bet is to find a bar with a happy hour. A lot of places have food and drink specials during the early evening, usually 4 to 9 p.m., and some have complementary hors d'oeuvres bars where you can literally fill up for the evening for free and drink cheaply.

There. Now you're set.

One piece of advice, though. It's easy to get carried away shopping for bargains. So have a good idea of what you want and what the price should be.