10 Worst States for Retirement!

...and then full-timers can always be in the best places!! :)

Just my 2cts but I'm convinced as long as I have money in the bank while I'm retired I'm in the best place to live. I can afford to go where I want (if DW agrees) and buy almost anything I want within reason. My wife has been encouraging me for years to take a golf vacation (the Bama Golf Trail) and she says she'll tag along and hunt antiques. Any place you are and any place you go is a good place as long as you enjoy the doing. So live and enjoy your time no matter where you are.

Bobbo wrote:

rockhillmanor wrote:
I'm 'real' surprised Tennessee is not on that list.

I stopped off in TN for a few days to look around at property and to stock up on supplies, food, etc. and by the end of the day I had paid $100.00 in TAXES!

I took a look at my receipts and their state tax is almost 10%. I got back into my MH and started heading further south!

I thought Tennessee was one of THE places most people like to retire to. :?

But TN has no income tax (unless you have over $2500 in investment income). Sales tax and property tax is it.

Most people that are retired do not earn enough income to be taxed (retired = no longer working) so income tax is not a factor in most cases.

I usually keep my discussions about gun on gun related forums but I would like to point out that all the things we enjoy are worthless if we are not alive to enjoy them. I worked a a cop for 20 years and retired due to injuries I received on the job. I have seen first hand what happens to people that were not able to defend themselves and the police arrived too late. One thing I take into consideration are states that have laws that allow me to arm and protect myself. I am 66 years old and suffer from numerous injuries I got as a cop and am no longer in any physical condition to protect myself without a weapon, not only does SC have a low cost of living it also has laws that allow me to protect myself.

I have noticed that most of these lists fail to take into account that older retired people are not able to defend themselves without a weapon and even in the best circumstances if help arrives within 5 minutes a lot of bad things can happen within those 5 minutes

And Michigan with it's new tax on retirement is not listed?

I think you can Google 'worst states for crime' and find different criteria. I find it funny that one of the reasons for Oregon being the worst state to retire in was crime and Oregon's ranked 38th. But states like SC and Tenn are usually on the list of best places to retire in and are always in the top 10 for crime. Do people that do these surveys ever live in these states?

All I can say is I looked at the 10 worst and the ten best and they really didn't use any of the metrics I use for where I want to live- my list would be just about opposite. I also notice that the much vaunted tax rates are only a couple of percentage points between top and bottom- not really enough to worry about. It's just who pays the taxes- is it on income, property or sales.

Lot of factors go into picking a retirement location, that fits a person individually. Many of the articles list Florida as being very desirable as a retirement location, weather, low taxes, no income tax, good medical care, etc. But even though we live here, and have for just over 10 years, it was not a good move for us to move here. I grew up on a ranch in southern Oklahoma, moved to Alaska for 25+ years to live in the rural parts of the state, then moved to western Colorado for about 10 years, then here.

Summer time in south Florida is miserable due to the heat and humidity, to me. I don't like the large population either. Every where I lived before was very sparsely populated but Florida is close to wall to wall people and gaining more daily. Florida is now the 4 largest in population of the states and is reported that it will pass New York state by 2015. Just too many people for me, but most articles don't address such matters.

The best advice I have read about retirement is to stay put in the location where you retire, if you are a long term resident of that area. When you move, don't burn your bridges and be locked in to the new place. When we were full timing for 2 1/2 years we met a group of RVers on the Gulf side of Florida that had moved south to Florida from the Great Lakes area. They hated Florida on a full time basis, so they had moved back to Tennessee to spend their summers and then to Florida for the winter in their RVs. They referred to themselves as "halfbacks". LOL Several of them stored their RVs in Florida and drove back to Tennessee in their car. One guy told me he had sold his truck and just had the storage lot pick up his 5th wheel.

A person has to figure out what they are looking for prior to moving. We have friends that love to golf, almost daily, so Florida works fine for them. If we didn't have young grandsons here in Florida, we would head back to western Colorado in a flash. Even now that most of the front range of Colorado has become more like a large version of the Republic of Boulder. The western slope is still somewhat sane, IMHO.

Maryland's motto is "If you can dream it we can tax it" and Give us what's in your wallet."

A friend of DD tells his friends that California does not have a high cost of living. It has a high weather tax.

I require weather at least as good as California. So far the only place I have been with similar weather is the French Riviera and I don't think it was cheaper than California.

My biggest requirements are no snow and low humidity.