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Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
October 30, 2010 — Americans might be justified in being envious of the French, who are taking to the streets to protest the raising of their retirement age from 60 to 62. Here in the states, the Sun Life Unretirement(SM) Index indicates that just as many Americans expect to retire at 70 as do 65. More than half more the working Americans responding to Sun Life’s recent survey (52%) expect to work at least three years longer than originally planned. Whereas in previous years the reason for working longer was “to stay mentally engaged”, “to earn enough money to live well” is cited just as frequently now.
Confidence continues to fall
At Topretirements we continue to see a steady stream of financial concerns relating to (more…)
Posted by John Brady on October 30th, 2010
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Category: General Retirement Issues
You thought maybe you would be spending a lot of time on the golf course or tennis court once you retired. But you might just be surprised about that, as our faithful correspondent Len discovered after he moved to The Villages, Florida. As he told us recently: “Pickleball has supplanted golf as my primary outdoor activity since I moved to The Villages. It’s good exercise and is somewhat addictive!”
Len is not alone – pickleball has caught active adult communities by storm. Many developments are converting tennis courts to (more…)
Posted by John Brady on October 26th, 2010
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Category: Home and Garden
When falling leaves start to hit the ground in the Northeast and Midwest, snowbirds across those regions start to get itchy. Winter is coming, and their thoughts turn to winter homes. Harry, one of our members suggested that we prepare a “Leaving for the Winter Checklist” to help these lucky folks in their preparations. Here you go:
- Mail. There are several ways to handle this important function, none of them perfect. The P.O. will hold your mail for a month. If you will be gone longer than that, you need to find a different solution. You can put in a forwarding address and your mail will be sent to your winter address. USPS also has a premium forwarding service where they will forward your mail via Priority Mail at a reasonable cost. See USPS for your options. If you don’t trust the Post Office the most (more…)
Posted by John Brady on October 25th, 2010
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Category: Active adult communities
Home Owner Associations (HOAs), also called Community Associations or Condominium Associations, have a major image problem. Many people have an instantly negative reaction toward these organizations – usually because they hate the idea of rules or any organization telling them what they can and cannot do in their own homes. People who already live in a community with such an association, however, probably tend to have a neutral opinion of their HOA, with some having a very positive opinion of these association.
So, are Home Owner Associations Friend – or Foe? One thing is certain, Home Owner Associations exist by the thousands across the country – in active adult, 55+ communities , condominium buildings, and most planned developments. They provide order to daily life in these developments, and they (more…)
Posted by Admin on October 21st, 2010
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Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
The answer to this million dollar question is – it depends. And, considering that the average baby boomer has only socked away about $50,000, it might be a bit of an academic question. Nevertheless, we speculate a lot of people are curious about the answer.
If you take the usually noted figure of 4% a year that can be safely taken out of the $1 million, you get $40,000 per year. No matter how much you have saved, experts agree that a 4% withdrawal rate will let you take money out for 30 years with only a slight danger of running out of money. If you get a pension or social security you could add that income on top of the $40,000 (the average SS payment to (more…)
Posted by John Brady on October 18th, 2010
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Category: Retirement Real Estate
October 18, 2010 — If you have been considering snapping up a great home at a bargain price through a short or foreclosure sale – don’t! The past few weeks have been filled with stories about banks who have stopped foreclosing on properties because of sloppy or incomplete paperwork. Bank of America has stopped foreclosure actions in all 50 states, and JP Morgan has stopped such actions in 41 states.The government is up in arms, bank stocks are being hammered, and many financial experts are worried that no one really understands the depth of the problem or how long it will take to solve. No one seems to have a solid grip on understanding the potential repercussions to buyers, sellers, and lending institutions.
The problem has gained so much attention that there is a growing groundswell to implement a national ban on foreclosures. Consider some recent headlines such as (more…)
Posted by John Brady on October 18th, 2010
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
October 11, 2010 — A reporter from Fox News (FNCImag.com) interviewed us today on the 10 best places to retire. She also had some related questions on how to find the best place to retire. The results of the interview, 2 separate articles, came out today on FoxNews.com
The first article, “Where You Will Retire“, is the more interesting of the 2. Noelle Watters asked some thought-provoking questions that gave us the platform to offer some friendly advice on a few questions every retiree should be informed about. Her questions included: “What makes a place a popular retirement locale (lots of different factors), “Does weather play (more…)
Posted by John Brady on October 12th, 2010
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Category: Active adult communities
Last weekend’s newsletter was all about trying to find communities that could be considered competitors to The Villages – the huge and very popular active adult community south of Ocala, FL. We had so many interesting emails with comments about that article we decided to publish them here – and give you the chance to respond in the Comments section below.
In the first installment of the series we provided a sample of east coast competition, a future installment will cover the west coast. Our apologies to the many fine communities we couldn’t (more…)
Posted by John Brady on October 12th, 2010
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
October 5 – 2010 Editors Note: This is the second in our series comparing various states as retirement destinations. Don’t miss the first one, Florida vs. Arizona Retirement, or the third, Dueling Carolinas: NC vs. SC. We welcome ideas for future comparisons.
In our previous retirement shoot-out we compared 2 states, Arizona and Florida, that are natural rivals but geographically quite distant. In this comparison we will compare 4 states that are very close geographically but have some other important (more…)
Posted by John Brady on October 5th, 2010
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