Category: General Retirement Issues
January 1, 2013 -- This website covered a lot of editorial ground last year, thanks to feedback and suggestions from our members. It's hard to pick the "best of 2012", mainly because we can think of so many different ways to select them. Our traditional way to pick is to look for the most read Blog articles. That is certainly a good measure, but the results are fairly predictable. To broaden that approach we are introducing 3 other "best article" categories here: Most Commented Upon, Best Member Contribution, and Best Series. Hope you like our selections!
Most Read Articles of 2012
Our "Best" and "Worst" articles are always the most read of the year, and that certainly makes sense. The top 4 most read articles in 2012 were:
10 Worst States to Retire
100 Best Places to Retire
100 Most Popular Active Communities
10 Best States to Retire
Best Articles by Comments Generated
A better way
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Published on January 1, 2013
Comments 7
Category: Work and Volunteering
January 8, 2012 -- Which category do you fall into:
- Can't wait to retire, never want to work again
- Have no intention of retiring
- Don't want to work anymore, but have to for survival
- Want to stay busy, but in a job different from what I did before
In our experience most people fall into one of these categories or somewhere in between. If your profile matches one of the last 2 categories (that is, you intend to work), it is extremely important that you invest some time planning just how you are going to find a job that meets your needs. This article, which springs from a suggestion by Topretirements' member Dave Ellison, will explore the "how to find work in retirement" part of the story. Part 2 will provide
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Published on January 7, 2013
Comments 15
Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
January 8, 2013 -- By now you have probably heard the projections that Social Security will have exhausted the trust funds it built up for future payments by 2033. Unless something is done before then, starting that year payments coming in will only be able to fund about 75% of promised benefits. The New York Times just reported a new study by researchers at Harvard and Dartmouth, "Social Security: It's Worse Than You Think", that shows that the government is underestimating how long Americans will live and how much Social Security will need to pay out - which makes things even worse than
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Published on January 8, 2013
Comments 34
Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
January 15, 2012 -- One of the most frequent Comments/questions on this site is: "We're thinking about retiring in (name of city). Does anyone know what it's like to retire there". You will often see that type of question among the amazing member comments made on the "Tell Us Where You Are Going to Retire" story we wrote about a year ago, where 691 Comments have been made (so far).
"LS", one of our members, recently suggested that we put all the references in one place so folks can answer their own questions. So here goes in what we are hoping becomes a team project: we will assemble all the references by category we can come up with, and you add yours in the Comments section. We'll go in and add the best of yours to the article to make it even more comprehensive!
Before we even begin, let us
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Published on January 15, 2013
Comments 27
Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
January 23, 2013 -- There is no polite way to say this, so we will just be blunt - America's baby boomers have a frighteningly poor command of the facts on when to start claiming Social Security. We not only aren't acquainted with the facts, but we also have some wide-ranging misconceptions. That's the conclusion of most experts we talk with, as well as a steady beat of newspaper and web articles. The latest came in today from WSJMarketWatch, "Most Fail to Maximize Social Security Benefits".
Your editor regularly experiences this lack of knowledge on a first hand basis - even among college educated, highly successful, and otherwise financially savvy folks. To help overcome the knowledge gap, this article will cover the 7 major myths that
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Published on January 23, 2013
Comments 38
Category: Work and Volunteering
January 26, 2013 -- If you have decided to work in retirement you will not be alone. More and more boomers will continue to look for employment once they hit retirement age, whether because they like what they are doing, need the money, or just want to stay busy. Here in Part 2 of our series on working in retirement we list a selection of some of the best places to find work in retirement. See Part 1: "Working in Retirement: How to Find a Job That Works for You" for more on strategies for finding the right job for you.
Many Possibilities
The first thing we discovered
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Published on January 26, 2013
Comments 13
