For the past several years my husband and I have talked about what our future will look like after retirement. One of those topics has to do with location. Where are we going to retire?
Factors in Decision
It’s not that easy a question for us like it might be for some. We have four living children living in four different states. No grandchildren here (yet!).
We never intended our condo to be our forever home. It’s a two-story and we want a one story floor plan as we get older. Then the fact that Southern California isn’t necessarily elder-friendly is important to consider. It’s too spread out with poor transportation systems.
These reasons and more are why we’re not automatically locked in to here. We’re focusing on costs, family and location in making our decision.
Costs
It’s definitely more expensive to live in California than many other parts of the country. We can take the value of our home and buy three or four in some areas. Then it seems everything else just costs more (except fresh foods). Gasoline, services, medical care and entertainment are just a few of the categories that is priced higher than in. the middle of the country.
California takes care of its people but we all end up paying even if we don’t use it.
Family
As mentioned above just one of our “kids” is in driving distance. The only relatives in the county are one adult grandchild and my husband’s brother and wife. Everyone else has died or moved. This lets us leave without guilt or sadness.
Family is one reason we won’t move to Hawaii though (plus costs). I want to be no farther than a 6 hour flight from our adult children.
Location
If weather was the determining factors than we’d stay here for sure. No other city in the continental US has better weather. We also want to be close to beaches that are warm enough for me to swim in (there goes Washington and Oregon. California ticks that box but there are other places with not as great weather that are lower cost and close to beaches.
Our Plans
We’re going to start looking for our forever home once I retire from work. I might have started earlier but with the pandemic travel is out for us. We are leaning towards Florida but Texas and North Carolina are contenders.
What we want is a newer active adult community where homes are 1/3 to 1/2 price of our current home’s value. I keep a list of communities to explore and am looking forward to starting the community hunt.
Do you plan to relocate in retirement?
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