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Retiring But where?
OUTSIDEWAVE:
Well getting time to retire. But it is going to be a challenge. I spent the heart and soul and 27 years of my career. Building a business. Finally got there only to have a MF partner steal it out from under me leaving me with little to nothing to show for my the. Bulk of my life’s work. So I found my self starting over at 55 with nothing. Now 10 years later I am looking down the barrel of retirement. At that time lost the house in the recession.
The thing is I have lived in so cal since 1964 the same year I learned to surf. Now I am thinking about retiring. And have scraped together a paltry down payment. And am looking to buy a house. Most likely out of state I would like to be able to paddle. But maybe more along some rivers or lake. Looking at Oregon or Washington maybe. Maybe along the coast. So what are your ideas on where? Given this is going to be a low budget affair?
Zooport:
This is probably way outside of what you were thinking, but I am pretty happy in the Charlotte, NC area. Housing here is less than 25% of what it is in California and there's lots of lakes nearby. A small, but beautiful lake is just 11 minutes from my house. The drawback is that surf is 3 hours away and I rarely see really good waves by California standards. I have some pretty bad surf withdrawals, but I'm filling it in with all the other cool things to do here. If you are into mountain biking, you would be in heaven here.
OUTSIDEWAVE:
Hey zoo good to hear from you. It’s a thought. For sure thing is our family all the kids are out here in ca. And even though I don’t see them a lot we still see them. How are you adjusting to the colder winters. Did you get snow? I looked at some possible places. And they all have snow in the forecast. Wow!
Night Wing:
I think the West Coast is expensive. As an example, compare the housing prices in Oregon/Washington to say some places in the state I live in, Texas.
A great place to retire is near the small city of Port Aransas, Texas. PA is right on the coast though. But it not as expensive to live there as it would be in Oregon/Washington.
As of right now, gasoline is some where near $1.79-$1.95 per gallon (cash). Use a credit card for "convenience" and the gasoline is more expensive. Why is gasoline fuel so cheap? Because Texas has lots of oil refineries and these refineries make lots of gasoline. And a lot of this gasoline stays in Texas.
Housing prices are affordable too. My next door neighbor to the left of me paid $140,000 for a 10 year old used house (built in 2009) which has 3 bedrooms, 2 full baths, 2 car attached garage and the house has 2100 square feet of living area with a 500 square foot garage. His lot is about one-third of an acre.
Food is not expensive either. As for electricty, since my house is all electric, we pay $0.12 per kwh. My home is 1860 square feet with a 500 square foot attached garage and my January electric bill was ($230.63). City, school and county taxes came to a combined $1500 dollars. But I am a senior in age and get a homestead exemption. Texas has no state income tax either.
The only drawbacks; Texas has 6 months of Summer, 3 months of Fall and 3 months of Spring. My grass is starting to grow again and the trees in my are yard are starting to bloom.
Another drawback is the weather. Texas does get tornadoes and hurricanes. I can't do much about tornadoes, but hurricanes are manageable. I live 90 miles from the beaches on the Gulf Coast. Back in September of 2008 when Hurricane Ike's eyewall was 30 miles to the east of me, the wind speed at my house was 60 mph. Hurricanes lose at of their punch when they make landfall and start to move inland. This is why I live 90 miles from the coast.
And Texas is hot with lots of high humidity (if you live near the coast). Today's high temperature is going to be 70 degrees F. You can see what our temperatures for this week (which is close to me) are going to be. Not bad for almost the middle of February.
https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=30.2094&lon=-95.7508#.Vj6C1492Ols
And the surfing is good because most of our waves are wind generated. If there is no wind, you can always tanker bow wave surf at Port Aransas. With our mild winters, get yourself a wet suit and you can sup surf all year round. So if hurricanes bother you, live about 60 miles from the coast from Port Aransas.
BTW, the weather forecast for Port Aransas for the rest of this week is below.
https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=27.836&lon=-97.0682
The above is "food for thought".
PonoBill:
I started a book on retirement but never finished it. One of the big issues is where to retire. Oregon is a terrible choice as is Hawaii--both place that I have homes. So there's that. Washington is a bit better since it has no income tax, but retirees don't need to worry so much about income tax. Property tax and other expenses are a bigger deal.
Here's a link to as much of the book as I wrote. It's a bit of a mess, but there's some good stuff. https://retirement.pressbooks.com/front-matter/introduction/
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