Category: Adventurous retirement
February 8, 2022 - If you ask Kevin Hubbard what he does to stay active, grab a railing, you are about to get dizzy. A collector’s collector, the retired executive of a Fortune 500 manufacturer of industrial products has some of the most fascinating retirement interests of anyone we have ever met. Those include visiting presidential history sites, major league baseball stadiums, and his latest - U.S. National Parks. In a recent conversation Kevin was kind enough to share some of his interests. (Don't miss the companion piece to this, his wife Susan's hilarious account of his recent retirement).
Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library
U.S. Presidents
It all started with a fascination with presidential history that began in the first grade. That love of everything having to do with U.S. presidents continues to this day. It includes the homes where they were born (museums, or sometimes just a sign on the road), gravesites, and the homes where they lived. His passion also includes presidential museums. The modern era for those started with President Hoover, but before that there were more informal ones - sometimes only a room in a library. He has visited all of the key sites for presidents from Washington to Reagan, and has read biographies for all of them. To keep track of all of this collecting Kevin keeps detailed spreadsheets. We asked him about his favorites, and he suggested Hyde Park, New York. There in one place you can visit FDR’s home, the FDR Presidential Library and Museum, the Eleanor Roosevelt National Historical Site at ValKill Cottage, plus stop in at the Culinary Institute of America.
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Published on February 8, 2022
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Category: Retirement Real Estate
February 3, 2022 -- Chances are that for most of your life it was drilled into you that home ownership is the road to economic security. Pay off that mortgage, count on rising property values, and someday you will have accumulated substantial equity. But now that you are approaching your retirement, it might be time to re-think that belief.
Our friend Ray brought to our attention a thought provoking article in the NY Times that makes the case that renting a home can be more appealing than owning one. Renting means giving up the prospect of investment gains, but more than makes up for it with hassle free living and not having to come up with big down payments and closing fees. Younger people like millennials might not have much choice in the matter, due to soaring costs of real estate, the difficulty of funding down payments, or qualifying for a mortgage. But many retirees are attracted to the rental option for a variety of reasons, which we will explore here.
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Published on February 2, 2022
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Category: What to do in retirement
February 2, 2022 — When people retire they (and their friends and spouses!) wonder how the new retiree will fill their day. Will they just shuffle around the empty house, rearranging the tools in the garage, and counting the hours until they can crank up the riding mower? Or will…
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Published on February 2, 2022
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
January 26, 2022 -- A while back one of our Members asked if we could come up with a list of more unusual places to retire. As he reminded us, not everyone is looking to retire in a place that is famous, or where there are warm winters and gentle beaches. Many folks, like the couple we met this summer in Maine, relish the prospect of a morning snowshoe hike, chopping wood, or taking off in the ATV. Here is a list of unusual, and interesting places that might make them happy. Almost all are in colder climes, starting with the first one! We suspect you won't have heard of most of these off the beaten path choices before.
Homer, Alaska. Up here on the Kenai Peninsula life is pretty great, especially if you don't mind cold winters. There is sensational fishing and boating from one of the most beautiful spots anywhere. The Spit, a 4.5 mile glacial moraine that juts into Kachemak Bay, is Homer's seasonal center. It is crowded with docks, restaurants, stores, and charter outfits for fishing and adventuring.
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Published on January 25, 2022
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Category: Active adult communities
January 22, 2022 -- Each year many of us make new year’s resolutions that we have every intention of keeping, at least for a couple of weeks. Many of those resolutions may involve health, fitness, learning, and keeping up with the technology that surrounds us. Fortunately, there are many communities that specialize in wellness and learning, and makes it a lot easier to stay on track with those resolutions all year long. Some of these unique communities listed below are for all ages and some are for those 55+, but they are all interesting and feature a fun and inspiring lifestyle.
Encanterra is an Arizona community that offers traditional amenities like golf, fine dining, and social spaces. But what makes the community unique is the hundreds of special interest clubs, travel, and exploration opportunities it provides. A good example is the technology program through which residents can take culinary classes, listen to guest speakers, educators and authors. Encanterra is made up of several neighborhoods including one for those 55+.
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Published on January 22, 2022
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Category: Adventurous retirement
January 19, 2022 -- Bob Wells' story seems like the perfect companion piece to our recent article on non-career jobs filling the vacuum for people in their early 60s. This baby boomer used to work at a Safeway, then fell on hard times. Living in his van, he discovered that he loved the nomad life - its freedom and simplicity appealed to him. So then he started a blog and website to write about his lifestyle. While satisfying, it was not renumerative. That's when he decided to switch to videos, starting the CheapRVliving channel on YouTube, where he promotes the "nomadic tribalism" way of life.
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Published on January 19, 2022
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Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
January 16, 2022 -- A significant number of workers underestimate their financial needs in retirement, and that includes calculating how much they will receive from Social Security. As a result they often retire too early and start taking their Social Security before they maximize their benefit. The end result is that they face an income shortfall in their retirement years. A new study from the Boston College Center for Retirement Research has concluded that taking a non-traditional job late in one's career can help retirees avoid a serious shortfall in replacement income, and thus have a more comfortable retirement. Replacement income is defined as the ratio of a worker’s retirement income to pre-retirement income.
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Published on January 15, 2022
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
January 12, 2022 -- Every year we have fun coming up with a list of the very "Best Places to Retire". This list is meant to highlight retirement towns that represent exceptionally great places to retire, as measured by Member and visitor interest at Topretirements. As wonderful as these towns might be, the one where you can be happy in retirement is your best place!
To develop our 2022 list we consulted our visitor logs to find out the 20 retirement towns in the U.S. whose reviews were visited the most at Topretirements. Many of the winners were predictable, they get named to the top 10 or 20 every year, but there were several other big surprises. The hope is the list will spark some ideas for you to consider in the quest for your best place to retire. Home prices in many of these towns are above the national median, reflecting their desirability, but a surprising number offer relative bargains. Although 11 states had towns in the top 20, Arizona, Florida, and Tennessee tied for the most cities on the list with 3 each. Congratulations to all these cities and towns!
20 Best of the Best Places to Retire
Popularity on this site, as measured by online visits by our Members, was the most important criteria. On that basis, here are the most captivating places to retire in all of the U.S.
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Published on January 11, 2022
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Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
January 5, 2022 -- With inflation going up and just about everything getting more expensive, retirement is getting even more difficult than ever. So the beginning of the year seems like a great time to come up with some ideas to help everyone spread their income a little further, possibly even increasing it, and not forgetting to have fun and enjoy life.
Some of the best ideas we have ever seen have come from Topretirements Members. Two previous articles (see Further Reading at end) generated over 200 Comments with many great suggestions. So in this article we provide some broad based tips, then encourage you to go over the Comments already made and mine them for things that could help improve your budget outlook.
Nextavenue.org recently profiled a couple, Joan and Steve Reid, who retired and moved from the affluent New York City suburb of Pearl River, N.Y., to Vero Beach on Florida's East Coast. They had a very limited budget, $30,000, most of which was from Social Security and some small pensions. By attending to the basics the couple was able live surprisingly well in a great Florida town. We love their attitude, shown best by a quote from Joan: "We are not rich except in friendships, our art, our families and our souls" .
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Published on January 5, 2022
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Category: Active adult communities
January 4, 2020 -- When people hear about Home Owners Associations (HOA) there is generally one of two reactions. Either they loathe them, citing high costs and restrictive rules, or they tolerate them as a necessary evil. They have no super fans. Also called Community Associations, HOAs govern critical aspects of life in condominiums and active adult communities. It is essential that retirees know something about their HOA before they move in. As Joe West, CEO of the Community Associations Network, told Topretirements many years ago, the most important thing to consider when buying into a community is: “Don’t fall in love with the house before you check out the association”.
In any 55+, active adult, or condominium development that has shared facilities the Community Association is the top dog. It establishes the rules, enforces compliance, manages the assets, and insures the financial and legal well-being of their communities. Even in the most successful community plenty can go wrong. When serious problems happen, as did in last year's condo collapse in Surfside, Florida, the consequences can even become tragic.
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Published on January 4, 2022
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