Category: Work and Volunteering
September 1, 2015 -- Note: This is continuing series. See the latest installment: "The Sharing Economy Could Be Your Ticket to a Comfortable Retirement".
Elaine (Brickhorse), a longstanding member at Topretirements, recently asked if we could write an article about working and/or starting your own business in retirement. We think it is a great topic so we have shared some thoughts about it here. Best of all, we look forward to reading the experiences, hopes, and dreams of all the great people who contribute to this website in the Comments section below.
Sure, lots of people dream about starting their own business. It sounds great: be your own boss, make lots of money, work when you want to, do something you love - there are many good reasons (or fantasies!) to be an entrepreneur. On the other hand there are plenty of negative realities to think about. This article will explore the pros and cons, as well as summarize some of the current best practices for how to go about starting your own business, large or small.
The Pros
We think there are at least 4 great reasons to start a business in retirement:
- Do what you like to do. We read
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Published on August 31, 2015
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Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
August 31, 2015 — Charles, one of our members, recently asked an interesting question: “Is 5000/month enough to live on”? To help answer it we have prepared a Retirement Income Survey. We had a great response to this survey, with almost 1500 people taking it. You can see our detailed…
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Published on August 31, 2015
Comments 28
Category: Travel
August 15, 2015 -- Note: This article by our frequent contributor Jan Cullinane was originally published by US News & World Report.
Retirees can live anywhere they want to, and it doesn't necessarily have to be a single place. Some retirees choose a life at sea, constantly moving from place to place on a cruise ship.
For example, Beatrice Muller lived on the Queen Elizabeth 2 from 2000 to 2008, when the ship retired from service. Muller was 82 when she began living aboard full time. Another retiree, Claire MacBeth, sailed on back-to-back Cunard cruises for more than a dozen years. And Lee Wachtstetter, 86, ditched her
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Published on August 25, 2015
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Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
August 18, 2015 -- Many of us don't have the interest, the background, or the perseverance to do a great job managing our retirement money. As a result, we often turn to a financial advisor for help with planning and making smart investment choices for the retirement funds that are so important to our retirement security. But before you sign up with someone from the yellow pages, that fabulous guy the boss recommends, or your brother-in-law, here are some things you should be doing to protect and maximize your nest egg.
1. Don't get fleeced
The sad fact is that there are many unethical people out there who would love to separate you from your hard earned retirement savings. They very often come with glowing references, testimonials, track records, advertising, and impressive credentials. And thanks to those weapons, thousands of
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Published on August 17, 2015
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Category: Family and Retirement
August 13, 2015 -- One of the unpleasant aspects of being a baby boomer at this stage of our lives is realizing that our own mortality is inevitable, after all. Loved ones and dear friends are starting to pass on in growing numbers... some day we are pretty certain we will too. Dealing with that loss has many difficult aspects, so this article launches a series of how-tos on the subject.
Nextavenue.org, one of our favorite websites, had some great articles on the topic recently. We will add our thoughts to two of those here, and provide you with
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Published on August 12, 2015
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
August 6, 2015 -- We are always pleased to see a "Best" list that is actually based on more than just someone's personal opinion. 100 Most Livable Small Towns from Livability.com, which is based on overall livability, is a great example. To come up with their list they claim to have examined more than 40 data points for 12,000 towns with populations between 1,000 and 20,000. One caution is that their "livability" list is meant for people of all ages, not just retirees. Fortunately, most of their criteria apply to everyone, with the possible exception of the quality of the schools. The four major criteria used were in the broad categories of Schools, Businesses, Health Care, and Real Estate options.
Some people might be disappointed that these towns are not necessarily the most inexpensive places to live. That wasn't a criterion, but on the other
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Published on August 6, 2015
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Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
July 28, 2015 -- If you were hoping for great news in the annual report from the Social Security Trustees, you will be disappointed - the program's trust funds will still be exhausted in less than 20 years. However if you were looking for a doomsday report, you won't find that either. Even when the Social Security trust funds are exhausted at the current projection date of 2034, current revenues will still be able to fund about 75% of promised benefits. But to avoid significant cuts to benefits, the program needs to be reformed sooner rather than later.
Here are some other facts from the Trustees Full Report:
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Published on July 28, 2015
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Category: Health and Wellness Issues
July 28, 2015 -- There is at least one good thing about getting to the ripe old age of 65 - you are eligible for Medicare! It pretty much removes the worry of finding health and drug insurance coverage, and you get this benefit at a very low cost. But if you make some of these common mistakes, you might not be eligible for it when you want it, or it might cost you more money than it should.
We think this article will be useful for people who have not yet signed up for Medicare as well as those who are already in the program. It is part of our series on Medicare and health care insurance. See the bottom of this page for links to the rest of the series.
But before we launch into the worst Medicare mistakes, here is a tiny background about Medicare:
What is Medicare, and who is eligible?
Medicare is health insurance for people 65 years or older, under age 65 with certain disabilities, and any age with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) or Lou Gehrig's disease. Medicare has four parts -- Part A, which is hospital insurance, Part B, which is medical insurance, Part C, which is Medicare Advantage Plans, and Part D, which
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Published on July 27, 2015
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
July 21, 2015 — We just updated one of our earlier articles, “10 More Affordable (and Nice) Places to Retire“. While we knew we have written on this topic several times, we were surprised to find out that we have published at least 5 different “affordable” lists. So we…
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Published on July 21, 2015
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Category: Retirement Real Estate
July 13, 2015 -- Some people dream of retiring in an expansive home with plenty of room for hobbies, friends and grandchildren. And others can't wait to downsize, get rid of 40 years of accumulated "stuff", and live in a manageable-sized home. This article is dedicated to those interested in the latter, especially to the folks who want to take it to a small extreme. The end of this feature had many resources to find out more about the tiny homes movement along with examples of - from TV shows to a Netflix documentary.
The average new single family home has grown and grown. In 1978, according to Wikipedia, it was 1,780 square feet (165 m2), but, despite a decrease in the size of the average family, the average home had bloated to 2,662 square feet by 2013.
Small... and then there is Tiny!
The small house movement generally refers to houses of less than 1,000 square feet. Tiny houses take that further, and are less than 400 sq. ft., with some
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Published on July 13, 2015
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