Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
August 3, 2025 -- People give a lot of thought to where they are going to retire. Some of the factors they usually consider are climate (e.g.; warm winters), cost of living, tax burden, leisure activities, proximity to friends and family, crime rates, transportation, and quality and availability of health care. But as anyone following the news knows, there is a new factor that a thoughtful retiree should consider - losing your home (or your life!) from an environmental or climate disaster.
There is hardly enough room to list all of the environmental disasters we have seen in the U.S. in the past few years. There were 26 disasters in the U.S. last year that caused more than $1 billion in damages for a total of $113 biliion. Many occured in some of the most popular retirement spots in America, places where no one ever dreamed these things would happen. Those include floods in Asheville and the Texas Hill country, hurricanes in Florida, tornados in many parts of the U.S., wildfires in California, volcanoes in Hawaii, drought in the West. It seems like we are seeing one hundred year storms every few years, and the problems keep getting more severe.
So what can you do to find a safe retirement spot?
The New York Times put out a comprehensive section on this topic on July 13: "Where to Call Home". It doesn't appear to be available online, but you can find it in a library. It provides interesting guidance to help with what will be one of the most important financial decisions in your life, where to live when you retire. By doing your homework, you can do a lot to mitigate the risks of an environmental calamity ruining your finances, and causing untold disruptions to your life.
more...
Published on August 2, 2025
Comments 0
Category: General Retirement Issues
August 5, 2025 — Topretirements will be returning to Mailchimp as the service that sends out our weekly “Best Places” newsletter. We apologize for the confusion that changing back from Substack might create. The switch back to our old newsletter style will take place with the August 7 issue. We…
more...
Published on August 5, 2025
Comments 0
Category: Health and Wellness Issues
August 6, 2025 -- Back in June I ordered a set of Philips hearing aids from Costco. In Part 1 of this series, "Hearing Aids Selection", I discussed the various types of hearing aids, why I selected the Philips brand over Jabra, and the decision to buy at Costco. This is Part 2, which will cover what my experience has been like wearing the Philips Hearlink 9040 hearing aids that I chose (a Receiver in Canal model). Hopefully this will be useful to others who are experiencing hearing loss. See bottom for more articles on baby boomer "Rite of Passage" articles including Social Security and Medicare.
So how am i doing with my new hearing aids?
Overall, it has been a good experience. Not as perfect as I would like, but they have definitely improved the quality of my life.
It has been a positive experience mainly because I don't have to lean forward and strain to listen to people when they are talking. The sound comes through and I am not missing out on the conversation, which i was starting to do before. The connection to my phone is great. I can not only adjust them from there, but I can use them to listen to music, podcasts, books, and phone calls, instead of wearing my airpods. While the fidelity of the sound from the hearing aids the sound isn't quite as good as from the Airpods, it is more convenient. The phone rings, you answer, and you hear through the hearing aids.
The installation meeting and the scheduled followup session provided by the Costco hearing aid specialist were helpful. I got a good orientation on how to wear, adjust, and clean them (important because ear wax can build up and impede performance). To me the luxury of having the personalized service and followup was worth any extra money I might have saved by buying them online.
more...
Published on August 5, 2025
Comments 1
