Retirees and near retirees...

[tvguy]

Never really gave moving any thought. We retired in July 2021.
Why did we stay here?
1) Been in our house 40 years and it's been paid for for 23 years.
2) Our Doctors are here
3) One child is here, one is 400 miles away (moved on the day we retired!) But an easy drive.
4) Our friends our here
5) I and 66, I was born and raised here and this is only the 4th house I have lived in, 2 with my parents, 2 with my wife
6) My wife is 66, lived here 56 years. She is an Air Force Brat who moved 12 times before age 10. As she puts it "I'm NEVER moving again, not even across the street"
7) The cost of moving is mind boggling. Close to $40,000 JUST in Real Estate sales commissions.
8) Too many of our friends and family members did move, and regretted it. And some found it financially impossible to move back.

 

[tony67]

15 years out is too soon to say - things can change at the drop of a hat.

At one point I was thinking Ireland - but things changed a lot their.
A few years ago I was looking at Poland - now with things going on over there its off the table.
I was also looking very closely at Portugal and I have done a few trips over for just that reason.
In the last few years that has become less of an option - too many Americans (and others) retired there and its made it tough on the locals.

Looking at states - same thing - 15 years is a long time.
property taxes can go up. That's a big one - I feel I will never own my house as I always have that to contend with.
They can start taxing social security - some states do - some don't.
Crime can go up and property values drop.
Political direction may change from your preference.
They can add a local tax. - My town wanted to charge a crazy amount to build new schools - but they sold all the schools over about 10 years ago and what happened to all that money? The reason it did not pass is all the retirees went out and voted against it.
They even had a special election in the middle of August when it could have waited for November - they figured they could pass it and no one would even know. Somehow the new school still got built...

Its not bad to start looking - but it can change much quicker than you think so plan but have a few backups.

 

[cvjw]

My husband will retire in 2 years. We are in metro atlanta. We will stay close - our kids are both here. We have toyed with the idea of moving - to the beach or the mountains. But truthfully, I don’t want to be that far away from my kids or parents. We are looking at the big canoe community.

 

[Praying Colonel]

DW & I should have <15 years to retirement. So not close, but getting there. Starting to think about WHERE to retire. I know I'm looking for someplace not subject to snow/ice (although the way things are going, that might be the entire US in 15 years.

So, what "sold" you on where you've retired/going to retire? Did you move? Did you stay? I know there are a LOT of factors, money, family, etc, but was there something for you that "sold" you on your location?

DW and I bought a home in a 55+ community in Florida. (There's a ton of them.) Warm weather, extremely nice people and easy to be very active, which was important to us in retirement. We visited a few times until we were sure about our decision.

 

[soccerdad72]

Good question.

My wife is set to retire from her firm at the end of 2024. While she'll probably do some part time work after that, she'll likely only do work that will allow her to work on her own schedule. I'm probably looking at 2027 for retirement, mostly due to health benefits (e.g. waiting until our kids are working full time and thus we can get them off our insurance).

We would like to be somewhere near where they end up landing (although possibly difficult if they go two different directions), but in general, we're planning on being snowbirds. We took our first step toward this goal last spring when we bought a lake house. My plan is for that to be our summer/fall home, then sell our primary house and buy something southern. There's been some debate and discussion regarding where that might be. My MIL is a snowbird in FL (Fort Myers), and she may require some care, so we might end up in that area, at least temporarily. I would prefer something a little more north of that, like somewhere in the Carolinas, but we'll see.

 

[tvguy]

15 years out is too soon to say - things can change at the drop of a hat.

No no no. 15 years out is NOT too soon. Certainly your plans can change, but for most folks, 15 years before your retirement 70% of your earning (and retirement saving) years are behind you.
Yes, you have to keep in mind that you may have to make some adjustments if things change, but you're sunk if you don't have a pretty strong frame work in place. In our case, we put off our retirement two years because health care costs soared after the "Affordable" Healthcare became law. It really was an unfortunate name, it should have been called the "Accessible" Healthcare Act. It made healthcare AVAILABLE with subsidies for many, but for us it added $1,000 a month to our healthcare premiums in the gap period between quitting work and being eligible for Medicare.

 

[sam_gordon]

15 years out is too soon to say - things can change at the drop of a hat.

I agree 15 years out is too soon to say "I'm going to retire at 'x'." I don't think it's too soon to be considering it.

Weather, location of kids, taxes, access to health care, access to travel, and cost of living are my "gut reaction" things to think about. I'm not ruling any place out because of politics, that can easily change many times between now and when/if we move.

Florida would be great for weather, but their insurance hassles have me concerned.

 

[tony67]

No no no. 15 years out is NOT too soon. Certainly your plans can change, but for most folks, 15 years before your retirement 70% of your earning (and retirement saving) years are behind you.
Yes, you have to keep in mind that you may have to make some adjustments if things change, but you're sunk if you don't have a pretty strong frame work in place. In our case, we put off our retirement two years because health care costs soared after the "Affordable" Healthcare became law. It really was an unfortunate name, it should have been called the "Accessible" Healthcare Act. It made healthcare AVAILABLE with subsidies for many, but for us it added $1,000 a month to our healthcare premiums in the gap period between quitting work and being eligible for Medicare.

I hear what you are saying but I feel15 years out I think its too soon to pick a location - even more so today.

You should be planning I agree.

As for the healthcare law - it was a huge windfall to the health insurance companies - the only reason I have not retired is healthcare costs - and this is for insurance that I cant find a PCP for within 30 miles of my home - I live 2 miles from a major hospital. And it seems like every year I have to change it as the plan I had is gone.

This is another reason I was looking at Portugal - health care is not bad there and private insurance is reasonable.
As an EU citizen it might cost me $50-100 a month and I may not even need it in my case - but id probably get it anyway.

 

[Christine]

Florida would be great for weather, but their insurance hassles have me concerned.

Yeah my parents just did their first renewal on their hownowner's insurance (they are in central Florida and not in an area that is known for problems) and it was a huge deal for them trying to get something reasonable. What they are saving in state taxes seems to be shunted over to insurance. A friend of mine was totally, abruptly dropped because their insurer left the state. That whole situation needs to stabilize.

 

[tony67]

Yeah my parents just did their first renewal on their hownowner's insurance (they are in central Florida and not in an area that is known for problems) and it was a huge deal for them trying to get something reasonable. What they are saving in state taxes seems to be shunted over to insurance. A friend of mine was totally, abruptly dropped because their insurer left the state. That whole situation needs to stabilize.

Yeah this is a common issue - you save on one thing but something else makes up for it.
New Hampshire has no Income tax, and raise a lot of money form the state liquor stores, but the property taxes can be ridiculous. Not sure its still like that but I think it is.

 

[barkley]

Everyone loves to bag on California, but 35 years in one house and I have a property tax rate of .25%. Plus solar panels so very small electric bill. I could not afford to move

that was a consideration when we moved from california but despite our current home's tax basis being close to 3x what our california home was based on we currently pay less than we were paying there in 2000. all those bonds, levys and special assessments added up (curious so i just looked-my prior home now has 15 additional city/county/regional charges on top of the base property tax ).

 

[HopperFan]

DH 6 mos out from retiring. Kinda surreal that it is almost here. Nothing whatsoever will change for me, I will still have all the responsibilities I have now. Right now we are lining up paperwork and having to engage lawyer to protect our son from threats from federal/state that DS will lose his benefits when DH retires.

We will keep our primary home we have been in 32 years. Paid off and the annual costs are so low it makes absolutely no sense to sell it to get less house for more expenses. Our vacation home is in FL and it will remain a secondary home even though DH will likely split his time. DS and I will go as often as we can but we have lifelong commitments here.

Florida costs are awful. My real estate taxes went up $1000 this year and they are considerably more than I pay here for much much less. Overall insurance policies, well you all know. I would never move there full time because there is zero value to us to make FL primary on retirement income.

 

[tvguy]

I hear what you are saying but I feel15 years out I think its too soon to pick a location - even more so today.

You should be planning I agree.

As for the healthcare law - it was a huge windfall to the health insurance companies - the only reason I have not retired is healthcare costs - and this is for insurance that I cant find a PCP for within 30 miles of my home - I live 2 miles from a major hospital. And it seems like every year I have to change it as the plan I had is gone.

This is another reason I was looking at Portugal - health care is not bad there and private insurance is reasonable.
As an EU citizen it might cost me $50-100 a month and I may not even need it in my case - but id probably get it anyway.

Well, 8 years before we retired we remodeled our home from our "family home" to our "retirement home", but I guess we would have gotten some if not all that money back if we sold the house.
And 3 years before we retired, we bought our "retirement" car. 1 year before retirement we decided we would be more comfortable with both cars being new, feeling that our 20 year old second car with 150,000 miles on it needed to be retired. But the cars would have stayed with us if we moved.
Yes, we have a friend who got ACA coverage in a town of 100,000 and not single provider takes that insurance. She was diagnosed with cancer, and had to travel 150 miles to providers who would take her coverage.

 

[DVCjj]

Though I desperately wanted to move to Florida, DH loves the frozen tundra of the Midwest and also one daughter would be left behind so it's out of the question. Plus in all honesty, FL has outpriced us. The time to buy was years ago.
The highways are very obviously busier (and nuts) with each trip and the construction industry is going wild. (and so are the home owners insurance rates and HOA).

The past 3 years (and in a matter of weeks will be 4 years), we snowbird in FL on the ocean and it's been a happy medium for sure. This year will be at least 3-1/2 months as I'm sure he will be getting antsy by that time.

I very much appreciate being there and he very much appreciates staying not moving from forever friends and family.
It's been a win/win as my misbehaving joints feel so much better in winter down South. (plus where we stay is 55 minutes from Disney. )

 

[Minnesota!]

Good question! I'm also interested in hearing what others have to say. I've been retired for a while but my DH will be retiring next year.

If you had asked me even 5 years ago, I would have said the Orlando area without hesitation. Warm weather, international airport, beaches nearby, 50+ retirement communities with built in activities and new friends, Disney APs ... what's not to love?

Welp, since then Florida's political climate has taken a hard turn to the right (opposite of my political views), housing prices are crazy and insurance rates, if you can even find a company to insure you, are insane. Like @kdonnel, we just may end up where our daughter settles with maybe a snow birding place for winter.

This! Florida took a hard right turn to crazy and so it is way off our radar. Bummer cuz the plan was always a cabin in Northern MN or WI and then a condo on FL.

We will probably keep the house we have, I don't see my youngest moving out for a while and I have 9 years till retirement. Then build on our land in NW WI and maybe get something small (trailer?) somewhere warm and not crazy? Not sure where that is these days.

 

[barkley]

Right now we are lining up paperwork and having to engage lawyer to protect our son from threats from federal/state that DS will lose his benefits when DH retires.

civil service retirement? dependant coverage? (i dealt with this w/my adult disabled son after my civil service retirement).

 

[HannaBelle]

DH and I plan to retire in years in 2033. We will both be 62.

We currently live in a suburb due north of Dallas. We have lived with in a 30 mile radius of Dallas for 50+ years and he is not interested discussing any type of move. All of our siblings, adult children, and my parents live with a 2 hour drive. It is unlikely we will move.

We will not downsize, I love hosting everyone at the holidays and having a house full of people with plenty of bedrooms and bathrooms for people to stay over.

My side hustle will become my retirement gig. I am a ceramic artist and very much looking forward to doing that fulltime.

 

[The Mayor]

I retired 5 years ago and am staying put. We live north of Boston on the ocean and even though I love summers and just barely tolerate winters these days, I'd never think of moving. Been here my whole life. Both sets of grandchildren live 10 minutes from us and we help with their care during the week. I would miss my children and grandchildren way too much to even think of moving away from them. We also have a tight knit circle of friends that we would miss if we moved.

 

[Forevermarypoppins]

RETIRED here!! If I had my way, I would be a snow bird 7 months WI /5 months AZ
IF we had the time ( we don't) we would have kept our condo in AZ. I LOVED it. We had 8 wonderful years of vacationing there BUT, life took us down a path we didn't plan ( our adult daughter and 8 yr old GS live with us). We are the responsible adults when my daughter can't be ( works 45 hrs a week retail all hours). The time in AZ ( only a few weeks a year) didn't justify the cost of keeping it any more.

 

[Travel60]

We've lived in MD for 40 years. Not a great state to retire in because everything is taxed.

When we retired, we bought a condo in Florida. Husband's idea was to spend 6 months and a day there to become resident for tax purposes. The longest we made it in 6 years was 4 months. I'm not going down there in summer and I want to spend Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter with kids and grandkids. Plus, I really didn't like Florida for several reasons. We sold 4 years ago.

We also own a home in the mountains of North Carolina. I think I could do 6 months there (or at least more than MD because we travel a lot). And kids/grands love to visit there. But, grands are in NY state. I want to be able to attend school and church events, etc. which is doable from MD. Plus, medical care is so much better in MD. So, we are still in MD paying high taxes.

DS and DDIL live in No VA and I've looked near them. Would like to be in a walkable area, Alexandria, maybe. I would like a condo so we have minimal maintenance and can "lock and go". But, Florida homeowners association made us leery of that.