As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
New: Community Explorer. Discover Your Perfect Community Quickly Based on Lifestyle, Amenities, and Unit Type.
Try It NOWCategory: Retirement Planning
September 28, 2021 — Among retirees a popular conversation starter is always – where, when, if, and how you are going somewhere warm for the winter season. We are curious about your plans for this winter, including if Covid has had any impact on your plans. Please take this very…
more...
Category: Retirement Planning
September 24, 2021 — Retirement is a modern concept. Not that long ago you worked until you dropped, or couldn’t do the job. The invention of pensions changed that for many people. Then, when Social Security started paying benefits in 1937, retirement became possible for almost everyone.
Until recently, once you retired you lived where you always did, moved in with your children, or, when you could no longer take care of yourself, transitioned to an old folks or nursing home. The landscape changed mightily in 1960 when Sun City opened with its active adult lifestyle and extensive amenities. Suddenly the idea of having fun in retirement became popular, and ever since people have been figuring out new ways to enjoy retirement.
Co-housing, Continuing Care Retirement Communities, and 55+ communities all have their devotees. But most of the innovation has come from the retirement industry, whose retirement offerings are geared to put money in their coffers when you buy into their dream.
more...
Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
September 15, 2021 - Members in a recent Topretirements poll gave us their number 1 considerations for choosing a place to retire. Atop the list by a large margin was climate, followed by affordability, being near friends and family, and good medical. Much further down the list were taxes and political environment.
These are all important things to think about when choosing a place to retire. But there are other, less obvious considerations that are even more critical. Here are 5 overlooked considerations that we think deserve special attention.
Do you really know the area where you about to relocate?
“Rose”, who retired to Myrtle Beach (SC), listed a perfect example of this situation in our recent poll: “Never retire where you like to visit. There are so many tourists and so much traffic it is unbearable. There is very little here that I was looking for, such as classes and like minded people.”
more...
Category: Retirement Planning
September 9, 2021 — Thanks to the 300+ folks who responded to last week’s instant poll, which asked what your #1 reason for choosing a place to retire would be. Although we realize most people have multiple factors affecting their choice, the poll tried to identify the single most important.
more...
Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
September 8, 2021 — The latest Trustees report for Social Security shows that the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 recession are affecting the future of this popular program, but no one is certain exactly how that will play out. One thing the report does lay out is that the Trust…
more...
Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
September 1, 2021 -- Easy walking to town, parks, and shopping always emerges as a top consideration for choosing a retirement destination when we survey our members. Here are 10 small cities and towns in the southeast where walking is easy and a joy. Since almost every small town is by nature walkable, we have concentrated on larger places of at least 20,000 people.
These are towns where you can live downtown or close to it, and walk to everything that is important to you, day or night. In fact, in most of these towns the walking (and biking) is so good that you could even survive without a car.
more...
Category: Retirement Planning
August 30, 2021 — We’re curious – if you had to pick one, most important reason why you would pick a place to retire (or already did), what would that be? We realize most people probably have several overlapping criteria that go into their decision, but if you had to…
more...
Category: Family and Retirement
August 24, 2021 -- The assumption has always been that you would bring up your children and they would go on to raise their own families. Empty nesting and retirement would follow for you, bringing relaxation and less stress. But for the 2.3 million baby boomers who are raising an estimated 2.7 million children, the days of child care are not over yet. These "Grandcarents" are often in need of "Grandfamily" Housing, and the economic and other pressures are usually enormous. This article will discuss some sources of help if this is the situation for you or someone you know.
The ways that older adults become responsible for young children vary. Often it can be pinned on a drug epidemic like crack or opiods. Adult children get hooked, have children of their own, and the grandparents or uncles and aunts have to step in to avoid foster care and neglect. In other cases there might be psychological problems, the inability to hold a job, or incarceration. The pandemic has contributed to the problem too. Whatever the cause, assuming responsibility for young children when you are in your 60s and 70s is a forbidding challenge. We even know some people in their 80s who are raising their great-grandchildren.
more...
Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
August 23, 2021 -- A successful retirement should be fun! After all, what was the point of all of those years of hard work and saving. Even more so, it is hard to be a grumpy old man (or woman) if you live in a place where fun is all around you! So here are 10 places to retire where fun is easy to find. We will concentrate here on small cities and towns, since just about every big city has plenty of opportunities for having a good time.
We found a few comparable lists on this topic, but most of them concentrated on larger cities. For criteria those sources cited nightlife, parties, and recreation. We asked some friends what would make a fun place to retire for them. Jay said fun means being able to do something different every day, or a place with good opportunities for food and theater. Ray thought fun could be just around the corner about anywhere, if you have the right attitude. Bobbie added plenty of good restaurants and regular arts walks to the list. To those we could add: festivals, culture, recreational opportunities, shows, arts, museums, civic gatherings and festivals, and ease of getting around. Being near a lake, the ocean, or mountains might mean fun for others.
more...
Category: Active adult communities
August 17, 2021 -- There are active adult communities everywhere, and most have all kinds of great activities and amenities. And then there are the really large active communities, those with almost 10,000, or even over 130,000 residents. As for the popularity of really large communities, The Villages, the grandaddy of all, just showed up (again) as the fastest growing Metro in the U.S. So obviously, they are doing something right for a certain segment of the population.
These super communities offer a truly amazing variety of amenities and lifestyle options. Many have hundreds of clubs and a dizzying number of choices for non-stop activities every day. The problem there is not finding something to do on a given day, rather it is narrowing down the choices.
Exact figures are hard to come by, but we estimate that there are at least 10 active communities in the eastern U.S. with more than 10,000 residents. If you know of some that we have overlooked, please let us know about them! Because of their size they feature a range of recreational and social options that smaller communities generally cannot provide. Here are some of what they typically offer:
– Wide choice of sports suitable for all ages of retirees (multiple golf courses and tennis courts, swimming pools, softball, pickleball, bocci, etc.)– Active social program with planned events on a daily schedule– Wide array of clubs to match many different interests. Sometimes there are hundreds of different clubs– Planned activities to enjoy such as crafts, woodworking, arts, singing, theater, etc.– Classes and opportunities for life-long learning on campus– Clubhouses, community centers, ballrooms, and performance venues that bring people and talent together– Many of these communities have restaurants, stores, medical facilities, etc. on the premises- Golf carts are usually permitted on internal roads - many people rely on them for their daily transportation needs- Not all of the communities we list here are exclusively for adults 55+. Some are open to residents of all ages and even have schools for the children that live there. But some have distinct 55+ neighborhoods within them.
more...
