Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
January 5, 2022 -- With inflation going up and just about everything getting more expensive, retirement is getting even more difficult than ever. So the beginning of the year seems like a great time to come up with some ideas to help everyone spread their income a little further, possibly even increasing it, and not forgetting to have fun and enjoy life.
Some of the best ideas we have ever seen have come from Topretirements Members. Two previous articles (see Further Reading at end) generated over 200 Comments with many great suggestions. So in this article we provide some broad based tips, then encourage you to go over the Comments already made and mine them for things that could help improve your budget outlook.
Nextavenue.org recently profiled a couple, Joan and Steve Reid, who retired and moved from the affluent New York City suburb of Pearl River, N.Y., to Vero Beach on Florida's East Coast. They had a very limited budget, $30,000, most of which was from Social Security and some small pensions. By attending to the basics the couple was able live surprisingly well in a great Florida town. We love their attitude, shown best by a quote from Joan: "We are not rich except in friendships, our art, our families and our souls" .
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Published on January 5, 2022
Comments 11
Category: Active adult communities
January 4, 2020 -- When people hear about Home Owners Associations (HOA) there is generally one of two reactions. Either they loathe them, citing high costs and restrictive rules, or they tolerate them as a necessary evil. They have no super fans. Also called Community Associations, HOAs govern critical aspects of life in condominiums and active adult communities. It is essential that retirees know something about their HOA before they move in. As Joe West, CEO of the Community Associations Network, told Topretirements many years ago, the most important thing to consider when buying into a community is: “Don’t fall in love with the house before you check out the association”.
In any 55+, active adult, or condominium development that has shared facilities the Community Association is the top dog. It establishes the rules, enforces compliance, manages the assets, and insures the financial and legal well-being of their communities. Even in the most successful community plenty can go wrong. When serious problems happen, as did in last year's condo collapse in Surfside, Florida, the consequences can even become tragic.
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Published on January 4, 2022
Comments 9
Category: General Retirement Issues
December 29, 2021 — This year has been mighty interesting. As 2021 winds down and we look with hope for a happier, less chaotic 2022, it is always enlightening to peer backwards. Which topics and articles resonated the most with our Members, and which ones were duds – knowing that…
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Published on December 28, 2021
Comments 2
Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
December 24, 2021 — The clock is running out for people who must take their yearly Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) from their 401(k) or IRA plans. An RMD is the minimum amount you must withdraw from your account each year after you reach a certain age. December 31 is the…
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Published on December 24, 2021
Comments 7
Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
December 23, 2021 -- More people retired in 2021 than in previous years, probably because Covid pushed them into early retirement. Some 50% of people over age 55 were retired this year, up by 2 percentage points. All things being equal, that should have meant a spike in the number of people who moved for retirement, but that didn’t happen. Quite to the contrary, the number of retirees who moved in 2021 dropped to 226,000—roughly 43% fewer than in the year previous. It’s also the lowest number of American retirees in the last five years!
These and many other interesting stats are courtesy of a "2021 Study: Where Americans Moved to Retire in 2021" commissioned by Hire a Helper using US Census Data.
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Published on December 23, 2021
Comments 5
Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
December 15, 2021 -- The reality is most people don't want to retire too far away from where they live now. The tug of familiar friends, relatives, and institutions can be very strong for some, even more powerful than wanting to be in a warmer climate. Yet their current abode might have become expensive, crowded, or taxing enough to make them think about moving to a new city or town in the same region. In this article we will explore some of the nearby possibilities for a retiree who lives in or near the New York City Metro or suburbs. For that matter, residents of New Jersey and southern New England might like these alternatives as well.
Obviously if one moves less than 500 miles away the climate is not going to be too much different. But the cost of living, the livability index, and the tax situation could change dramatically. The 10 places to retire mentioned here are just a few possibilities, they barely scratch the surface of the very livable retirement choices that won't require you to move too far from where you live now.
In state
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Published on December 15, 2021
Comments 4
Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
December 13, 2021 -- Thanks to everyone who answered last week's one question, instant poll on retirement location happiness. The bottom line is that the majority of people responding are happy with their choice of a place to retire. A certain minority is less satisfied, or had to move more than once. The results are shown below.
Taking out the 24 people answering who haven't yet retired, 58% of respondents said they were perfectly happy with their choice - they apparently found their best place to retire. Of those, 42% had moved and 16% did not change locations in retirement. Another 22% were "moderately happy" with their location. Almost 20% said they either moved a second time, or wished they had moved somewhere else. The answer that we hoped to see a small percentage for, "moderately unhappy", was just that, only about 6%.
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Published on December 12, 2021
Comments 0
Category: Health and Wellness Issues
by Lucy Burdette
If you are a regular follower of TopRetirements, do you take the website’s advice? Maybe you’ll have read the article from November 21 discussing Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s The Five Secrets of Super Agers. Having watched my father’s mental faculties wane under the onslaught of dementia, I’m definitely interested in keeping my brain healthy as I age. I’m pretty good at his number one, exercise, though I don’t try to keep up with my hub, Mr. Top Retirements. Number four, a Mediterranean-style diet and number five, staying connected, have been important to me for a long time.
Trying something new was number three on the list. At first I thought: I write most days, and all the words are new, so I have this one down cold. On the other hand, in the mystery world, I’m mostly known for my series featuring a food critic living in quirky Key West. I’m comfortable writing that series—I know the characters and the setting, and I love talking about restaurants and food. Even though this is a long-running series, every book is new in some way. Each story has a new plot, usually some new characters, and often new layers in the relationships between the regulars.
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Published on December 10, 2021
Comments 6
Category: Active adult communities
December 8, 2021 --
This is an updated version of Part 1 of a 2 Part series. Part 1 covers competitors in the West, while Part 2 discusses the 12 Largest Communities in the East.
Many people are excited (and sometimes appalled) by The Villages, the giant active community in Central Florida. They often wonder, are there any other age-restricted communities that approach The Villages' size, which approaches 150,000 residents and sprawls over 3 counties? And, do any other communities offer a similar range of amenities?
Although no community in the west is quite as large as The Villages, there are many that have more than 5,000 residents. This article highlights some of the ultra-large active communities in the West. We invite you to explore over 3500 active communities of all sizes in our State Directories at Topretirements.
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Published on December 8, 2021
Comments 1
Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
We are curious – how happy are you with your decision where to retire? If we get a good response to this we will have a quick survey letting people tell us where they retired and how and what they like about it. Thanks for participating – you will see…
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Published on December 6, 2021
Comments 12
