[This article is an excerpt from my book, The Quest for Retirement Utopia: How to Find the Retirement Spot That’s Right for You.] When you start thinking seriously about where you want to retire, there are dozens of factors you can consider. The number of criteria that your ideal retirement destination should ideally meet can…
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A lot of people, both retirees and those who are still working, enjoy vacationing on cruise ships. I have taken ten cruises that have carried me to Europe (five times), the southern Caribbean, Alaska, Hawaii, Tahiti, South America, and New Zealand/Australia. I have enjoyed them all immensely, especially the last three. Occasionally, a meme appears…
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When I turned 62, I celebrated by filing the paperwork to start receiving my Social Security benefits. This goes against the advice offered by the vast majority of professional advisors. Almost universally, financial advisors recommend delaying your benefits for as long as you can. Yet I have analyzed the numbers and pondered the non-financial aspects…
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What is your definition of a successful retirement? Obviously, there is no one-size-fits-all answer. Nor is there a right or wrong answer, although you could say that the best answer is a thought-out, well-defined answer that’s right for you, and the worst answer is no answer at all. Trying to define a successful retirement is…
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There’s a buffet restaurant a few miles from our home called Pacific Seafood Buffet. Most of the food is Asian, and the primary draw for us is the opportunity to eat all the sushi we care to eat for one price. Of course, there are a lot of other good dishes there too: tempura vegetables,…
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For many people, being retired doesn’t necessarily mean never working again. A growing number of retirees are choosing to start their own business. According to the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, a leading researcher on entrepreneurship, more businesses are started by people ages 55 to 64 than by those under 25. While it is often difficult for…
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Most people anticipate a retirement filled with travel, fulfilling leisure activities, and fun times with friends. But for some retirees, especially those who are older and less able to participate in an active lifestyle, retirement can become a time of isolation and loneliness. Fortunately, a growing body research suggests that owning a pet can be…
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When you retire, a wide array of new possibilities becomes available to you. You have the opportunity to create a life that’s determined by your interests, desires and priorities, unencumbered by the constraint of having to earn a living. Yet many people don’t take advantage of the possibilities that retirement offers. They just continue with…
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When you retire from work, you retire from pressure, stress, deadlines, performance reviews, boring meetings, and that annoying guy down the aisle who spends all day making personal phone calls that everyone can hear. But you will also leave behind something that is more important than you may realize: human contact. While most of your colleagues probably aren’t…
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Can Moving After You Retire Really Make You Happier?
If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you choose? For now, assume that cost is not a factor and you could afford to live wherever you want. Hopefully you have at least one place in mind, and maybe several. Now for the bigger question: Why? What characteristics of the place(s) you thought…
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