Category: Health and Wellness Issues
June 3, 2015 -- It is one of America's fastest growing sports, attracting legions of new players from baby boomer ranks. Compared to tennis it is easy to pick up, doesn't require as much stamina or range of motion, and is fun from the get-go. Yet all is not perfect in the state of pickleball.
Symptoms of the fallout occured in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat recently, which recounted issues concerning expansion of pickleball facilities at the large (3000 unit) Oakmont active adult community there. The article, "Oakmont in a Pickle over Pickleball", chronicles the troubles that occurred as the
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Published on June 2, 2015
Comments 17
Category: Financial and taxes in retirement
May 30, 2015 — One of the most important subjects about retirement is how much you can take out of your retirement funds. Withdraw too much too soon, and you run out of money for your old age. Take out too little, and you shortchange your fun - plus leave more than you intend to your relatives and/or the government. This article will explore some new competing theories to the popular 4% rule, which has long been viewed as the gold standard for retirement withdrawals.
One of the key assumptions about the 4% rule, which theorizes you can almost always withdraw 4% of your retirement savings every year without danger of exhausting them, was that your investments would at least earn something close to 4% over the long haul. The so called 4% rule is credited to
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Published on May 29, 2015
Comments 55
Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
May 18, 2015 -- When you think Florida, is your image one of a north-south string of strip malls, punctuated by boring developments full of old people? If so, you would not be alone. But we are about to show you that Florida has more than its fair share of interesting, offbeat, even funky towns - places that completely defy the stereotypes. While they might not be for everyone, they might be just the place for some boomers looking for a retirement location that matches their personality. This is Part 1 of a series; you can find even more funky FL towns in Part 2.
First of all let's define what we mean by funky (and we realize you might have a different
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Published on May 26, 2015
Comments 10
Category: Family and Retirement
May 23, 2015 -- Americans are crazy about their pets. There were 164 million pets in the U.S. in 2012, according to the Humane Society of the U.S., with about 62% of households having a pet. Pet ownership for retirees, however, is a little different than it is for younger Americans. The Retirement section of the New York Times recently did a feature, "Pets of the Golden Years", which profiled some of those differences. This article will highlight some of the issues that affect retirees and their pets (see end of article for our previous articles on this topic).
Some differences
For starters, a smaller percentage of retirees own pets than
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Published on May 23, 2015
Comments 57
Category: Retirement Real Estate
May 15, 2015 -- Looking for a place to retire where your housing dollar gives you the biggest bang? If so the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Opportunity Index, which ranks U.S. metros by housing affordability, might just have your answer. All of the top 10 most affordable markets are in the Midwest or Northeast, not such great news for retirees looking to retire in warm weather. The price of homes in these Metros ranges from a low of $75,000 (Springfield, OH) to a high of $105,000 in Sandusky, OH. Another problem with these "most affordable" Metros - none of them has inspired us enough to write them up as interesting
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Published on May 15, 2015
Comments 26
Category: Singles and Retirement
April 28, 2015 -- Last month we asked our single Members to share their thoughts, experiences, and dreams about where they would like to retire. This article summarizes and categorizes what you told us in over 80 very thoughtful Comments (which included a lot of back and forth between commenters). But please don't stop here, read all the Comments in the original article. You will also find many interesting links for singles looking for solutions to where and how to live in retirement at the end of this article.
Conclusions/Observations
There is a diversity of opinions expressed by our members about various aspects of retirement for singles, yet remarkable agreement on a number of other issues. Here are some
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Published on April 28, 2015
Comments 47
Category: Retirement Planning
By Jan Cullinane and John Brady
Note: This is Part 2 of a 3 part series. See bottom of article for links to the other two.
April 16, 2015 -- In Part 1 we published detailed answers to the first two questions we asked our panel of six retirement experts - where they chose to live, and why. In this continuation of the series at Topretirements you can read how they responded to questions about aging and long term care, how well they followed their own advice, and their tips on finding a place to retire and a successful retirement. There is a lot of wisdom and food for thought in their responses; we hope you will enjoy them and
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Published on April 18, 2015
Comments 4
Category: Health and Wellness Issues
Updated October, 2016 -- So you have saved all the money you need for a comfortable retirement, scoured the world and found the best to place to retire - great. Unfortunately, all that great planning means nothing unless you have the good health to enjoy your retirement. To keep yourself healthy enough to enjoy your retirement the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that all adults age 18-64 get at least 140 minutes of moderate aerobic exercise a week. That seems like a lot of time, certainly more than the average person is willing to put in. Fortunately there are a lot of great ways to get that exercise without having to become a gym rat.
Some of the ideas in the book by psychologist Elizabeth Lombardo, "A Happy You: Your Ultimate Prescription for Happiness" are pretty interesting and relatively painless. They make it easy because they incorporate a little bit of exercise into ordinary daily activities. Such as: Brushing your teeth - why not do some squats. Talking on the phone,
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Published on April 14, 2015
Comments 3
Category: Retirement Planning
By Jan Cullinane and John Brady
Note: This is Part 1 of a 3 part series. See bottom of article for links to the other two.
April 4, 2015 -- Most of us know by now that one size cannot fit all when it comes to choosing our best place to retire. Just look at the tons of books, magazine articles and websites that try to answer that very question. So at the suggestion of our frequent contributor, Jan Cullinane, we decided to take a different approach, and go right to the source by asking a half dozen retirement gurus, including the authors of this piece, Jan Cullinane and John Brady, where they chose to “retire.” The word “retire” is in quotes since most of these experts are still working (some more than others), although their work is free from the constraints of being tied
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Published on April 4, 2015
Comments 20
Category: Retirement Planning
April 2, 2015 --
By Jan Cullinane and John Brady
Retirement advice is not hard to come by – it seems like every website and newspaper will tell you how to do it. So we were intrigued when our frequent contributor, Jan Cullinane, suggested a different approach. Her idea was to ask a half dozen retirement gurus to describe their personal retirement plans and rate how well they followed their own advice. We think you will enjoy learning how they went about finding a great place to retire...where they decided to live... the areas where they think they planned well....and even where some felt they didn’t merit an A - in their own class! Note that due to the length of the various responses we have divided this into three articles. This is the Summary.
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Published on April 2, 2015
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