Actor/comedian Jerry Seinfeld told a joke in his standup act: “My parents didn’t want to move to Florida, but they turned 60 and that’s the law.”
For sure, because of lower costs and warmer weather, for many years a lot of northern natives moved south in retirement.
Now other states are gaining in popularity. Bankrate.com released its annual 10 best and 10 worst lists of states for retirement.
Notes the article: “They’re north of the Sun Belt, east of California, west of Appalachia. Some are in the Midwest, a couple of states are in the West and one is ensconced in the South.” Bankrate’s criteria for best and worst: “weather, access to health care, cost of living, crime rate and tax burden,” along with a standard-of-living measurement.
Those surely are important criteria, especially for someone living on a fixed income. But there are other key criteria for those who are “pretired” to consider. Vitally important are aspects of living such as access to family, cultural life and the arts, sports, and community environment.
Gratefully, because of the mobility of work and of workers, some Americans now have more options than living within driving distance of the office. So they no longer have to automatically stop working at retirement and look for a cheaper place to live.
While there are many states to live in, there is also a range of “states” of work/retirement, if you pardon the pun.
What do you think: Is it important to you to move somewhere as part of your pretirement or retirement?
— Sharon Emek, Ph.D.
Founder and CEO
Work At Home Vintage Experts (WAHVE)