Category: Retirement Planning
March 8, 2017 — In this article we hear from Bill Painter, who served for over 30 years as Chaplain/Spiritual Director at Judson Park, a Seattle area Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC), before retiring. Bill is an ordained American Baptist minister, clinically trained for health care ministry. He offers valuable insights into retirement life and its challenges, gained from many years of experience. We particularly like his case studies, which bring the points alive. This article is a good recommendation for choosing a CCRC with a spiritual resource like him on staff.
Q 1 What was your role at Judson Park?
I served as Chaplain/Spiritual Director at Judson Park for over 30 years. A CCRC is a community for elders serving residents in independent residential, assisted living, 24 hour skilled nursing care and memory support.
My primary role was to provide spiritual support for residents, families and team
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Published on March 7, 2017
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
By Flo Williamson (Moderator at Topretirements.com!). This is the first of a 2 part article - here is the link to Part 2: South Carolina.
March 8, 2017 -- There’s nothing so exciting as the thought of a road trip. My husband and I had been discussing revisiting and exploring the coasts of North and South Carolina, and as the grey winter started to settle in, we began to plan our trip in earnest. Our thought was to revisit some towns we had previously seen on a former visit several years ago, dubbed the “Inner Banks Tour”, and to explore some new areas that have always piqued our retirement relocation interest. We’re definitely the type who believe that getting there is half the fun, so rather than speed down Interstate 95, our trip really began as we picked up Rt.17, outside of Norfolk, VA.
Our first stop, Edenton, NC is a town we had visited before. Edenton, the county seat of Chowan County, is a small town with approximately 5,000 residents, located on the Albemarle Sound. If you like being around the water, this is the place to be. At the end of the main
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Published on March 8, 2017
Comments 97
Category: Active adult communities
March 11, 2017 -- Jimmy Buffett fans, not known for worrying, can keep relaxing. In fact they can now find that last shaker of salt in their very own active adult community. The first one of many to come, dubbed Latitude Margaritaville, will go online next year in Daytona Beach, Florida. Press releases say the sales center there will be open later this year with the first models available in early 2018.
Topretirements must have seen 10 press reports about this new community - there is a lot of excitement about it. Here is what John Cohlan, chief executive officer of Margaritaville said about the new communities: “With Minto’s (the developer) expertise in creating master planned developments and Margaritaville’s inherent ability to deliver fun and escapism, Latitude Margaritaville has the exact coordinates for those looking to live the Margaritaville
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Published on March 10, 2017
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
Updated April. 2020 - Originally published March 14, 2017 (see the many interesting Member suggestions for walkable towns in the Comments section).
Think how great it would be if you could retire to a place where you didn't have to own a car. You wouldn't have to climb in your vehicle, fight traffic down busy streets, or hunt endlessly for a parking place every time you wanted to go someplace. Here are 10 retirement towns where you can trade your car for a bike, golf cart, public transit, or - best of all - your own two feet.
In this search we are not mentioning the largest American cities, where having a car is more of a burden than a blessing. For example in New York City, where a surprising percentage of residents don't even have a driver's license, you can easily pay $500/month just to garage your car. In Gotham you can almost always get there faster on a subway, bus, taxi, Uber, or by
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Published on March 14, 2017
Comments 47
Category: Uncategorized
March 17, 2017 — We have some good news for our many Daily Alert subscribers! When we switched from Aweber to Mailchimp to send out our e-newsletters, one of the casualties was anchor links. Here is an example that will explain anchor links. In the Daily Alert what was happening…
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Published on March 17, 2017
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Category: Health and Wellness Issues
Update May 5: The latest version of this bill was narrowly passed in the House on May 4. The bill has most of the same features as the original, with some additional money thrown in to help people with pre-existing conditions, whose insurance can now go to market rates. The bill allows rates on people aged 50 -64 to increase dramatically. Now it is on to the Senate, which will probably produce its own version.
March 22, 2017 - The Republican controlled Congress and our new President have come out with their proposed replacement to the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. Unfortunately for its proponents, the new bill, the American Health Care Act (AHCA), has run into considerable headwinds. The American Medical Association (AMA), hospital groups, the Heritage Foundation,the AARP, as many as 18 Republicans in the House and Senate, several Republican governors, and virtually every Congressional Democrat do not like the bill. In this article we will review how the proposed bill would affect baby boomers 50-64 who are not eligible for Medicare. Unfortunately, many of the folks in this group are retired (often involuntarily) and have very low incomes.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 14 million Americans of all ages would lose health insurance coverage in 2018 under the bill, rising to 24 million by 2026. On the plus side, about a third of a trillion dollars would be saved during that period, mainly because subsidies to lower income folks would be replaced with less generous tax credits. Although younger people would probably see net health premiums (after tax credits) go down with the Republican plan, people age 50-64 would see increases in premiums that are so high
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Published on March 18, 2017
Comments 218
Category: Home and Garden
By Patricia Kennedy
March 21, 2017 -- I am pretty tech savvy for an old lady. This isn’t an idle boast because even way back in 1984, I began learning all-things-computers by helping my husband setup a network to link our home offices. It turned out that my organizational skills and compulsion to “follow the logic” were great advantages when mastering new software or installing the latest laptop. I remember that itchy-fingers feeling when downloading a new program finding great satisfaction when everything was finally up and running smoothly.
But that was then.
Now is more complicated. Especially with all the inter-connected “devices” that we rely
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Published on March 21, 2017
Comments 17
Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
March 27, 2017 -- The authors of the Milken Report on Successful Aging have identified the best places in the country to retire for successful aging. In fact they have two different lists - larger Metros and smaller Metros (we will focus on the smaller Metros). Their selection process is the most rigorous of any we know of; it actually has 83 different criteria including access to good healthcare, transportation, security, employment and recreation opportunities, livability, community engagement, and livability.
Most boomers live in Metropolitan areas, and plan to stay there
The authors of the report refer to this as the "anti-retirement" list of
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Published on March 26, 2017
Comments 42
Category: Family and Retirement
March 28, 2017 -- Golf carts are an increasingly popular way to get around. They are inexpensive, easy to park, generally environmentally friendly, and fun too. But just because they are cute doesn't mean you can't get hurt in one.
In communities like The Villages in Central Florida the golf cart is THE transportation mode of choice - with 65,000 carts in residents (1 for every 2 residents!) Many have been customized to look like a Rolls Royce or other exotic car. The Villages has 42 miles of paths which golf carts share with pedestrians and bicyclists. Peachtree City near Atlanta is another community where
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Published on March 28, 2017
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