Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
There were no big surprises in the 2010 Trustees Report for the Social Security system that finally emerged in early August. Once again and for the 3rd year running, the report was not signed by any public trustees. The report finds that a social security deficit is looming out there in the future, as payments to retiring baby boomers outmatch contributions from younger workers. And most important for the millions of retirees who are already collecting social security, it appears that for the second year in a row it is very unlikely that there will be any cost of living increase (COLA) paid for 2011. According to the way the COLA's are calculated, the cost
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Published on September 16, 2010
Comments 36
Category: General Retirement Issues
By Roberta Isleib, Ph.D
Neither my husband (Mr. Topretirements) nor I are likely to forget the days after he retired from his regular job and moved home to start his website. I am a psychologist/writer who had grown accustomed to lots of space—and peace. On that first day, he clattered up from the garage with boxes of papers and junk from his previous office, which he proceeded to unload in the dining room. I caught him spreading his computer and piles of other miscellany out on the dining room table, plainly visible to every visitor to our home.
“Oh no you don’t,” I said. “You can’t set up your office there!”
“It has to be somewhere,” he said. “And don’t think I’m going to be eating lunch with you everyday, either.”
After some heated discussion, we agreed that he might enjoy
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Published on September 16, 2010
Comments 2
Category: Green Retirement Communities
By Cynthia Booth
If you have ever dreamed of living your retirement in a dream home that is friendly to the planet, this article is for you.
Denis Carpenter recently acquired a small vacant lot and, to achieve his concern for the planet, planned a residence that was environmentally friendly and easy to maintain. Denis hired designers and Jersey City citizens Richard Garber, assistant professor at New Jersey Institute of Technology’s College of Architecture and Design in Newark, and Nicole Robertson of GRO Architects in New York City to design and oversee the construction of his single-family house. The result is genuine proof of both innovative design and eco-friendly technologies.
What's so special about this home?
- Inside the home, on the ground level, radiant heating beneath the exposed cement floor warms the bath room and bed rooms.
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- In the loft-like second level, sleek aluminum and stainless steel railings accent the bamboo stairway to the mezzanine, lounge room and an artfully designed kitchen outfitted with salvaged devices and cabinetry.
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Published on September 14, 2010
Comments 0
Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
September 13, 2010 -- Consider us sentimental, but we feel kind of bad for the towns that don't quite make our various "best places" lists. After all, how would you feel if you were #101 on a list of 100 best places to retire? It's not like the quality of the experience is that different among the top tier places to live in retirement. And, given that everyone has their own individual tastes and requirements, #115 might just be a lot better fit for you than say, #2 on the list.
So to indulge that feeling, and more importantly to help expand our members' knowledge, here is our list of the "next best places to retire" - from #101 to 125. Oh yes, we will tell
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Published on September 13, 2010
Comments 4
Category: Active adult communities
September 7, 2010 -- You have moved into your dream active adult community and are enjoying retirement. Then one day a letter arrives from the Home Owners Association (HOA). But it's not an invitation to a welcome aboard party, it's a letter telling you that your 58 pound Australian Shepherd is a few pounds over the line.... of the community limit of 30 pounds. The letter's bottom line: either Tonka goes, or you go.
Home Owners Associations, often called Community Associations or Condominium Associations, are one of the unanticipated features of living in an active community, development, or condo. Well run associations are indispensable to the peaceful enjoyment of your new community. They set the rules that make communal
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Published on September 7, 2010
Comments 9
Category: General Retirement Issues
September 5, 2010 - We recently had this thought-provoking question from one of our members: "Boomers are usually really close to their children So if you move to a different town or a different part of the country, how do you stay in touch? How do you accommodate your children when they visit? What do people do who move away from where everyone else lives? Thanks, Eileen".
We wrote back to Eileen and asked if she had any ideas about how to
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Published on September 5, 2010
Comments 8
Category: General Retirement Issues
August 30 -- We are very pleased to announce 5 new mini-sites to help provide extra information and resources on some of the hottest retirement issues and best places to retire. These sites are especially useful because they gather a great deal of useful and relevant information in one easy to use resource.
AffordableRetirements.com - Find out more not only about where the affordable places are, but how to plan for and achieve an affordable lifestyle as well. A special feature of this site is a list of 50 affordable places to retire - locations that also happen to have above average
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Published on August 30, 2010
Comments 1
Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
August 27 -- Your Topretirements editor was just in Nantucket for a whirlwind vacation. This island retreat is the summer vacation hot spot, particularly among those who live nearby (think New England), or with very big checkbooks. To get here you can take the ferry, always a great ride on a beautiful day, or fly. If Queequeg, the chief harpooner in Herman Melville's Moby Dick, came back to visit Nantucket he would probably recognize many of the buildings, but not the people. The town is crawling with very prosperous tourists and families, many with young children in tow. No place on earth could be cuter, more charming, prosperous - or expensive. Shop after shop offers beautiful baubles and expensive pieces of art. The beaches, bike trails, shops and restaurants are all wonderful too. If you have the means and you dream of island living, Nantucket (ACK) might
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Published on August 27, 2010
Comments 6
Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
August 23, 2010 -- Your editor was pleased to be chosen by NARFE, the National Association of Retired Federal Employees, to write the feature article, So Many Great Retirement Towns, So Hard to Choose", for the September issue of their magazine. In June NARFE asked its readers to write in with a short, Twitter length (140 characters) recommendation for why their community would make a great place for other federal workers to retire. The project was amazing because of the number and quality of responses. Hundreds of towns from all over the world were recommended, with 30 or more communities getting multiple mentions. These retired federal workers also gave dozens of fascinating reasons for selecting a community, along with strong opinions on why they wish they had not chosen certain towns (mostly
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Published on August 23, 2010
Comments 1
Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
Updated February 7, 2021 (originally published August 2010) -- Note: We added a similar article in early 2017: See "Which State Is Better for Retirement: Arizona vs. Florida".
When it comes to comparing retirement destinations, how do various states stack up against each other? There are some natural rivalries such as: the biggies (AZ vs. FL), north vs south (as in North Carolina vs. South Carolina), the Pacific Northwest (Oregon vs. Washington), the Mid-Atlantic (VA vs. DE vs. NJ), and so on. To help you decide which might be better places for you to retire, we present the first in our series of articles comparing retirement states. We welcome ideas for future comparisons (see all in the series at bottom).
Our approach in this article will be to evaluate various factors for each state, letting our readers draw their own conclusions from the facts. As always, reader input is extremely important. We encourage you to use the Comments section below to tell your stories and express your
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Published on August 23, 2010
Comments 238
