Age 70 and 1/2 or More – RMD Deadline Looming

December 11, 2018 — December 31 is the deadline for taking a Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) from your 401(k) or IRA if you are older than 70 and 1/2 (but if you turned 70 and 1/2 this year you have until April 1). Fines for not doing so are steep – 50% of the required distribution not taken. Because it might take several days for your financial firm to handle the distribution, it is definitely time to make sure you do this now!

Tax savings available
For people with substantial income and retirement saving balances, the taxes on an RMD can be significant – because it is treated as ordinary income. If you already have pension, investment income, and Social Security income, the RMD could tip you into a higher bracket. But there is an easy way not to pay taxes on up to $100,000 of your annual RMD.

You can take a Qualified Charitable Distribution (QCD) by directly transferring funds from your IRA custodian to a qualified (more…)

December 5, 2018 — This is Part 2 of our report on our recent Snowbird Survey. Part 1, “Florida is Favorite Snowbird Destination“, contained the detailed results on the survey’s first 9 questions. This installment is mostly made up of verbatim comments detailing where people snowbird to, and how they get there. Because these are actual comments from real people on this issue, we think you will find it a great source of ideas and comparisons to your own thoughts and experiences.

This article has three sections: Section 1 will start will overall observations, Section 2 is a sampling of 351 overall comments made to Question 10, “Anything More to Say”, and Section 3 has a link to all 166 comments made to Question 8, “How Hard Was It to Find a Place to Snowbird”.

Section 1: Observations
Driving vs. Flying. More people drive to their snowbird destination than fly; the ratio is about 3 to 1 in favor of driving. Top reasons for driving include: having a car at the destination, more room for stuff, taking pets, and visiting/exploring on the way are . Avoiding a multi-day, long drive is a top reason for flying. Many people who fly either keep a car at the destination, or have the car driven down.

East vs. West snowbirds. As is usually the case with Topretirements surveys, the majority of our audience is east coast based, mostly from the Northeast or Midwest. Although there were some folks who cross the Mississippi to either (more…)

December 3, 2018 — One of the intriguing lines that came up during the interviews for our “Should You Hire a Financial Advisor, Or Do It Yourself” article of a few months ago was this one: “Beware those free dinners”. Lewis, the author of that quote, was referring to those invites you get in the mail for a free dinner at some nice restaurant; in exchange all you have to do is listen to some financial expert tell you how you can make a ton of money. Recently Ron Lieber, a columnist from the New York Times, took up that invitation, using one that came in for his 80 year aunt. The pitch was: “Tired of the stock market roller coaster ride? Want to protect your principal and lock in interest earnings?” The answer was to be found during a free (more…)

November 26, 2018 — Thanks to the almost 700 members who generously contributed their insights to last week’s “Snowbird” poll. We appreciate you sharing! As promised, here in Part 1 is our first detailed report on the summary for each question. Part 2 features a compilation of the most popular snowbird pairings (where our Members say they want to snowbird to, and from where), along with how they get there and other details of their migrations.

Highlights
Your input confirms many of our pre-conceived opinions, along with some surprises. For example, it is not news that the top snowbird destination states are Florida, Arizona, and South Carolina – in that order. But we were surprised by how many people have a reverse migration pattern; they pack up and go somewhere cooler in the summer. One Member called himself a “sweatbird”, “shadebird” might be another handle! (more…)

November 20, 2018 — Flu season is upon us. That means lots of people…and their germs – are traveling. So that makes it a good time for us to consider all the vaccinations that are recommended for those of us of a certain age. As we get older, our immune systems tend to weaken, putting us at higher risk for certain diseases. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) believes that you should get all recommended vaccines, not only to keep yourself healthy, but those around you as well. All information in this article is from the CDC.

The Flu
All adults need a seasonal flu (influenza) vaccine every year. (more…)

November 17, 2018. We would love to share with you solid information about how many retirees are interested in becoming a snowbird. Where they come from, and where they go to for the winter. How they found the places they snowbird in. Rent vs. own. And more.

But to do that we need YOU to fill out this quick 10 question survey. We promise it will be easy, and the info we get interesting (we’ll have a full report out after Thanksgiving). But seriously, we need everyone to contribute by investing just a few minutes in the survey. This is your chance to say thanks for this FREE site!

TAKE THE SURVEY

Thank you.

November 13, 2018 — Having an elderly pet can be a challenge; in some ways it is similar to caring for an older family member. But looking on the bright side, there are any number of lessons that Felix or Fido can offer to improve the enjoyment of your retirement. We’ll explore some of these here.

– Stretching is a good thing. Cats, and to some extent dogs too, naturally stop and stretch to get the kinks out – and so should we. Daily stretching is one of the best things you can do to avoid injuries as well as (more…)

This article is courtesy of a recent interview with Nomadic Pilot, a long time Member at Topretirements. His retirement story is pretty interesting, we hope you enjoy it.

November 11, 2018 –
TopRetirements: We understand you are a pilot. Could you tell us a little bit about your flying life?

Nomadic Pilot: I’ve been a ‘recreational’ pilot since 1983. We use the airplane for weekend fun or family trips. My current plane is my third – a Cessna Turbo 210, preceded by a Piper Arrow II and a Cessna 172. I hold private single-engine-land (SEL) and single engine-sea (SES) certificates along with an instrument rating. The 210 is a fabulous cross country airplane. I purchased it in 1998 when we were living in southern CA. While there we used it for trips to Palm Springs, Sedona, Eureka, Napa, Seattle, Spokane and Fort Collins to name a few. We used the plane quite a bit to fly to college towns in the west when our son was evaluating colleges. We’ve also used it to fly to the annual (more…)

November 7, 2018 — In our younger days we baby boomers did our bit to change the world. Now that most of our working days are behind us, will we revolutionize retirement living too? This article will review how retirement living options have changed since our teen years, and then we will prognosticate on what might be coming down the road, as the last baby boomers reach retirement age (they hit age 65 in 2031), and turn the baton over to Generation X in 2032.

Retirement, back in the day.
Prior to 1960, when Sun City Arizona opened, your retirement living options were pretty simple, probably occurring in stages. You could live in your own home (with a caretaker if you were well off), move in with one of your children, or go to a retirement or nursing home. The latter tended to be pretty bleak- surrounded by a lot of old people, maybe lucky to get your own room. Amenities tended to be limited.

The original Sun City Show Home

Sun City introduced the active adult community (or 55+ community) to the world, and it has been super successful. To give you an idea, from that single community in 1960 there are now thousands; in fact there are 3,761 communities in our Topretirements database, and at least 80% of those could be classified as 55+ or active adult. We (more…)

October 31, 2018 — A provocative question we hear from time to time is, “Where do you think you’ll be, and what will you be doing, when you turn 80 and move toward 90?” Forward thinking helps insure that you arrive at the place that you want to be, ready for the challenges that might be there.

The purpose of this short article is to solicit brief answers from our Topretirements community on this question – how will your lifestyle differ from what it is now in your 60s or 70s? Please refrain from saying you will probably be dead – half of us will live into our 80s – and we need to understand what we should be (more…)