October 2021 – Retirement Blog

Are Better Hearing Aids in Your Future?

Category: Health and Wellness Issues

October 1, 2021 -- No one wants to wear a hearing aid. They can be unsightly, embarrassing, and usually don't work well in noisy situations. They are also very expensive ($2,000 to $12,000 a pair), and generally not covered by any kind of insurance, including Medicare. Unfortunately, if your hearing is bad enough, not wearing one leads to being shut out of the conversation and social isolation. Fortunately there might be less expensive, and more effective ones coming on the market. Jane Brody recently wrote an article in the NY Times that promises some hope: "Will Hearing Aids Ever Be Hip". While two thirds of people over 70 suffer from hearing loss, only 20% of adults who could benefit from a hearing aid use one. Clearly there is a demand for a better product.

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Published on October 1, 2021

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Daily Alert Miscues

Category: General Retirement Issues

October 3, 2021 — Subscribers to our Daily Alert were probably confused on Sunday, Oct. 3 when they received 3 copies of the same email. We are sorry about that. Probably as a result of our server being bombarded by someone try to index our content, the Oct 1 and…

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Published on October 3, 2021

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Most Snowbirds Are Renters, Travel by Car

Category: Retirement Planning

October 6, 2021 -- The results of last week's survey on snowbirds are in. Many thanks to the community spirited folks that filled it out! While we can all speculate about snowbird behavior, it is satisfying and interesting to find out what people like you do in the real world. The results are roughly consistent with our 2018 survey on this topic, which had a much larger response rate. You can compare those results as well as find a link to Part 2 of that report, which lists ideal snowbird pairings and many comments from people who snowbird, here. Overall Most of the people who completed it are snowbirds, which reflects a natural interest in the topic. The results show a great variety of when people leave for the winter and how long they stay. Some of the most interesting results were comments about how people found their winter place, and how Covid has affected their plans. We have summarized the results for each question below, which we hope might be useful in your own snowbirding lives. Will you go somewhere warm this winter (be a snowbird), and for how long. Most of the people taking the survey were snowbirds. There were roughly equal numbers who will go away for periods from 1 to six month. One fourth plan on snowbirding for less than a month.

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Published on October 5, 2021

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Finding the Best State for Retirement Is Personal

Category: Best Retirement Towns and States

October 11, 2021 -- Moving to a new state when you retire is not a decision to be made lightly. Only a tiny percentage of retirees make a move that significant, but when they do they usually do it for important reasons. Often they trade in a valuable home in a high-priced market for a less expensive but nicer one in the Sunbelt somewhere, getting warmer winters and a friendlier tax environment in the bargain. They might move to a more age-appropriate home in a state where they can live the lifestyle they dreamed about. Or they might change states to be near family or friends. If you choose to move or not, this is a very personal decision. Consulting lists of the “best states for retirement” might give you some ideas, but ultimately you need to choose based on the lifestyle, cost of living, taxes, politics, and culture, that will lead you to a happy retirement. The most popular states for retirement

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Published on October 11, 2021

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Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment Period Starts

Category: Health and Wellness Issues

October 13, 2021 – The Open Enrollment Period for Medicare starts this week on October 15 and ends December. 7. It is an important event for eligible people not currently enrolled in the plan, or who want to change plans or some component of their current plan. During…

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Published on October 12, 2021

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Record Social Security COLA Coming

Category: Financial and taxes in retirement

October 13, 2021 — Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) beneficiaries will receive a record 5.9 percent Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) for 2022. It is the largest COLA since 1982. The increase is based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI-W) from the third quarter of 2020 through the…

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Published on October 13, 2021

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I’m Thinking About Retiring in: New Hampshire, Vermont, or Maine

Category: Best Retirement Towns and States

October 18, 2021 - Editors Note: This is part of our series comparing various states as places to retire, such as "Dueling Carolinas: NC vs. SC for Retirement". There is a list of all of "Dueling" comparisons at the end of this article. We welcome ideas for future ones. Not everybody heads to the Sunbelt once they hit retirement age. Many people don't mind cold weather, and they love the idea of being in a state with mountains and a beautiful natural environment. Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont are extremely popular choices that fit that bill; each state has many admirers. Many snowbirds live in these northern New England states and get the best of both worlds by heading south in the winter (and a few people do the reverse). This article will first compare some basic facts about retirement in each state. In Part 2 you will see the actual (slightly edited for space) words of Topretirements Members who have lived or retired in each state, so you see what they are like straight from the horse's mouth. Concerning those comments, we got a big surprise using a new tool that allowed us to see which states were mentioned the most. We assumed the most popular state in the comments would be New Hampshire, which has a reputation for being tax-friendly. To our surprise, Maine, with 287 mentions, was overwhelmingly the most discussed. Vermont had 69, and New Hampshire came in last with 56. When we looked at readership of other Topretirements pages by state, Maine came out on top there too - a lot of people are intrigued by it. So much our popularity predictions!

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Published on October 17, 2021

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What to Know When Choosing a Medicare Plan

Category: Health and Wellness Issues

October 20, 2021 - As we pointed out last week we are now in the Medicare Open Enrollment Period, which ends December 7. This is the time to re-evaluate your plan and change it if your circumstances have evolved, or you are unhappy with the plan you have. To help out with that process, we going to give a brief summary of some key points from an excellent article that came out last week in the Wall Street Journal, "8 Things to Know When Choosing a Medicare Plan". Neal Templin wrote this helpful article and we recommend reading it for more detail (we hope the link above will allow you to access it without being a subscriber). Templin says that when it comes to Medicare you have three choices: Regular Medicare (Parts A, B, and D), Medicare plus a private supplemental plan (some people call it Medigap or traditional Medicare), and Medicare Advantage (Part C). The decision for which one to pick is complicated and depends on your own personal situation.

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Published on October 19, 2021

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When Is the Right Time to Move to a Life Care Community?

Category: Life Care or CCRC

October 26, 2021 -- For most people, the answer to the question of the right time for moving to a Life Care community is - "when I get older". It pretty much doesn't matter how old the person is at the time; some undefined date in the future is always the answer. True, a minority make the decision when they are in their 60s or early 70s, but they are the outliers, often with a good reason for doing so. Topretirements has some good friends who have wrestled with this decision for years. Their current situation, unfortunately, illustrates the problem so many people will face. He is in his mid 90s and she in her early 80s. She has wanted for some time to move from their town home into a Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC, often known as a Life Care Community). He, however, is never quite ready. Fortunately, they did put a deposit down at a Connecticut CCRC, but used a decision to wait for one of the larger units as a way to delay the move. He just had a serious medical incident requiring an extended hospital stay with an uncertain future, so now he is ready to take any unit that comes up. Although it looks like their deposit has secured them a place, they are about to have a very rough patch ahead. Two elderly people with mobility problems are not going to have an easy time moving, let alone dealing with culling down a jam-packed town home's contents to fit into a much smaller apartment.

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Published on October 26, 2021

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Top Snowbird Destinations Named for 2021-2022

Category: Best Retirement Towns and States

October 27, 2021 - When it comes to naming the best places to be a snowbird many familiar towns come to mind. Most are in Florida, Arizona, California, Texas, and South Carolina for the obvious reasons, as they are the warmest contiguous states in winter. But this year a list by StorageCafe´ has come up with some winners that are not exactly household names. The company used a number of criteria that make sense - miles of beaches, winter temperature, crime, housing costs, parks, internet speed, etc. Many of the choices are unusual, but most are familiar. Some we would have picked, others not (particularly in Arizona and Texas). But in the end the best place to be a snowbird is the place that you like the best, not one picked by someone else. The winners:

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Published on October 27, 2021

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