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Try It NOWCategory: Work and Volunteering
January 14, 2018 — Do you have plans for working after you retire? And if you did, how did it work out? We know many people think they might work after they retire, either to keep busy or to help overcome an income shortfall. We would like to find out…
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Category: Active adult communities
January 9, 2017 -- When active baby boomers start investigating places to retire, sooner or later they are going to hear about The Villages (TV) in Central Florida. The big reason is that it is the largest 55+ community in the country. As of mid 2017 over 115,000 people lived in The Villages, most of them because they enjoy its mind-boggling array of amenities and non-stop active lifestyle. The population is growing fast - it was only 51,000 in the year 2000.
Clearly the lifestyle appeals to the people who live there. For folks who like to always have something to do, make instant friends, and drive their golf cart
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
Part 2: Is the West Shore the Best Shore? (See Link to Part 1, the East, at end of article)
By Flo Williamson
January 8, 2017 -- There are many folks that claim the West Shore of Lake Tahoe and areas north offer the best living on the lake. The hardest part in visiting the West Shore is actually getting there, especially heading north along the lake from South Lake Tahoe.
West shore Lake Tahoe
While the areas just north of South Lake Tahoe have some of the best beaches and great state parks, it is also the route for some of Lake Tahoe’s greatest tourist attractions. In fact, this part of the lake in particular is generally much more oriented towards tourists than it is retirees. Camp Richardson is a government run campground, RV park, marina, restaurant, and more, catering to lake visitors. With 300 camping and RV sites and more cabin accommodations, the resulting traffic along this stretch of the one road around the lake can be horrendous, especially during the summer. Then, as you continue north, the road rises hundreds of feet above the lake with hairpin curves (and no guardrails) that seem like they’re ending in the lake itself - not for the faint hearted!! This leads us to Emerald Bay, one of the most beautiful and photographed bays in the world and the starting point of numerous hikes and
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Category: General Retirement Issues
January 3, 2018 -- It is always a good exercise to review our most read articles of the year. It tells us what our Members are looking for, and it has the side benefit of alerting new readers to articles that struck home for others. So here goes:
Site recap
Thanks so much to our many members and visitors. We enjoy your feedback, and most of all the 1000s of incredible Comments we get to our articles each year. Your input is valued by us and your fellow members. In 2017 Topretirements.com had over 2 million site visitors and 5 million page views. It is gratifying to know that we are being useful in some fashion to people interested in retirement.
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
January 3, 2018 — Many people are intrigued with the idea of retirement to one of America’s oldest communities - Santa Fe, New Mexico. They are attracted by the beautiful mountains, the dry air, the charming old architecture, and the abundance of art. In this article we will discuss our recent retirement scouting trip to Santa Fe - what we learned about retiring there along with its pluses and minuses. We also hope that our Members who are familiar with the area can give their opinions and advice too.
Spanish explorers came to this mountainous area in northwest New Mexico and were followed by mssionaries in search of souls - the native Americans, the Pueblo people. These native Americans visited the area in search of game for thousands of years, then a few hundred years before Columbus discovered America settled here to farm and live in cliff dwellings and pueblos. Spanish settlers arrived about 1600 and in 1610 Santa Fe became the capital of the territory, the oldest State Capitol in the U.S. They built its charming downtown with a central plaza in the Spanish style. There you can find the Palace of the Governors, St. Francis Cathedral, several very old churches, and an
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Category: Active adult communities
December 27, 2017 — When we name something, either personally or for business, we are usually trying to accomplish some kind of purpose. In our personal lives, naming a child might include an aspirational goal- naming her after a virtue like Hope, a saint like Mary, or a big success story like Morgan. Perhaps the purpose might to give Junior a name that sounds pretty or fits well with your last name. Or it could be to hand down a family name, or reflect a likable character from a book or movie.
Naming goals are just as important when it comes to active and 55+ communities. So what goes on when developers put on their thinking caps, brainstorming for a name to fit their new retirement community? What attributes will they try to use to position their new property with their target audience (you!) While there are many that are unusual or exotic (Cantamia), whimsical (On Top of the World), or seemingly random (Abacoa) names of communities, there is a tremendous amount of repetition and commonality in active adult and 55+ community names. In this article we will
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Category: Active adult communities
December 26, 2017 — Many people have heard about The Villages, the giant active adult community in north-central Florida that spans 3 counties. They know it is big (over 110,000 residents), has massive numbers of golf courses and swimming pools, and has more clubs and activities than anyone could ever…
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Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
December 19, 2017 — The imminent passage of the Republican tax bill makes us wonder how our audience - retirees and people about to retire - will be affected by it. We will attempt to answer that question here, recognizing that everyone’s situation is unique and might be affected differently. We are not tax experts, but have tried to digest various media reports to provide this overview.
The bill will have direct effects on retirees in 2018, as well as some possible indirect effects down the road. Let's look at each of those in turn.
Direct effects on retirees
1. Lower tax payments. With the exception of the people described in #4 below, almost everyone will pay lower federal taxes in 2018 than they do now. However, those cuts will expire in 2025.
Effect: Good news for retirees who pay taxes, except in those who live in high tax states. Who wouldn't want to pay lower taxes!
2. The standard deduction is now much higher, at $12,000 per person vs. the current $6500. This means that far fewer people will have enough deductions to itemize, and filing will be simplified. On the other hand the current personal deduction of $4500 has been eliminated, so the net effect in the increase in the standard exemption
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
December 13, 2017 -- How about this for a rhetorical question: would you like to retire in a boring place? Of course not, why would anyone choose an uninteresting place to retire. Unfortunately, many people are lazy about their decision about where to retire. The result: they end up living in a place with a lot less day to day zip than they could have had. This article will give you our ideas on the 8 most interesting places to retire in the USA, by region. We hope you will contribute your suggestions in the Comments section at the end of the article.
What makes an interesting place to retire?
Everyone probably has a different idea about what makes a town or city interesting. While a beautiful town is a great attribute in a place to retire, that is only one thing that might make it interesting. Here are some of our possibilities for what make might make
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Category: Active adult communities
December 6, 2017 -- Which is the smarter option: buy a home in a new 55+ or active adult community, or
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