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Try It NOWCategory: Health and Wellness Issues
June 24, 2020 – One thing we can all agree on, Covid is getting old, even if it isn’t going away. Most people have been very good about trying to stay safe, keeping their social distance, wearing masks in public, and avoiding high risk behaviors like large indoor social gatherings.
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Category: Estate Planning
June 23, 2020 -- Note: This article starts with the premise that it is crucial for every person of retirement age (and younger) to have a will and/or an estate plan, no matter how small the assets you own. If you don't have a legal document, you are going to leave a huge mess for your heirs to clean up, you will waste money on probate expenses, and perhaps end up with a result you wouldn't like.
Every family is different in so many ways. Couples might have children that are equally successful and get along well. But for family like that there are those with a child who has had a hard time, a disability, or other issue. Families with stepchildren face additional challenges. Many people worry about a child they feel is not responsible, and who might squander any bequest on drugs, gambling, etc. There might be a family business where one or more siblings, but not all, are actively working. It can get very complicated. And, your children probably know if have already substantially helped one child financially more than the others.
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Category: Active adult communities
June 17, 2020 -- Following up on the theme of a few weeks ago, how stereotypes affect where you might retire, we thought it would be interesting to highlight the amazing range of active adult, 55+, and baby boomer appropriate communities that exist. While to many people all active communities seem alike (clubhouse, golf course, tennis courts, and walking trails), there is, in fact, quite a range. The samples we have selected here are just a few of the many communities added to the Topretirements database since March (we generally add about 6 per week). We tried in these selections for a range of styles and locations across the country.
Our point: Not all retirement communities fit in the same bucket. We encourage you to do a little exploring to make sure you don't miss one that might be exactly what you might are looking for.
Some interesting choices
The selections on this list cover a wide range of types. There are several traditional active adult communities (golf courses, etc.), intergenerational, independent living communities, independent living within a CCRC, Traditional Neighborhood Developments, urban rental loft apartments, Eco-Friendly, mixed use (commercial and residential combined), a cooperative development, and another with different ownership options including fractional ownership.
Carolina Park - Mt. Pleasant, SC. A master-planned community just a few miles from Charleston, this development offers several neighborhoods in a park-like setting. The community is connected through a network of pedestrian walkways, with The Residents Club as the central gathering place.
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Category: Active adult communities
June 10, 2020 -- For over 100 years, Florida's warm winters, soft sandy beaches, and every imaginable kind of place to live has made it a retirement magnet. Some retirees come here as snowbirds for the winter months only, while others jump all the way in, moving to the Sunshine State to become full time residents. However they arrive, Florida is by far the most popular place in the U.S. for retirement. This article highlights the 14 most popular active adult and 55+ communities in Florida, as measured by visitor interest at Topretirements.com. You can see how the list changed by comparing the 2017 version of this article.
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
June 2, 2020 -- Back in 2014 we wrote a piece (updated this March) that tries to make the point that people's stereotypes might keep them from finding their best place to retire. Will Stereotypes Keep You From Finding Your Best Place to Retire? was quite popular and generated 65 interesting Comments. Those drove home the message even better, because they were the experiences of real people as they went through the process of finding a place to retire. This article features a selection of some of the more interesting, wide ranging Member Comments from 2014 - we think you will find them still useful! (PS - we took snippets from the Comments, you can read them all in the article).
Paula on Las Vegas
There’s nothing like seeing a place in person to help either confirm or dispel stereotypes. My DH and I recently spent a week in Las Vegas, somewhere we’d never been (and had never desired to see), staying with friends who in the housing crash bought a small second home there (their first home is in Ithaca, NY, where we also live). We were very pleasantly surprised at the incredibly reasonable cost of living there — if our friends were to move there for year-round residence, they would easily save $10-15K on property taxes (less than 20% of what they are here), income taxes (none), cheaper gas and groceries, incredible senior centers and Ys and discounts for Nevada residents at museums, Vegas shows, etc.
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Category: Retirement Planning
Nov. 6, 2020 — Due to an unfortunate error on our part earlier this year, a significant number of our most active subscribers were accidentally deleted from the rolls of our Free “Best Places to Retire” weekly newsletter. While we were able to add many of you back, there are…
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Category: Active adult communities
May 27, 2020 -- Any time active communities come up in a discussion HOAs and their fees are always a big focus. For many retirees, avoiding those fees or finding the lowest ones can become an obsession. So, is there a central depository of the fees at the thousands of active adult and 55+ communities around the country? Alas, the simple answer is no.
But that flat response does not mean that you cannot discover what you need to know before making an important purchase like buying a home. Ongoing HOA fees and assessments are key to your decision. First, let's talk a little bit about what kind of charges you might expect if you move into a community with a Home Owners Association (HOA) or Community Association (CA).
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Category: Retirement Planning
By Flo Williamson - Frequent contributor and Site Monitor at Topretirements
May 27, 2020 -- Who knows when this Covid-19 pandemic will end, and what life will look like in the future? Besides the tragic loss of life, lost jobs, and lost income, there is a sense of loss and questioning for many retirees or those close to it, as to what the future holds during the time we have left.
Reassessing our priorities has become unavoidable-- what we thought we wanted our retirement to Look like, has become for many, what we need our retirement to be. For those of us wishing to relocate and possibly downsize that option has become more difficult. Besides the obvious difficulties in visiting, buying, and selling, I for one, am questioning my initial relocation choice.
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
May 15, 2020 -- Since the reaction to our first "10 Great Places to Retire You Never Heard of" was so positive, here are 10 more to consider. This exercise has been fun and a great way to prove the point that there are so many interesting places to retire that never get the consideration they deserve. One of these just might be the perfect place for you to retire!
To try to spread things around, this time we have looked for best retirement towns that are geographically diverse and add towns from states not represented in the first 10. Most are fairly affordable, while some of the towns in prime locations reflect the cost of living in a very desirable community. Most of these "undiscovered" towns have fairly small populations.
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Category: Health and Wellness Issues
May 20, 2020 — No two ways about it, the corona virus has been brutal. So many lives lost, livelihoods ruined, plans destroyed. Pain and suffering, deprivation, happiness taken away, etc. But, looking on the bright side, someday it will be behind us, thanks to a cure, a vaccine, or…
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