Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
Update Sept 19, 2017 - We updated this article. Here is a link to the new one.
May 3, 2011 -- When it comes to selecting your best place to retire the weather, climate, and exposure to natural disasters can have a major impact on your retirement enjoyment. We think these are important factors to consider, along with cost of living, taxes, culture, proximity of friends and family, and recreational opportunities.
Before we discuss some regions and cities that rank poorly for weather, let's talk about the kinds of weather and natural issues that could be detrimental to your retirement. Some of these phenomena are inconvenient, while others are deadly serious:
- Sunshine. It's true, people are generally happier when the sun shines. Rainy day after rainy day does not...
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Published on May 3, 2011
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Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
April 26, 2010 -- Most of us find it hard to admit the truth: when it comes to skills that require any degree of expertise, like financial advice, we are amateurs. Just like our skills in plumbing, electricity, architecture, medicine, software programming, or teach golf; it's best to have an expert doing the work for us. This article will explain why hiring a competent financial advisor to help plan for your retirement is a smart move. After all, if you don't have enough money, it's going to be hard to have the retirement you deserve. We'll provide some basic tips on how to find a good investment advisor. At the end of the article we have listed some helpful resources that explore more dimensions on how to make a smart choice.
One of the biggest advantages that financial advisors offer is...
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Published on April 25, 2011
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Category: Active adult communities
April 22, 2011 -- Be prepared for the unexpected at Fearrington Village, a unique community just outside of Chapel Hill, NC. So if you are looking for the standard active adult community, you will not find it here. Instead you will see grazing cows, a bookstore, 5 star resort, walking trails, parks, and a wide range of beautiful homes. It's a refreshing development that reflects the eclectic passions and common sense wisdom of its founder, R. B. Fitch.
Full disclosure department: My wife and I were overnight guests at Fearrington Village (which is also a Showcase Advertiser at Topretirements) in mid-April. No one asked us to write this review; we thought you would want to know about this interesting community.
Fearrington Village (pronounced Fairington Village) was founded by R.B. Fitch and his late wife Jenny in 1974. Influenced by their trips to small English villages, they soon purchased the adjacent 640 acre Fearrington Dairy Farm and began developing the property for people of all ages. It still has no age restriction, although the majority...
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Published on April 22, 2011
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Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
April 19, 2011 -- It is almost a certainty that as a retiree, housing is going to be the most important item in your budget. Unfortunately, many people will make serious mistakes regarding their housing choices and the way they are financed. We recently were referred to an excellent and helpful guide, Housing and Mortgages for Seniors. It is definitely recommended reading, and here are some of its key points:
Housing Problems
The report details the most common housing/financial problems that people over
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Published on April 19, 2011
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
Updated December 20, 2016 (Originally posted April 18, 2011)
Like most of our members you are probably working on finding your best place to retire. Will your retirement destination will be where you live now, in the same region, or far away - there are so many possibilities! This article is dedicated to a different idea - that your best place to retire might be 2 places. You might also be interested in this companion article for ideas on dual places to live: "Best Places to Retire: Our Ideal Snowbird Pairings".
On the Plus Side - Avoiding Compromises
Perhaps the best reason to consider retiring in 2 places is that it helps avoid compromises. Let's say you hate
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Published on April 18, 2011
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Category: General Retirement Issues
Editor's note: Since we developed this one we have added another Quiz, Part 2. It is more financially oriented than this one. Take it and see how you do!
Revised April 6, 2013 -- So you are getting ready to retire - either very soon or in the distant future. It's good that you are thinking about it now, because planning equals success when it comes to retirement. Find out how ready you are with this short quiz. Take it now and get your score at the end.
A few tips about this quiz: Keep track of your "Yes" and "No" answers as you go along (or print it out and write down your answers). We have provided links both within the quiz and at the end for more information about specific parts
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Published on April 11, 2011
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Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
April 5, 2011 -- Our friend Robert Powell over at WSJ MarketWatch never fails to publish a useful and interesting article about retirement planning. His latest, "Five Retirement Plan Tax Mistakes to Avoid", is well worth the read. Here are the 5 mistakes:
1. Fund your 2010 Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) from your IRAs. If you haven't done it already, he tells you how to mitigate....
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Published on April 5, 2011
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Category: Active adult communities
March 31, 2010 -- Assuming you are not a one-size fits all kind of person, why would you want a retirement that anyone could be happy with? The happy answer is that increasingly, there are more and more specialized kinds of retirement communities. This article will cover some of the ones that we know about; members are encouraged to comment about others. Where we know about a sample community for that niche we have provided a link.
Active adult communities. These come in a variety of stripes, such as very large communities like The Villages that have an amazing array of amenities, clubs, and amenities. Or the smallest that might have the barest of amenities, perhaps a small fitness room and an outdoor pool. The common factor is that these are communities for people who want to be active and live around people closer...
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Published on April 1, 2011
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Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
March 29, 2011 -- One of the persistent myths about retirement is that it doesn't pay to work after you start collecting social security. The thinking goes is that because if you start collecting before your full retirement age your benefits are reduced, and because you will be taxed on a portion of your benefits if your overall earnings pass a certain threshold, you will be worse off for working.
A very helpful article from WSJ MarketWatch Editor Robert Powell, "Taxing Problem: How to Keep Working and Collecting Social Security", clearly explains why this thinking is off base. As Michael Kitces, editor and publisher of The Kitces Report says in the article “... frankly, I’ve never seen a situation where there was actually a net loss for working." He goes on to say that by working you bring additional dollars into the household. Uncle Sam gets to keep part of that, and you get to keep part. Everybody is ahead vs. ....
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Published on March 29, 2011
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
Note: See latest version of "Best States for Retirement - 2014".
March 29, 2011 -- No article we have ever written attracted more attention than our "Worst States for Retirement". Ever since the list came out last December it has been fiercely debated. In the end we think we accomplished our goal: we were able to get people to think about some of the important factors they should consider before they choose their best place to retire. This article will update the reverse of that article - the best states for retirement.
Rather than produce one ranked list of states for this article, which is always arbitrary, we will list a number of the best retirement states on the basis of economic factors: taxation, fiscal health, and cost of living. Note that in our opinion, state economic factors are not the only and are usually not the best criteria for selecting a retirement town. Other factors such as climate, physical and political environment, healthcare, and proximity to relatives and friend are normally much more critical. For the purposes of this article, however, those factors are so personal that we don't feel it is our place to rate them for you - you know what you are looking for on these preferences. Some people want to live in a warm climate, while others hate high temperatures and/or humidity. When it comes to environment, some folks want mountains, others want the ocean or a lake, and yet others prefer a city. Some seek out a liberal political and religious landscape, while others prefer the opposite. As we try to stress over and over again, your personal criteria for retirement are much more valuable than...
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Published on March 29, 2011
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