-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A few weeks ago, Scott sent the attached note on the woman who plans to spend her life on cruise ships. Selecting a location is pretty important. Here are some comments from personal experience and observation of others.
FRIENDS LEAVE, DIE, OR BECOME INCAPACITATED
When you retire, you may find that a number of your close friends have moved away. The location where you retire may not be what you want for your final destination. We were surprised at this change when we retired in PA.
GETTING NEW FRIENDS
As you get older, making new friends in many locations becomes difficult. We have found it much easier to make friends in Sarasota due to the number of older people. Also, there are a lot of cultural activities driven by older people. Cultural things offered are both free and expensive. You can do a lot on little, or you can spend a bunch on cultural things here. We have a house in Sarasota in a neighborhood that was originally filled with retirees. Over the past 45 years, all of the original retirees are gone and the houses are now filled largely with younger families. Sarasota as a whole has a lot or retirees, but our neighborhood does not now have many retirees.
Places like Sun City and the Villages are retirement communities. That probably would never have been my choice, but the people we know who live in those locations love it. There are a lot of activities available. It is also easy to make friends in those locations.
There are retirement communities in many locations which can move from independent living to assisted living to nursing care. This solves problems of future developing limitations. Sun City offers the same type of transitional living.
MOVING THE FIRST TIME
Many people who move upon retirement end up moving again because of poor planning. This can even happen on a later move. The best thing to do is rent in a location where you think you may want to move to be sure you will like it before you buy. This also gives you a good opportunity to look at property in the area.
FAMILY
Our main reason for moving from PA to Mi was to be near our daughter. Otherwise, we would have stayed in PA or moved totally to FL. This worked out great for us because of our good relationship with our daughter. Being around the grandchildren while they are children is a great experience. I wish we made the move earlier, but we were concerned about possible job location moves for our son-in-law.
Some friends bought a winter home in CA and maintained a home in PA. The idea was to be close to a daughter and grandchildren. Unfortunately, the daughter and her husband have been moved to SC. It was great while it lasted.
We have friends who moved across the country to be closer to their daughter. Unfortunately, they did not get along with their daughter, and ended up moving back.
TAX ADVANTAGE AND PERMANENT RESIDENCE
The tax situation is something you may want to consider. FL has no income tax, and the tax situation is very good. You need to live in the state six months or more to avoid problems with your second residence if you have one. In our case, we opted to maintain our permanent resident as MI since our daughter is located there. We decided that if we needed assistance at some time, we would probably best retaining our permanent residence as MI. Changing permanent residence twice gets messy in legal planning.
INHERITANCE AND MOVING
If you move your permanent residence, legal things such as wills, living wills, authorization for medical control, and trusts will probably need to be completely redone. For example, the document to direct medical treatment in case of incapacitation is totally different in MI vs. PA due to the differences in laws. It is very important to get this straightened out early.
CLUTTER AND "JUNK"
My wife and I are pack rats and we like old family items we have accumulated over the years. We got rid of some things when we moved to MI, but not as much as we should have. I really don't care -- I like the stuff even when it is in boxes. I get a warm feeling getting close to a box I know is filled with these old treasures.
HOWEVER, if you are not infected with my pack rat disease, I suggest that you really unload as much as you can. Do as I say, not as I do. You don't need near as much for entertaining when you are older, and the more you have, the more time you must spend on taking care of it or moving it out of the way. Most of the things we have are not really needed or seldom used. We like it that way, but it is not practical.
If you have things of real value that are not needed, it may be well to sell them before leaving them for you children. Children may toss valuable things in a dumpster when they take over your estate.
HOUSE SIZE
We have three bedrooms in MI and two in FL. Actually, we could do very well with one bedroom in both cases, but if you expect visits from children and grandchildren, you may want the extra bedrooms.
We rarely entertain or have overnight guests. The reason is that my wife is not as healthy and energetic as she was even ten years ago. We would like to have guests and we would like to entertain more, but my wife's health and energy shifts a big extra load to me, and between the two of us such entertaining and guests is more than we want to do. I hope that changes, but I am not optimistic.
No comments:
Post a Comment