Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
Updated April. 2020 - Originally published March 14, 2017 (see the many interesting Member suggestions for walkable towns in the Comments section).
Think how great it would be if you could retire to a place where you didn't have to own a car. You wouldn't have to climb in your vehicle, fight traffic down busy streets, or hunt endlessly for a parking place every time you wanted to go someplace. Here are 10 retirement towns where you can trade your car for a bike, golf cart, public transit, or - best of all - your own two feet.
In this search we are not mentioning the largest American cities, where having a car is more of a burden than a blessing. For example in New York City, where a surprising percentage of residents don't even have a driver's license, you can easily pay $500/month just to garage your car. In Gotham you can almost always get there faster on a subway, bus, taxi, Uber, or by
more...
Published on March 14, 2017
Comments 47
Category: Active adult communities
March 11, 2017 -- Jimmy Buffett fans, not known for worrying, can keep relaxing. In fact they can now find that last shaker of salt in their very own active adult community. The first one of many to come, dubbed Latitude Margaritaville, will go online next year in Daytona Beach, Florida. Press releases say the sales center there will be open later this year with the first models available in early 2018.
Topretirements must have seen 10 press reports about this new community - there is a lot of excitement about it. Here is what John Cohlan, chief executive officer of Margaritaville said about the new communities: “With Minto’s (the developer) expertise in creating master planned developments and Margaritaville’s inherent ability to deliver fun and escapism, Latitude Margaritaville has the exact coordinates for those looking to live the Margaritaville
more...
Published on March 10, 2017
Comments 11
Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
By Flo Williamson (Moderator at Topretirements.com!). This is the first of a 2 part article - here is the link to Part 2: South Carolina.
March 8, 2017 -- There’s nothing so exciting as the thought of a road trip. My husband and I had been discussing revisiting and exploring the coasts of North and South Carolina, and as the grey winter started to settle in, we began to plan our trip in earnest. Our thought was to revisit some towns we had previously seen on a former visit several years ago, dubbed the “Inner Banks Tour”, and to explore some new areas that have always piqued our retirement relocation interest. We’re definitely the type who believe that getting there is half the fun, so rather than speed down Interstate 95, our trip really began as we picked up Rt.17, outside of Norfolk, VA.
Our first stop, Edenton, NC is a town we had visited before. Edenton, the county seat of Chowan County, is a small town with approximately 5,000 residents, located on the Albemarle Sound. If you like being around the water, this is the place to be. At the end of the main
more...
Published on March 8, 2017
Comments 97
Category: Retirement Planning
March 8, 2017 — In this article we hear from Bill Painter, who served for over 30 years as Chaplain/Spiritual Director at Judson Park, a Seattle area Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC), before retiring. Bill is an ordained American Baptist minister, clinically trained for health care ministry. He offers valuable insights into retirement life and its challenges, gained from many years of experience. We particularly like his case studies, which bring the points alive. This article is a good recommendation for choosing a CCRC with a spiritual resource like him on staff.
Q 1 What was your role at Judson Park?
I served as Chaplain/Spiritual Director at Judson Park for over 30 years. A CCRC is a community for elders serving residents in independent residential, assisted living, 24 hour skilled nursing care and memory support.
My primary role was to provide spiritual support for residents, families and team
more...
Published on March 7, 2017
Comments 3
Category: Health and Wellness Issues
Update March 18 - We just provided an update on how the new TrumpCare replacement will affect people age 50 - 64 - "Obamacare Replacement Will Hammer Pre-Retirees"
March 1, 2017 -- Judging by the number of Comments and questions we are seeing on this Blog, baby boomers are uneasy about what might happen to their healthcare insurance under Medicare, Medicaid, or the Affordable Care Act (ACA - Obamacare). Given all the headlines and conflicting plans and positions, those concerns seem to be well founded. In this article we will air some of the most frequent questions and concerns aired on the Topretirements.com Blog. In some cases we provide answers provided by other Members. We also have some good resources to recommend where you can research this topic in greater detail.
First, a little update on where we stand
The President, the Republican controlled Congress, and the new Secretary of the Health, Education and Welfare have all said they are going to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA - Obamacare). Democrats, on the other hand, favor improvement/repair rather than repeal. The subject is confusing: according to one poll, one-third of Americans don't realize that the ACA and Obamacare are the same thing. Republicans have floated at least one replacement plan in rough form, but they appear to have no consensus among themselves, in fact conservative Republicans say they won't go along with many of the provisions in that plan. What will happen,
more...
Published on February 28, 2017
Comments 50
Category: Retirement Planning
February 27, 2016 -- Editor's Note: This is part 2 of Jeff's retirement saga. Last month we published his account of How a Minnesota Boy Came to be Retired in the Heart of the South. This installment provides more of the decisions made and surprises encountered when he actually pulled the trigger on his retirement.
By Jeff Alden:
I closed my office last July after thirty-five years practicing law in Minneapolis. For several years, my wife and I had talked about where and when we might retire. We read about and discussed different options, but never got further than the obvious: wherever we landed, it had to be on one floor. We even made a few exploratory trips and talked about the possibility of moving to those places. Almost right up to the last moment, it didn't seem that we were really getting anywhere. Talk is cheap. But when we finally pulled the plug on our previous life, things happened fast. Kaboom! Like that.
I once had a law professor who liked to maintain that certain situations are "action-forcing." If A happens, B must follow. Our transition to retirement was a case in point -- the product of a series of forced actions on steroids.
My office lease was set to renew in August if I didn't terminate it by May. In a very real sense, that lease called my bluff. If I was serious about retiring, why would
more...
Published on February 26, 2017
Comments 43
Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
February 22, 2017 -- A lot of baby boomers are facing a very difficult retirement. The Employee Benefits Research Institute’s (EBRI.org) 2014 survey reported only 55% of retirees are very or somewhat confident they will have enough money to live comfortably in retirement. A Topretirements.com survey was even less optimistic; only 46% of our Members said that their expected retirement income will allow them to continue their pre-retirement lifestyles.
The Wall Street Journal recently profiled a baby boomer in this situation who took a surprising solution to solve the problem - "With $15 in the Bank, A Baby Boomer Makes Peace with Less (article might be behind a paid wall). Kathleen Wolf lived in the San Francisco area until recently. During her working life in real estate she made
more...
Published on February 21, 2017
Comments 35
Category: Home and Garden
February 18, 2017 -- Winter's silver lining is that being trapped indoors much of the time gives you the leisure to experience what we think is the golden age of TV. There has never been the quality and the range of programs that is available right now. Cable and streaming television has become such an exciting place to work that many of the best creative people - actors, directors, producers - are moving to television where they have more opportunities and control than in the movies or network TV. In fact there are so many quality programs to watch that even if you did nothing else you couldn't keep up. You can try though, as one of the the great things about being retired is that you can stay up as late or get up as early as you want!
The Options
One of the hardest parts of deciding what programs to enjoy is deciding where and how to watch them. There are so many options, and they are changing so fast, it is hard to stay current.
Let's look at the where to watch first, and the choices are endless. Besides the major networks, you have hundreds
more...
Published on February 18, 2017
Comments 35
Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
Updated January 2020 (originally published 2017) -- We often get the question, "Which is the better state for retirement, Florida in the East, or Arizona in the West". Both states are popular and have many great places to live. Based on the interest we see on Topretirements.com, Florida and Arizona attract more retirement interest than any other states, Florida has a slight edge in popularity. Tennessee, both Carolinas, and Colorado also generate a lot of prospective interest.
Further down in this article we will present various factors for each state so you can draw your own conclusions from the facts. But first, here are our opinions about what makes each of these two states a great, or not so great place to retire. As always, reader input is extremely important. We encourage you to use the Comments section below to tell your stories and express your
more...
Published on February 15, 2017
Comments 63
Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
February 12, 2017 -- First the good news - the financial outlook is not as bad as has been reported - for most states. A study by the Center for Retirement Research (CRR) looked at 3 fiscal components: pensions, other post employment benefits (OPEBs), and debt payments - to analyze which states, counties, and municipalities face the biggest future financial crunch. Most states have a manageable situation in the coming years; 36 of them have required payments below 15 percent of own-source revenue, and 22 of them have obligations less than 10%. The problem is more acute for the 8 states who face obligations more than 20% of own-source revenues. The experts in the study believe that payments over 25% are untenable.
The problem children
The bad news for five states – Illinois, New Jersey, Connecticut, Hawaii, and Kentucky – is that future payments for pensions, OPEBs, and debt service are more than 25 percent
more...
Published on February 11, 2017
Comments 17
