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 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: 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: 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: Retirement Planning
December 26, 2012 -- The new year is almost upon us, and many of us in the older crop of baby boomers are just a few days away from starting our retirements. If that includes you, here are 10 things you should think about in the coming days. At the end of the article we've included a list with some of our best retirement preparation articles.
1. Work out your at-home lifestyle. This is particularly important if you are in a relationship where one person is already at home most of the day. That person already has their routine and their spaces - and you the newly retired person are the intruder. So think out and negotiate where you are going to hang
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Published on December 26, 2012
Comments 4
Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
December 19, 2012 -- Legislation coming out of Congress in the next few weeks is likely to affect all Americans. Most of our federal tax rates will either stay the same, or we will fall off the fiscal cliff and rates will go up. As both parties state and restate their positions, there have been some new proposals that could potentially affect both social security and Medicare, both popular programs for baby boomers. Also in the news - cars that make driving easier for aging baby boomers.
Medicare
The latest proposal being discussed to help keep Medicare solvent is to raise
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Published on December 18, 2012
Comments 49
Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
December 18, 2012 -- Long term care insurance is one of the more difficult products in the insurance world. Unlike most insurance products, the decision to buy it or not is not clear cut. While it's easy to see why you need insurance on your car, home, or health - justifying long term care insurance is a a bit tricky. According to some reports, only 10% of people over age 60 have long term care insurance.
The market has not been kind to providers of long term care insurance. Some, including Prudential and MetLife, have stopped selling new policies in recent years, while others have had to ask for rate increases of over 40%. Life insurers sell some "flexible" life policies that provide a cash benefit before death as a kind of long term care hybrid. Recently we've seen some helpful articles on long term care insurance (see end of article). Here is a brief primer; we recommend the references to get a fuller understanding.
Long term care insurance provides
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Published on December 18, 2012
Comments 35
Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
December 9, 2012 -- Our search for the towns that offer the best amenities to retirees has turned up some fascinating possibilities. One really nice thing we learned right away is that there are many communities that offer impressive amenities. Some towns are great for one type of amenity, such as golf, tennis, or culture. Others are more balanced, offering an array of facilities and opportunities.
This is Part 2 of our series on Amenities. The first came out 2 weeks ago, ("10 Best Amenities that Make for a Best Place to Retire"). Many thanks to the readers who provided comments and suggestions to that post.
It would be highly subjective and a bit reckless
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Published on December 9, 2012
Comments 6
Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
December 8, 2012 -- Researchers at DePaul University and the Rush University Medical Center think they have found the underlying reason for an alarming rise in fraud committed against our rapidly aging baby boom generation. The explanation often arises from “that combination of not knowing but thinking you know", according to Keith Gamble, an assistant finance professor in DePaul’s Driehaus College of Business. In other words, overestimating what you think
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Published on December 8, 2012
Comments 3
Category: Active adult communities
December 4, 2012 - You can't beat it when your biggest dream comes true. When we started Topretirements.com 6 years ago we imagined this site would be a place where members would share their knowledge and experiences about the places they know and visit. So when we read Carole's amazing post this morning in the Comments section of the "Tell Us Where You Are Going to Retire - And Why" Blog article, we knew our dream has been realized. Carole has shared a newsy, factual, and interesting report on her travels about the communities she and her husband are visiting in South Florida. She's not only provided many useful facts and figures, but she also tells us her impressions, which can be so valuable.
We've reprinted some of her posts in this article not only because they are so good, but because we want more people to see them. Although the post to which she responded now has a stunning 557 comments, the only people likely to see her comments are our Daily Digest subscribers, since the original post dates way back to February. In the interest of geographic
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Published on December 4, 2012
Comments 4
