The email was happy, newsy, and wistful: my former co-worker Claudia has transformed jobs gladly, and is doing well, but she dreams of retirement on a daily basis. I could hear a lot of my pre-retirement personnel in Claudia, keeping in mind could had envisioned complete bliss in a location far away.
I wished to inject a note of caution in my own answer Claudia without dampening her spirits or her dreams for the future. More than three years into retirement Now, the dreams have leveled out to daily truth. This reality is great overall. But there are some considerations I’d like to run by Claudia — and other people dreaming of retirement — at a point when such information might make an optimistic difference. What would I encourage Claudia and other pre-retirees to consider? Carefully weigh money vs. If you are living on Social Security and savings, money dwindles faster than one dreamed ever.
Assuming you are healthy, it might be smart to think about working an extra couple of years if that can be an option, to obtain a higher Social Security payment, and to build savings. It’s a highly personal decision. If you feel time urgency, credited to health concerns or ominous chat of company layoffs, on the other hand, time may indicate more than money. It seems sensible to plan your exit strategy carefully.
Think financial diversity. Opportunities and Cost savings should be varied among taxable and non-taxable savings. The disadvantage of having all one’s savings in a 401K is that these funds count as income when withdrawn. This may lead to the taxing of your Social Security benefits if this money withdrawn makes you go over the quite moderate income limit for a tax-free Social Security advantage. Money taken from Roth accounts or regular savings is not taxable and doesn’t cause that income spike. Realize that what looks good on the surface might not wear well.
- Reduced Life-Cycle Costs
- The cost of local services should be paid for by consumer charges, i.e. a Poll Tax
- 1 Employee Write Up Form1.1 THINKING ABOUT Use It
- Are you a singular proprietor or specialist
You could find that you’d like to visit resorts in various locations for vacations. Life within an amenity-filled energetic adult community can be wonderful if you truly use the facilities. It can be great if you prefer the business of peers rather than more age-diverse community. But if you find being around a lot of people your age or older depressing, this will never be a great choice for you.
Also, if you envision having grandchildren visit frequently, check the guidelines about the length of stay allowed and children’s access to the recreational facilities. At some over-55 neighborhoods, children are allowed in community pools only certain hours of the day. At our community, children are not permitted to use sunlight City pools in any way, having to go over to the all-ages side of the development and pay to use the pool there. It’s recommended to know the guidelines — and to realize that these are typically very firm rules — before you make a commitment to buy. Avoid being hasty about moving to a fresh location. Try pension out where you’re currently living first.
Life in your present location might be quite different if you are no longer working. When Bob and I were imagining retirement, we could hardly wait to get out of our suburban planned community that appeared to be focused on young families while marginalizing seniors. We felt isolated, despite having resided in the same home for 29 years. Neighbors were so active commuting to faraway careers that there didn’t seem to be time for you to socialize.
We felt we had to move to be able to live in a far more elder-friendly environment. Therefore we shifted to a new Sun City in rural Arizona. There are a lot of reasons we’re happy that we moved: some lovely new friends, a larger, nicer home for fifty percent of the price of the old one, spacious areas, little traffic.
If we were doing this over, we might perfectly move here still. But we also might have waited a 12 months to observe how living a retirement lifestyle might play out inside our previous community. Everything was walking distance or a very brief drive. City buses and mature vans abounded.