Category: Home and Garden
October 11, 2023 -- Some unbelievable deals are here today, Oct. 11, for Amazon Prime members. They will find savings of 60% or more on items like 50" TVs, Phillips air fryers, Roomba vacuums, Bose headphones, etc. These are some of Amazon’s best deals of the season to start the season of savings and holiday shopping! In some cases you have to to request an invitation in order to get the deals. The link below goes to a page on Amazon with dozens of these dazzling deals.
Amazon Prime Deals Today Page
Fire TV - request an invitation
If you not an Amazon Prime Member already (includes extensive free TV streaming and free shipping on all orders), here (Prime ad below) will take you to where you can become a Member.
Try Prime for 30 days
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Published on October 8, 2023
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Category: Home and Garden
Sept. 7, 2023 -- Driving is one of life's great necessities, and for many, one of its top pleasures. The feeling of freedom that comes with getting one's driver's license is hard to forget. At the other end, losing that license to old age or infirmity can be a crushing blow. Just about every American retiree has a car to attend to life's necessities, as well as to enjoy activities and travel. In this article we will make the case that, particularly for retired people, the next car should be some kind of electric vehicle.
Electric Vehicle (EV) sales are taking off in the U.S. and in many countries of the world. In 2021 EV sales represented 3% of all U.S. sales, but they are expected to hit 13% in 2023. The target in Norway is 100% of the market by 2025, and China and other European markets are not far behind. Car companies are frantically trying to come up with new models and improve the ones they have.
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Published on September 6, 2023
Comments 21
Category: Home and Garden
August 7, 2023 - Part of the fun of being retired is having the time to tinker, fool around with cool stuff, enjoy new types of leisure, and save time and trouble doing chores. There are plenty of products that can help you have more fun, so we thought we would share some of our top picks. Hoping you will add more of your own in the Comments section.
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Published on August 6, 2023
Comments 11
Category: Family and Retirement
February 23, 2023 -- One of the hottest acronyms in the real estate world is ADU, which stands for Accessory Dwelling Unit. Demographic shifts from Covid, exploding real estate prices, and a shortage of affordable places to live has suddenly put them in the spotlight, prompting more states and communities to encourage and approve them. Their rise is a bonus for retirees, who can benefit from them in a multitude of ways.
The idea behind ADUs is pretty simple.
ADUs provide a secondary building unit on one lot. So right off the bat they are less expensive - they don't require any extra land. They can take the form of a small detached building, a second floor, basement, or other addition to the main home, or a conversion of part or all of a garage into a small home or apartment. Typically they are between 600 and 1,000 sq. ft. They usually have a bedroom, small kitchen, bathroom, and living area. Or they are just a small studio apartment. Prefab models are available, or they can be custom built. Normally they have a separate entrance. An example of "gentle density, they are often called granny flats, in-law apartments, carriage houses, casitas, etc.
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Published on February 22, 2023
Comments 2
Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
January 17, 2023 -- The search for a safe place to retire is challenging, as the community of Rio Verde Hills just found out. Up until recently, it received its water from neighboring Scottsdale. But due to concerns that it wouldn't have enough water for its own residents, Scottsdale cut off the water it was supplying to Rio Verde Hills on Dec. 31. Residents there are understandably upset, as they now have to pay for water to be trucked in from increasingly farther away. Not only are water bills escalating fast, but residents are concerned about their ability to keep animals, along with having to reduce all but the most essential water use.
Is any place to retire safe?
The Rio Verde story makes it even clear that almost every area of the country faces serious climate and environmental risks. While Florida residents have plenty to worry about with coastal flooding and hurricanes, water shortages and wildfires are equally dire threats in the American West. The Midwest faces extreme weather like tornadoes, the West has earthquakes, and the Midwest and Northeast have ice and snow storms, not to mention flooding. Almost everywhere is experiencing record high temperatures and weather extremes. If that wasn't enough, other areas of the country have sinkholes and volcanoes. It seems like nowhere is safe!
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Published on January 16, 2023
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Category: Downsizing
Our thanks to the NY TImes best-selling author HALLIE EPHRON for allowing us to reprint this amazing story from JungleRedWriters.com. Decluttering, ridding out, downsizing, whatever you want to call it, is hard. This is a wonderful and touching tribute, thank you! Note: Jerry, with whom I share a birthday, was one of the most interesting people I have ever met.
HALLIE EPHRON: My husband and I reached a detente early in our marriage. He could go to all the yard sales and buy whatever he wanted (mostly books), and I wouldn't nag him about it, as long as I didn't have to look at his piles of stuff.He celebrated this arrangement in one of the anniversary (our 30th) cards he drew for me.
When Jerry died, with my daughters' help I gave away his clothes. I enlisted a used book dealer (of Antiques Roadshow fame, Ken Gloss) to take his sizeable and variable book collection.
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Published on October 25, 2022
Comments 11
Category: Downsizing
October 20, 2022 -- Moving at any age is bad enough. But baby boomers have spent decades acquiring all kinds of stuff, adding to the challenges of age. Moving at our age usually means downsizing, when we realize we have 1,000 pounds of stuff (furniture, knicknacks, collections, etc.) that we can't possibly fit into the 600 pound bag our new home represents.
Enter the "senior move manager", a new job that can take so much of the pain out of downsizing and moving. This person can help with every aspect, from helping you sort what to keep, how to get rid of the rest, to planning what will fit in your new home - both size wise and stylistically. They can do it all, down to getting your kitchen equipment into the right cupboard in the new kitchen.
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Published on July 21, 2022
Comments 2
Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
July 13, 2020 -- Not everyone wants to have a roommate in their retirement, but for many they are a great solution. A PBS Newshour feature this week, "High Costs Spur More Baby Boomers to Find Roommates", highlighted how many homeowners are finding homesharing to be a great solution to high rents and inflation.
The primary motivation for getting a roommate is financial. Several of the women in the feature narrated by Paul Solman found themselves owning too much house with not enough money to maintain it, and unable to keep up with their other expenses. Bringing in someone to share those expenses proved to be a godsend for many of them. But several of those interviewed also reported being surprised by how much they enjoyed having a companion around the house. Friendships developed between very different people, and everyone seemed to benefit.
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Published on July 18, 2022
Comments 4
Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
May 31, 2022 -- Many of America's most hated companies are the cable, internet and telephone giants - Comcast/Xfinity, Century Link, Sprint, etc. People dread calling these behemoths for customer service, because they know they will get into a never-ending telephone tree that make it very difficult to speak to a human being. They also don't like the bills that come along with telephone, cable and internet service. The bill starts out looking reasonable, but after you add in the modem and cable box rental fees, broadcast and sports fees, and 6 different kinds of taxes, the total tab can easily approach $300/monthly. Adding more sports packages and HBO can send it north of that. And of course, every year the bill goes up. For retirees on a budget, these bills can become just too much.
After talking with friends your editor decided to cut the cord - or at least 2 of the cords - home phone and cable. Here is how he did it.
Alternative to cable TV
There are several good alternatives to cable TV.
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Published on May 30, 2022
Comments 14
Category: Home and Garden
December 4, 2021 -- There is a free resource in your town in your town you might be missing out on. One that you can actually tap from your home or phone for instant service. It is called your Library!
A few years back many people predicted that libraries were a thing of the past. That no one will bother going there anymore, thanks to the Internet. Well, a trip to your local library will prove that one a bad call. Libraries today are usually amazingly busy, filled with people of all ages doing all kinds of different things. It reminds us of Mark Twain's famous comment - "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated!"
Libraries have evolved into much more than loaning books and answering research questions. In this article we will highlight some of the services that you might not know about, things that could both save you money and enrich your life.
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Published on December 3, 2021
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