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Try It NOWCategory: Retirement Planning
January 15, 2017 -- Not everybody wants to retire, even if that is the popular expectation. Many more people, even though they are old enough, aren't ready to retire yet. This article will help you determine if retirement is right for you, and if this is a good time to do it.
Retirement is a big step and one that is hard to reverse.
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Category: Retirement Real Estate
January 13, 2017 -- The average size of newly built homes decreased in 2016 - a sign that builders are preparing for the coming wave of first-time buyers as Millennials begin to dip their toes into the market. At least that is the conclusion reached by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB).
In 2015, the typical new home had 2,689 square feet. In 2016, it dropped to 2,634, according to figures supplied by the U.S. Census Bureau. That's the first drop in size since 2009, said Rose Quint, NAHB assistant vice president for survey research.
"The data on new home characteristics show a pattern," she said. "2016 marked the end of an era that began in 2009 when homes got bigger and bigger with more amenities. I expect the size of homes to continue to decline as
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
January 11, 2017 — Over the years our Members have told us how important it is for them to find great places to retire that are also affordable. So at this point we have quite a collection of articles with specifics on at least 50 such towns. This article has…
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Category: Retirement Planning
Editor's note: Over a period of years we watched our friends Jeff and Paulette get ready for retirement. They thought about it a lot, made field trips, and discussed it thoroughly. Not without a little trepidation, their careful plans to retire to Greenville, SC came to pass this last summer. We are very pleased that Jeff was willing to contribute his account of how a Minnesota boy came to be retired in the heart of the South.
By Jeff Alden:
January 6, 2017 -- I first started coming to the Upstate of South Carolina in the seventies to visit my future wife's family on holidays. She was a young professor at the University of Minnesota, where I was in graduate school. I grew up in St. Paul and never questioned that I'd spend the rest of my days up North, in the country I knew so well. But every Christmas or Thanksgiving, we'd travel down to Greenville to spend time with her folks
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Category: Family and Retirement
Editor's note: The family we described in this article are not real, they are hypothetical. However the kinds of problems they experienced are real and painful. For a variety of reasons, more and more Americans are living in multi-generational households - 31% of those aged 25- to 29 in 2014 were living in households with parents and/or grandparents.
January 3, 2107 --June and Jim thought that their exquisitely laid retirement plan was solid. They had done so many things well - they had set up a regular savings plan, hired a good financial advisor, thought about how they would stay busy, and even made some scouting trips to potential retirement destinations. But due to circumstances they never imagined, June and Jim are worried that their retirement dream is probably finished - before it even started.
The problem wasn’t with the couple’s plan, it was their adult children. Margaret had been a great student and athlete in high school and even into college. But she lost focus somewhere along the line, and even though she graduated with a B.A. she couldn’t land a good job. So she moved back home, where she remains, not making enough to move out on her own, and her parents haven’t have the heart to ask her to pay rent. That was 5 years ago.
Justin also did well until he
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Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
January 2, 2017 -- Just as millions of baby boomers start to enjoy their Social Security retirement or disability checks comes a new worry. The problem arises for the folks who, for whatever reason, did not pay off all of their student loan debts. Many non-payers thought that after the initial wave of debt collection efforts subsided, they were off the hook. Wrong! The government has one last ace to play, and that is garnishment of your Social Security checks.
Last year the Feds reclaimed $171 million in unpaid student loans, and many of those paying it back were over 50 years of age - 114,000 of them in fact. According to a recent Wall Street Journal article the typical delinquent borrower sees their Social Security
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Category: Retirement Real Estate
December 30, 2016 -- Real estate in the last 15 years has been like an rollercoaster - cozy ups, terrifying downs, and hairpin turns. But like a great 'coaster, the ride feels different depending on where you sit - those on the ends get the big thrills while middle riders enjoy a slightly smoother ride. That is the conclusion of The Wall St. Journal's recent analysis of the latest real estate prices from October's S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price Index and other sources.
After dropping 27% from 2006 to 2012, average home prices rose 5.6% on the last 12 months, a record high (although not when counting inflation). But that is the national average, regional variations tell a significantly different story.
The Wall St. Journal reported that data from Weiss Analytics, a housing-data firm, indicates that zip codes where the median
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Category: General Retirement Issues
December 27, 2016 --- In many ways 2016 was one of the craziest years we can remember. Fortunately Topretirements' 10th year was interesting, but not full of upheaval. As an annual tradition we like to see which articles grabbed the attention of the Topretirements.com community during the year. As always, there are at least a few surprise articles that generate more readership and Comments than we expected. Here is our annual review of the best of Topretirements for 2016.
We Do Appreciate
This seems to be a great time to note our appreciation to the Topretirements community. So many of you read our articles, take the time to post Comments to Blog articles, suggest new topics to cover - thank you. Special thanks to our loyal advertisers who make this site possible. Many have been with us almost since our beginnings in 2007 - thank you for your support of this vibrant online community.
Overall
So far in 2016 Topretirements had over 1.8 million visitors
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Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
December 21, 2016 -- Almost everybody agrees Social Security needs some tweaking to keep this popular program running smoothly. After all the latest estimates are that, if no changes are made, starting in 2034 only 75% of promised benefits will be able to paid (Social Security Trustees Annual Report).
Politicians and economists have been talking about the need to fix Social Security for years, but up until now no one has done more than talk. Finally, at least one person in Congress, Rep. Sam Johnson (R-TX), has proposed something. We don't agree with a lot of what is in his plan, but we salute him for at least proposing something. The Bipartisan Policy Center has also proposed solutions, some similar to Johnson's and some different. Soon to be President Trump said during the campaign
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
December 20, 2016 — Our friend and long-time member Dave E commented on one of our articles from 5 years ago today – the “Two Places Retirement” strategy. The idea of retiring to more than one place, which snowbirds are so fond of, is an interesting topic that many folks…
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