Category: General Retirement Issues
Updated August, 2023 (Originally published March, 2013) -- As you might expect, we get a lot of retirement questions from our Members and site visitors. The same applies when new friends of your editor find out about Topretirements. This article recaps the most frequent questions we receive, along with our usual answers. We hope you find it helpful.
Frequent Questions1. What is the Best Place to Retire. This is by far the most prevalent question, so much so that it completely overwhelms any others we get. Since we get the question so often we have developed a stock response, one that we hope is helpful. So when people ask, "where is the best place to retire", here is how we typically respond: "Retirement is a very personal matter. The best place for us might very well be a terrible retirement destination for you. To make the best decision for you, you need to first answer a number of questions."
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Published on March 13, 2013
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Category: Active adult communities
Note: See also Survey results from 2020 on the same topic.
March 5, 2013 -- Wow, talk about feedback - 753 helpful folks provided their valuable insights on their retirement status, housing preferences, and the future of active adult communities in last week's poll. Thanks to everyone who answered these 8 questions.
Your input provides so much to think about - we just wish we had room to highlight every comment! If there was one member statement that really struck us above all others, it was this one: "We love thinking about (retirement) and exploring our options. So many ideas, so many places to go, things to do. Can't wait!" We just love that attitude, prevalent among so many Topretirements members.
Highlights
There is no single one thing that folks are looking for - everybody has a slightly different recipe for retirement perfection. But all you builders out there, please note some key trends here! We've detailed the
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Published on March 5, 2013
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Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
February 26, 2013 -- If you search on the Internet for "live like a cheapskate" you will strike a frugality bonanza. There are authors like Jeff Yeager who have written best sellers on the subject ("The Cheapskate Next Door"), plus plenty of websites offering their advice. There's even a TLC show, "Extreme Cheapskates". Our friend Robert Powell over at MarketWatch had a particularly helpful article earlier this year, "How to Retire Like a Cheapskate and Live Well". This article will roll up advice from all over into our 15 top tips for living like a cheapskate.
First of all, a little etymology - if you are going to be a cheapskate you might as well understand where the term
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Published on February 26, 2013
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Category: Retirement Real Estate
February 25, 2013 — We are curious to find out and report on what our members are thinking about when it comes to retirement living preferences – what types of towns, homes, and communities you are thinking about choosing for retirement. NOTE: Thanks to the more than 750 people who…
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Published on February 25, 2013
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Category: General Retirement Issues
February 23, 2013 -- By now most are familiar and tend to agree with the modern adage - "Old age isn't for sissies". Wes Craven, the creator of the now classic horror film, "A Nightmare on Elm Street", has chimed in with an addendum - "Retirement is scarier than (his horror character) Freddy Krueger". It's a pretty funny Op-Ed piece he wrote in last Sunday's New York Times about his trial retirement, which we recommend to you.
It seems that Wes at age 73 was looking forward to chilling out
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Published on February 23, 2013
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Category: General Retirement Issues
February 19, 2013 -- What's going on in Hollywood - retirement is the hot theme of the moment. Witness white-hot Maggie Smith, who is starring in 2 current movies ("The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" and "Quartet"), not to mention "Downton Abbey". We thoroughly recommend the former, and have heard great things about the latter. But have you also seen the 40 minute film documentary about life in a retirement community, "Kingspoint"? Nominated for an Oscar, the film is self-described as a "Tale of Love, Loss, and Self-Preservation". The Huffington Post said... "It’s a magnificent film. It is the wake-up call we all need to understand the mindsets of our parents and grandparents as they contemplate the final stages of their lives.” We'll provide a review of "Kings Point" here as a warm-up to next week's article - a summary of what our members think about retirement movies in general, including their favorites.
We had heard a lot about "Kings Point" since its subject is life in a retirement community. So when it came to a nearby theater as part of the Oscar "Shorts" package, we went. Initially we weren't sure how we were going to like it.
Kings Point is an active community that was built in the 1970's. At the time retirees from the Northeast swarmed in for low cost, non-stop fun in the warm Florida sun. But as the residents have aged together, so has the community. It looks dated, as do
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Published on February 19, 2013
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
February 18, 2013 – Note: Our 2017 list of "The 100 Most Popular Places to Retire" is now out.
With warmer winters and generally lower taxes, it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that baby boomers think the Sunbelt has the best places to retire. Topretirements.com has just published its 7th annual list of the 100 most popular retirement spots, and it shows clear proof that the Sunbelt's retirement popularity continues -- 76 of the 100 top positions are held by towns in the Sunbelt. Florida dominates the list of best places to retire, taking 25 of the cities and towns (1 less than in 2012), followed by North Carolina (11), Arizona (9), and South Carolina (8). California, Tennessee had 6 cities each in the top 100. The highest ranking non-Sun Belt city on our list was Portland (OR) at #14. Note: To make sure you don’t miss new lists like this, sign up for our free weekly “Best Places to Retire” newsletter. See also "The Worst States for Retirement - 2014".
The Top 10
As has been the case since Topretirements published its first
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Published on February 18, 2013
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Category: Adventurous retirement
February 12, 2013 -- The whale spout erupted in the distance, framed against bluish icebergs and towering white peaks. On the Zodiac boat our guide changed direction slightly and cut the engine to drift into the vicinity. Then, just 30' away the whale surfaced with a deep "poomph", his warm breath shooting skyward. With a distinctive hump near the spout, this was clearly a humpback whale, about 45' long and weighing many tons.
The young whale repeatedly dove, then surfaced suddenly to blow and breathe. As time went on his displays became more and more lavish. Slowly a realization began to dawn on us - we were in the presence of a social being with a brain, using its intelligence to attempt to communicate with us. As in, "Heh funny looking black thing with all the yellow jackets on top, look at me! I can roll, dive, smack my tail flukes, show my tummy, coil and uncoil, swim under you - why are you sitting there like a dumb log in the ocean? What can you do?" The fun lasted at least 45 minutes, until our camera's memory cards were full and batteries
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Published on February 12, 2013
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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
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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
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