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Desirable One-Bedroom Apartments readily available for less than $800 per month in somewhat safe areas
Dense, walkable neighborhoods where one could opt to do some errands on foot
Somewhat reliable bus transit if one opts out of car ownership (with the advent of grocery/restaurant delivery, Senior On-Demand Transit and Uber/Lyft, not the huge necessity it once was)
Extra points for college towns (although not to the point where one could feel alienated by not being university affiliated)
Climate and Taxation rates were not calculated. Climate is largely unimportant to me and taxation rates are not that far apart and often balanced by other expense factors
The List:
Alabama (Mobile), Arkansas - (Jonesboro, Little Rock), Arizona - (Tucson), Illinois - (Champaign-Urbana),Indiana - (Fort Wayne), Iowa - (Ames, Des Moines, Iowa City), Kentucky - (Lexington, Louisville) Louisiana - (Baton Rouge), Michigan (Kalamazoo, Lansing-East Lansing), New Mexico (Albuquerque), New York (Rochester, Syracuse), Nebraska (Omaha), North Carolina (Greensboro, Winston Salem), North Dakota (Fargo-Moorhead), Ohio (Akron, Canton, Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland, Toledo), Oklahoma (Norman, Tulsa), Pennsylvania (Williamsport), South Carolina (Columbia), South Dakota (Sioux Falls), Texas (College Station, El Paso, Lubbock), Virginia (Lynchburg), West Virginia (Huntington, Morgantown), Wisconsin (Milwaukee)
My parents moved to a rural area when they retired. Worked fine for their 60's, but by the time they were in their 70's it was a nightmare.
Their physician was a half hour drive and he was incompetent. Misdiagnosed one condition after another. He prescribed eczema cream for a large patch of basal cell carcinoma that required three surgeries to close by the time it was eventually correctly diagnosed. Ignored my father's low blood pressure and constant falling until he ended up in a trauma unit (two hours away) where they discovered he a brain tumor. He was so incompetent that several local nursing homes would not allow him to see patients at their facilities.
When they could no longer drive, they were stuck. Lot of scrambling around at that point to move them.
We have learned the importance of medical care in retirement. Our local regional hospital is fine for most things and is even expanding. I had a knee replaced here and when my wife almost died from pneumonia they did a fantastic job of getting her through it.
But the immunotherapy that my wife was undergoing here at the cancer center, while doing a magnificent job of eliminating the tumors, caused her immune system to attack her body. She wound up with an autoimmune disease which affects between 2.4 and 23 people per million.
Needless to say, this was beyond the local medical community. So we have been going to Vanderbilt Medical in Nashville which is about 90 minutes away for treatment of the autoimmune disease and now that the tumors are back for specialized cancer treatment.
The 90 minute drive over to Nashville once a month for the autoimmune disease and every other week for the cancer treatment, while not enjoyable, is doable for us. Last week at the cancer center, we spoke with an elderly couple in the waiting room who live in rural southern Kentucky who drive almost three hours one way for cancer treatment. They were saying how difficult medical care was where they live as they had to drive at least 30 minutes or more for just about everything.
So I guess I'll count our blessings that we wound up where we did in retirement
That said, it is easy in threads like this for a poster to hijack a thread, but I am very interested in your personal story because I am thinking it might not be that unusual. Maybe you might consider starting your own thread, "Retirement Planning That Has Not Worked Out Well". You are certainly not alone, although the details might be different.
But that being said, I am wondering what your net assets are* and IF you could move with your husband's health problems? Also, what kind of work could you (and possibly your husband) do if those kinds of jobs were available?
*Sometimes it is better to just liquidate real estate and start over IF that is possible. (My husband and I did that when we had to sell our house and could not in 2009, during the housing/banking crisis. I was 56 and he was 53, and we recovered completely within three years, but back then our net assets came to a negative $25k or so, when we ended up losing our house to a deed in lieu of foreclosure. However, my husband had a very good-paying job, and I worked 60 hours a week for a year until we could afford to buy another house in 2012, which we sold for double the price in 2020, when we retired.)
Yes I agree. Liquidating is best. Sorry I was in shock yesterday realizing our future would be much different than anticipated. I didn't include the Pension of between $200-$300 in that equation.
I have retiree health benefits for myself earned from a previous low paying job. Starts at age 65 for $30 a month so that helped keep expenses low
I have eye disabilities which messed many things up in life.
I would read things wrong, or my eyes would just give out.
I passed all eye tests, the typical ones by an optometrist, so couldn't understand what was happening.
They would only give out sometimes then it got worse
I could focus long enough to pass the tests but after so long, it can change
We must spend a good amount on organic/whole food due to this, we eat quality vegetables to keep my eyes strong.
I currently work at a chain grocery store 1 hr and 10 min away. They let me be a Courtesy Clerk for most of the shift and I deliver groceries to cars. It's Union so I can demand to be a Courtesy Clerk later in life where they only require 64 hrs a month for benefits for us. both. Right now it is 23 per week as a Multipurpose Clerk.. It's the one store which is the business chain grocery store in California so I lost a few pants sizes due to the physical work. I am very fit.
I earn $23.50 per hr but often have bonuses so probably $24 per hr for 24 hrs of work per wk. During winter, the commute was SO LONG. Having weak eyes it's a harder commute. I need a job I can go to afterwards to avoid the commute-, maybe a Hotel who would allow me to sleep & shower somewhere. They need workers bad in this tourist town so it may be possible
DH is a Painting Contractor but only works about 4-5 months a year and he's just slowing down all together pulling in less $$ overall. We should be okay. could easily catch up on the mortgage this coming summertime and if I can find an additional job to go to for 4 hrs after my shift and stay over, we'll be okay. It's only for the next 5 yrs or so when he takes his SS. He will keep working after that too
After liquidating all real estate, that probably leaves us about 175K. Maybe more. I was being very conservative at $150K. It may be possible to find some property with a fixer home on it we remodel but the key is there are only a few areas where the snow line is ...and a fixer on land would work.
The Power Company is at minimum, $70 per mo. whether you use power or not. So living in an off-grid town where there is no power means you aren't forced into paying the $70. That off-grid town had a landing pad b/c the road was so windy, one lane near a cliff that ambulances won't come here. That meant DH would be air lifted to a hospital FAST if there were any emergencies. $4 a month has us belonging to their CalStar membership for free air ambulance rides. This off-grid town was located in a. State Rec Area. It is paradise! There was really no downside except until now.
We dug aspring fed pond to raise Trout. We could've lived quite well over there....40 min to the local doctor taking the one lane back road which is never busy. Even Mr. Magoo can make it to the dr. dentist to a town of 10K
Elevation was just high enough DH could breathe but this was some years ago, it's hotter than this snowy town so we knew it wasn't as good for him but we though he could do it, it was cool enough, but not any more.
A Mobile Home would be too expensive. Just the space rent is about $800 per month. Unless it's a fixer on land. We'll need to keep a lookout at certain areas where the is snow is. One specific highway area is also a hop skip and jump to where-ever our disabled son may live. He has schizophrenia but battled it until age 32, He is highly educated and was high up with Apple. He broke his leg so couldn't;t exercise so one day he went bonkers. We need to check on him to ensure he is okay. My husbands brother had it too, but much worse. We have no family, came from smaller families already.
If the housing market dips, and even if we get bad credit not paying our mortgage here, we'll be okay. We'll slowly pay it back... We don't need credit for the future. We have an RV we can live in temporarily.
Maybe after this horrific worse snow since 1952, if we have a mellow winter, we may easily be able to catch up and he'll have a ton of work and extra time to get it done before winter sets in again. Where we currently live is not practical as a person ages. The other off-grid town was actually better. People live there fine until well into their 80's+ Anyhow I better get ready for work. Hope you have a blessed day
Last edited by Pip-Squeak; 05-29-2023 at 10:22 AM..
i won’t live anywhere i wouldn’t vacation and panama is not a place on my vacation list
I've transited the Panama Canal a number of times. The sun is fierce. I understand one can go up in the hills for cooler weather but I'm not tempted. Others may feel differently.
To those who keep recommending foreign retirement for the cash-strapped, please consider: persons who find themselves in parlous financial condition have probably struggled with all sorts of logistical puzzles in life. They may be intelligent, thoughtful people; but their street-sense, their capacity to size-up situations and to maximize outcomes, probably isn't so keen. How then, are such folks going to negotiate international relocation, adapting to a completely new environment, figuring out healthcare and transportation and housing and rudiments such as where to buy fresh vegetables? It's akin to telling a person who struggles to boil an egg, to learn how to bake gourmet wedding-cakes.
"Retire abroad" works for footloose, outwardly-minded adventurers. Folks who did a backpacking trip 50 years ago, who trekked through Pakistan back when local restaurants still served wine, who saw bullfights in Spain back when Franco ruled it, who saw the Berlin Wall back when it was a canvass for graffiti, who hiked the Great Wall of China before Nixon's photo-op. These are the people who'd thrive retiring overseas... not the folks now struggling with rising rent, who unluckily earn too much for Medicaid but who can't afford car-registration.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Serious Conversation
It's 80%+ Republican, and mostly "hardcore" at that. If you don't fit that mold, it's hard to find a social group.
I'd argue that it's less about politics than about culture. People who graduated from college, vs. those who didn't. People who have traveled overseas, vs. those who haven't (see above). People who speak several languages, vs. those who aren't literarily conversant even in one. People who read for pleasure, vs. those who rely on television. Political divides can be breached. Cultural or class divides, are far harder to breach.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Serious Conversation
I'm always shocked when people recommend very rural areas for older people....
One reason is that the remaining residents in impoverished rural areas tend to be elderly. The perception is that newcomers would fit-in, strictly by age. This is abjectly false! The locals have been local for a lifetime. They have a support network and an ingrained sense of what to expect, how to behave and how to abide local limitations. Newcomers don’t.
There’s also the trope of the young suburban family going in summers to the countryside, to visit grandma, for a rejuvenating family-outing, getting the kids to commune with nature. Grandma bakes from scratch, churns her own butter, and harvests farm-fresh eggs. Mythical grandma may be adept at this, but real-grandma… maybe not.
One popular option for seniors on a budget is a mobile home in a park.
There are a number of such retirement communities in our area. Affordable, one level living.
I'd be uneasy, as it is not unheard of for park owners to sell the land, which means the owners are SOL. Often can't sell their mobile home or move it to another park.
There are some parks where the land is owned by the residents. That seems like a better situation.
You definitely don't want to live in a mobile home park that is not owned by the residents. There's some listings in Tennessee for mobile homes. Some of them are less than $50,000 and look in fair condition.
But as Serious Conversation pointed out there's no jobs there's little chance of higher pay or full-time work. And of course, yes, some of them are 3 hours away from Knoxville. It's a cheap area but not for retirees with health problems.
It's insane for a company to build a plant in the middle of nowhere and expect to draw good talent. It's definitely not worth their time to build unless the potential of good results is there.
I spent a year and a half in Cabool Missouri and there was very little work in that town, other than two large employers (Cabinet maker and dry milk plant). Houston Missouri there was more diverse work and Mountain Grove and a few other small towns besides them but it was definitely hard Scrabble and you had to drive basically everywhere.
The only major hospital was Texas county memorial hospital. I guess surprisingly it's considered a level 3 stroke trauma hospital. I know I went there once for an emergency, and got good treatment quick and fast. So I guess that would be a good choice for someone who has strokes in their medical history.
Desirable One-Bedroom Apartments readily available for less than $800 per month in somewhat safe areas
Dense, walkable neighborhoods where one could opt to do some errands on foot
Somewhat reliable bus transit if one opts out of car ownership (with the advent of grocery/restaurant delivery, Senior On-Demand Transit and Uber/Lyft, not the huge necessity it once was)
Extra points for college towns (although not to the point where one could feel alienated by not being university affiliated)
Climate and Taxation rates were not calculated. Climate is largely unimportant to me and taxation rates are not that far apart and often balanced by other expense factors
The List:
Alabama (Mobile), Arkansas - (Jonesboro, Little Rock), Arizona - (Tucson), Illinois - (Champaign-Urbana),Indiana - (Fort Wayne), Iowa - (Ames, Des Moines, Iowa City), Kentucky - (Lexington, Louisville) Louisiana - (Baton Rouge), Michigan (Kalamazoo, Lansing-East Lansing), New Mexico (Albuquerque), New York (Rochester, Syracuse), Nebraska (Omaha), North Carolina (Greensboro, Winston Salem), North Dakota (Fargo-Moorhead), Ohio (Akron, Canton, Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland, Toledo), Oklahoma (Norman, Tulsa), Pennsylvania (Williamsport), South Carolina (Columbia), South Dakota (Sioux Falls), Texas (College Station, El Paso, Lubbock), Virginia (Lynchburg), West Virginia (Huntington, Morgantown), Wisconsin (Milwaukee)
An apartment in Texas for $800 a month in an urban area? Provide details, I do not believe you. Most apartments provide a subsidy if income is 31k or less for one person. I bring in about $300 too much for a housing subsidy, but not enough for the typical 1 br apartment market rate unit here in DFW area, where the rent is $1200-1700....
Desirable One-Bedroom Apartments readily available for less than $800 per month in somewhat safe areas
Dense, walkable neighborhoods where one could opt to do some errands on foot
Somewhat reliable bus transit if one opts out of car ownership (with the advent of grocery/restaurant delivery, Senior On-Demand Transit and Uber/Lyft, not the huge necessity it once was)
Extra points for college towns (although not to the point where one could feel alienated by not being university affiliated)
Climate and Taxation rates were not calculated. Climate is largely unimportant to me and taxation rates are not that far apart and often balanced by other expense factors
I have an apartment building, I have tenants in one-bedroom one-bathroom apartments [with kitchenette of refrigerator, microwave, and hotplate], shared laundry room, heat and electricity are included for $450 a month.
An hourly metro bus stop bench is immediately in front of the building.
4 miles from a State University campus.
Old Town, Maine.
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