Where do You Want to Retire... and Why?

I agree that everyone here is awesome. Lots of us come here to get away from politics. I am confident in that statement. The political discussions bleed into many threads and its not enjoyable or positive in any way. Prove me wrong and I will shut up.

 

Side topic: Not only do we need to think about the "where" aspect of retirement but there's also the "how".

The 4% rule says one can reasonably expect to withdraw 4% per year from their nest egg over a 30-year period with a 90% chance of not running out of money. This means $1M in assets will generate $40K/year of retirement income. Wanna retire early and need 40 years of income? You might need to drop that to a 3% withdrawal rate ($30K/yr). A million doesn't really buy you all that much....

 

Great info. Guess I aint retirin!

 

Gonna take that as a real Site compliment. Thank you Derek!
This thread is in the Free Zone and that is always dangerous. Although Free Zone is to mean anything not related to Mountain Bikes, I move towards great anxiety when we start crossing close to Religion and Politics.
Like music, the beauty of Mountain Bikes is it does not see age, sex, race, religion, and politics. We are a diverse group and the more the merrier!

I think that over time our little site has been conditioned to understand we can attack issues but never each other.
And even when we lose it, and I do that from time to time, we are quick to apologize and recover. This place brings me great joy and hope!

 

I'm gonna have to make a spreadsheet.

California absolutely fleeces investors, and you don't need to be Warren Buffet to be considered an investor. If you have a 401k, you're an investor. Capital gains are taxed like ordinary income here in CA. Doesn't matter if it's short term or long term... Most of us can expect to pay 9.3% to the state any time we sell investments. Arizona, however... Moving towards doing something absolutely unthinkable here in CA:

https://tucson.com/news/local/arizo...cle_ff2f7d69-cf32-57c8-941d-ab064ef7d33e.html

 

Wowtch! Go Arizona!

 

All these adventures/ misadventures make us who we are today! It’s all good IMO, I should have died long ago with all of the stupid things I’ve done. One of my fav quotes is by Hunter S. Thompson~

 

Ha ha, Yeah!
Like I have said, " I hope I don't run out of body parts before my last STRAVA segment of life!"
(yeah, that's a Mikie Watson quote... you can use it. )

 

Agreed. 1000x.

 

LOL, you won’t! Speaking of Strava, I’ve been hobbling around the block the last few evenings..next one I’ll use Strava

 

Good on you!
Don't do what I have been doing. Just got slapped by Dr. Bob.
Been over doing it, and put me back on the Walker for a week. All soft tissue damage that still needs to heal and I aint helping it. Go slow and just keep the blood flowing.

 

I could fill up pages and pages on this thread, but have held back from contributing for a variety of my own reasons. I have been retired for over 8 yrs. I am a certified personal financial planner, not professionally, since I don't want a job, but as an avocation. As part of a pro bono fiduciary level of service to a select group of family and close friends, I do retirement planning and have begun to see some of them make it to retirement in the last couple of years. I also know and converse with a large, varied group of retirees, many of whom are early retirees like myself.

A couple of short anecdotes...

One gentleman really wanted to relocate out of the area, for all the usual reasons. Sold his home and moved to a small town in New Mexico. It hasn't been that long, but he spends close to half of his time back here. Hard to tell how this is going to work out, but it doesn't seem to be working out as he anticipated.

Another couple have wanted to move to AZ for a long, long time. Both on the same page, they pulled the plug recently as planned, sold their home, bought a place in Prescott, moved in a couple of weeks ago all in the space of about 2 months. Plans have seemed to work out. Of course, they are just beginning.

A close couple, educators - early 60s, retired about a year ago. Happy to stay in place, no debt, in good shape for the foreseeable future. 2 weeks ago he threw a clot and stroked out massively. Survived, barely, and is starting the mind-blowing process of recovery.

Finally a couple I know intimately, retired early, in their mid to late 50s, also educators, hoping for a move to a pleasant place with similar goals to many of you. Away from here, someplace smaller, more enjoyable, nearer the coast, maybe central Cal. Lots of planning and dreaming over the years. Only, MIL is now 96 still living semi-independently in her home, relatively healthy but needs some assistance, shopping, paying bills, home maintenance. Who knew that we'd be holding out on our retirement due to family? Happy to do it. But not getting any younger and we had to move to get out of a really bad, deteriorating neighborhood. So now we have a nice place in a nice locale, and are essentially settled here for the foreseeable future.

If there is any takeaway, I'd say that while it is great to dream and plan, life has a way of throwing you curveballs. If you are many years away from realistically retiring, the future is probably too uncertain to know how things will shake out. Even when you get as close as 5 yrs out, the uncertainty is still very high. At the beginning of 2008, we thought we'd be retiring and moving away in mid-2009. Then the Great Recession smacked us upside the head and set us back a year. And forget moving away. Probably not going to happen. Retired nearly a decade and still faced with a boatload of uncertainty.

But I am into the pursuit of happiness which is a process not a state of being. I have been all over the world and have done amazing things and know that I can be engaged and interested in life anywhere. I don't know if I will be mtn biking in my 70s but realistically, that is not too far down the road. I hope I am still surfing in my 80s as it is a little more benign and less likely to end up with a visit to the ER. But bottom line at this point is that it doesn't really matter all that much. I look forward to this afternoon, and then my ride tomorrow, and then... Hope you get my point.

 

Point taken lines up with my thinking.

 

Point well taken. Life is full of uncertainties. But I also got to dream, so dream I will!
Thanks you very much for good perspective input Brothah Tom!

 

There is one slight advantage to staying in CA after retiring that I'm not sure is available elsewhere: the ability to carry your current assessed value to another home within CA of equal or lesser value; in other words, no reassesment upon purchase of the new place at the higher cost. There are lots of rules and restrictions, as is typical, but the above is the gist. Under Prop 60.

I've not done the math on that score, but I think moving where I am planning would still be financially advantageous.

 

School is out in August....

SLO is hot in the summer, but the central coast is nice.
I wouldn't mind having a place by MDO. Not for year round leaving ( I want to rotate seasonally).
My biggest issue with central coast is the distance to a major airport.

 

http://www.boe.ca.gov/proptaxes/prop60-90_55over.htm

Linked site contains a list of counties that have reciprocal agreements under Prop. 90. Good coverage in So Cal, not so much elsewhere.

 

Oh no Mikie! I think you and I are cut from the same cloth
Take it easy homie and I’ll try to do the same! Healing prayers my friend

 

Very well said! The future is never certain, health and happiness are really all that matter in the grand scheme.
Thanks for sharing

 

I know we were gonna swear off politics and stuff, but prop 5 is coming this November. If it passes you can take your tax base anywhere in the state. Better yet, take your parents’ tax base anywhere...

Folks in rural California already hate us, here we come to make it worse!

 

And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’

 

And there shall be wars, and rumors of wars, and nation shall rise up against nation. And there will be earthquakes in diverse places. And floods shall consume them. (That last verse may have been conflated from several...)

Revelations is so....comforting.

 

Sorry, this is kinda Cliff Clavin /final Jeopardy time, but you are paraphrasing mostly from the Olivet Discourse, in the gospels.

I just figured if we were already doing money and politics, how could religion hurt?

 

“If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.”

 

Well, poop. I completely missed pestilence.

And I got the wrong book.

 

@blixet, thanks for taking the time for that insightful post.

 

Good Omens is coming out soon, soooo-so looking forward to this!

 

In order for me to move to a house of equal or lesser appraised value... I'd have to move into a house one half as large!

....Or I could just move to another state, buy a beautiful house on a nice lake, and pay half the price!

 

Good article on many of the issues involved: https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-population-growth-20190501-story.html

 

No mention of taxes - or the recent tax increases