You want to look for a better America for yourself in retirement. Finding a small town can be just right for many retirees who want to slow down and take things easy. The Boston Globe has rounded up a list of the best small towns in New England, including ten that just might be the right place for you. Here they are: A town in Massachusetts made famous by Norman Rockwell is the most charming small town in America, according to Big 7 Travel. Stockbridge in the Berkshires ranked No. 1 on the travel website’s list of 50 most charming small towns in America, released earlier this month. Big 7 … [Read more...]
Escape the City: Live Small, Cheap, and Safe in America
After decades of urbanization, Americans are beginning to rebel against the "bigger is better" mentality of city-living. Seeking a smaller, more affordable, sustainable, and secure lifestyle, some are venturing out from the mega-cities in search of a different life. A number of techniques have become popular in an effort to save, especially scaling down the size of one's home. Living small and saving big is even better when it's coupled with living in a state that treats you more like a human than an ATM machine it can withdraw money from. Carey L. Biron explains this trend at Thompson … [Read more...]
Your Retirement Life: Living Small and Saving Big
One of the first things you notice when moving from a high-tax coastal blue-state to a low-tax red-state is how much farther your money goes. You can buy a bigger house for example, but you don't need to. I’ve been following the small house movement for years and I enjoyed this piece written by Katherine Roth for the AP on finding one the “right” size. She writes: With the current trend toward de-cluttering and downsizing, there are plenty of books about how to winnow down possessions to the few that are truly necessary and loved. This book shows how you can live well once that’s … [Read more...]
Don’t Let Your Retirement Dream Community Become a Nightmare
When it comes to your living situation in retirement, there are developments (literally) that may turn your idyllic retirement community into an “anywhere in the USA” suburb. As liberal states like California, crush the middle-class, neighboring states such as Idaho, and towns west of Boise like Star, pick up the slack, explains Dan Frosch in the WSJ: Over the past nine years, Star’s population has doubled to more than 10,000. Most of the growth has come from people like the Turnipseeds who uprooted from the West Coast to the greater Boise area—known as the Treasure Valley—drawn by the … [Read more...]
You’ll Love This if You’re Dreaming of an Active Retirement Life
My clients are ski bums. Well, not exactly, considering they own their own place in the Tetons. But rising before dawn, queuing up for the first tram, especially on powder days, is a ski bum’s life. That’s why it was no surprise to receive this email: Hi EJ! Snow over a hundred inches so far in 2020! Every day a powder day! Several more days for this storm cycle! We have been very happy with your care of our financials. Skiing has been fabulous. More powder tomorrow! Will give you a call when we come up for air! When they get home in the spring, to Lake Champlain, they … [Read more...]
Migration: Where High-Tax State Exiles Are Going
“Where are high-tax state exiles going?” asks the WSJ’s Review and Outlook. “Zero income tax Florida drew $16.5 billion in adjusted gross income last year.” It’s a trend you and I have been watching for years and will continue to see as Democrats ruin the fiscal health of the states they’re leaving. The good news is that the inflow will give states like Florida more representation in D.C. The bad is they packed bankrupting politics in the U-Haul. The Editors at The Wall Street Journal write: Many have also fled to Arizona ($3.5 billion), Texas ($3.5 billion), North Carolina ($3 … [Read more...]
Guess Which States Americans are Moving To
Every year United Van Lines performs its National Movers Study, analyzing where people are moving to, and where they're coming from, to get a picture of the trends for each state. This year, like last year, Vermont won the highest percentage of inbound traffic. Vermont Business Magazine was happy to announce this, writing "Vermont is the only state to have achieved greater than a 70 percent in-bound rate, which it has done the last two years (74.3% in 2019 and 72.7% in 2018)." You can see on the map below that Americans mostly moved out of states with high taxation (California, NY, … [Read more...]
Best and Worst Tax States in 2019: A Quick List Retirees Need to See
UPDATE: With 2019 closing, it's a good time to take stock of your financial situation. Are you being held back by the heavy taxation in your state? Is it possible for you to escape by moving to a different locale? If so, here are the lists of the best and worst states for taxes in 2019. Read with care. In retirement, there's nothing that can affect your standard of living more than taxation. Property taxes, taxes on your investment income, and even sales taxes can make all the difference in your ability to pursue the retirement dreams you've been working toward for years. Each year … [Read more...]
Gold/Silver Coins No Longer Allowed in Safe Deposit Boxes
A son of long-time subscribers to Richard C. Young’s Intelligence Report emailed me last week about a letter his parents had received from their bank branch. Not a phone call to set up a meeting, a letter. According to him, the bank sent the letter to his parents stating that no gold or silver would be allowed in the bank’s safe deposit boxes. There was no explanation for the change in the letter. The note wasn’t from a small local bank on Main Street, USA. This bank is one of the biggest players in the world. Its regional branches extend like tentacles to every street corner … [Read more...]
Your Retirement Life: This State is Dominant Once Again
You’re familiar with my piece Rich Grandchild, Poor Grandchild. Now I want you to shift gears and think about which states are the rich states, and which ones are the poor states. “For each of the past 12 years, Arthur Laffer, Jonathan Williams and I have answered that question in ‘Rich States, Poor States,’ an index of economic competitiveness published by the American Legislative Exchange Council. Every year the top performer has been Utah,” explains Stephen Moore. Yes, that's right, the winner once again is Utah. On a recent ski trip to Utah, my family experienced firsthand why … [Read more...]