Will you move when you retire???

Pixie, couldn't believe how great your taxes were---CT sucks! We are paying close to $6,000 a year, with only garbage pickup & a leaf dump---our road is a disaster, we have a volunteer fire & ambulance corp, a few cops who like to hang out at the dam, & and not much else---our senior center is in the basement of town hall.

that is really nice

cross posted Robin.. sorry .. we are $6800 and have to pay extra for water/garbage/sewer .. but they do take good care of our roads

We pay for private garbage pickup. Volunteer fire. Highway dept is horrible. Overpaid cops - $95K per year. The chief makes well over $200K for overseeing a dept of just 28. A single precinct in NYC is much bigger and the NYC police commish makes about $170K. Crazy.

Whoa - that doesn't seem right, does it!?!

11K is crazy but 36K is INSANE!!!! Some place in NJ are like that. There's a town in South Jersey that jumped 120% from the year prior and the majority of the residents were retirees that were forced to move.

We'll be here 6 years this August, we have almost an acre and it's gone up $2000 in that time and it's all in school tax our township tax has remained the same. We have 2 garbage pick ups and recycling pick up every other week, free mulch at the eco facility, mix of volunteer and paid fire depts. We were listed as one of the top 10 safest cities in the US. So guess that says something about our police force.

my neighbor Barbara always freaks out... if someone calls the cops for whatever reason 4 or 5 cars show up.. boy does she flip out ... always says if they have nothing better to do why are so many on staff at the same time... gotta love her

Teachers make over $110K, not including any after-school programs. This is for 180 days of work. They don't pay into their healthcare at all and most are retired in their early 50's! Different world.

Oh yeah, we paid $7800/yr

your property is bigger ... but I thought you would be cheaper down there.. guess not

In the same county with our Capital???? ummmmm No.

I pay $6k/ yr 95% of that goes to education and the kids still haven't learned how to dress for the weather! The cops here start at 57k and go to 100k after the 1st year, that's a lot of doughnuts!!

I was born and raised in NH; I couldn't imagine leaving. I'm about 45 mins from Boston, 45 mins from the ocean and 1.5 hours from the White Mountains. Winter is about one month too long, but otherwise I can't really complain.

The cops here probably make that now too. The 95 figure was from a few years ago.

Wish I had the patience to be a teacher.

You can learn patience while you are teaching them.

Wish I could, and would do it if I could specify 3rd to 6th or 7th grades, but you can't.

why those grades?

Younger and you're just a babysitter. Older and they are smarta**es already and your hands are tied.

ok then

Yeah too bad they did away with corporal punishment.

Another interesting topic Victor! I love where I live, and have put almost everything I have (both $s and energy) into this place. I have 35 acres of unspoiled woodland in the foothills of the Catoctin Mountain range. For years, Loudoun County, VA was listed as one of the nation's fastest growing areas, but two years ago the housing market crashed. It is so bad that foreclosures of the 1000's of McMansion houses that sprang up with buyers who had dubious mortgage qualifications are a dime a dozen.

I bought 10 acres of land back in 1988 before the growth, and built the house in 1991 - 1992. Even then, it was fairly expensive compared to other areas of the country. During the housing boom, 25 acres of adjoining land came on the market - I was so worried that it would be bought up by a builder, and I'd have a zillion houses surrounding my once peaceful retreat. I took a financial plunge and bought the additional 25 acres when the housing market was at its peak, so now I have payment obligations that will be tight on my retirement salary.

My plan is to stay here if at all possible. I love the seasons, and I love the natural beauty of the woodland, pond, and creek. It has always been so refreshing after the chaotic workday and long commute to DC. My brother and two sisters live nearby (we are all within a 15-20 mile radius), and back in the late 1990s, my retired parents bought 30 acres that adjoin my original land to be near us. Even if suburbia encroaches, we have 65 acres of wooded buffer and the natural wildlife habitat that keeps my little corner of the world rural. However, there will be financial concerns as well as my ability to maintain the large house and this much land as I get older. There are always options like selling a few acres once housing market picks back up and finding help with the maintenance by offering room and board in exchange. We'll see. If I do have to leave down the road, I would want to go someplace with the same climate and definitely rural - maybe southern VA, TN, or NC. I've always liked the idea of Maine, Alaska, Montana, or the Dakotas, but the winter season is just too long in those places.

Oh, property tax here for me is $9k for the house and 1 acre - the rest is in forestry management and property tax for 34 acres is a mere $50 bucks.

Grew up in WI, but married & moved east. Badger homeland was 50 yrs ago.

DW wanted to live near the shoreline. Unfortunately the site she found had poor soil for gardening, so several truckloads of weedy topsoil later, here we are.

Weedy topsoil? I hope you got it cheaper.

Check this out… a few yrs ago my SIL who lived alone decided to retire after the company downsized and she lost her job. She lived in upstate, NY. She had been getting getting headaches and blurred vision so she when to the optometrist in Pearl vision to get a new pair of glasses and have her eyes checked. The optometrist found an abnormality which he referred her to another specialist in a hospital to have it checked out, several specialists later they found out she had cancer of the pituitary gland. Her health ins ran out 6mos after leaving her job, (1mo before she found out she had the cancer). The operation was successful and they removed the cancer, (and the pituitary gland with it). She lost her life savings to medical bills, had to sell her house and move down to live with her sister in Fla. -And is now on a slew of meds which make it hard for her to concentrate/ drive / work and of course has the MD bills for monitoring the meds and her condition. She now works part time and lives from paycheck to paycheck and is over 60yrs old.
…Ya never know what’s going to happen…

Did she try to get finincal aid? Most states gets grants from the feds and then distributed to hospitals. The hospitals have to use it up.

Speaking of eyes - my stupid eye and I went to the ER about 2 months ago. They looked in my eye gave me a RX and sent me home. 510 bucks. I got the aid papers before I left. With our income wich is not very much they will pay 100%. Plus I got a card that I can go to the hospital free for 6 more months.

I'm sure she must have by now, she's been there about 5yrs now... but she can kiss her retirement goodbye.

- Good to hear you're getting that eye taken care of! ... medical bills are crazy expensive.

That's awful, WC.

the NE forum was sure busy last night!

just under two acres here backing up to a farm/fields - $4,100 in taxes - no rubbish or sewer, only a couple full time fire the rest is volunteer, not sure about the police maybe a dozen or less, regional high school.

just under three acres here backing up to woods on 1 side and neighbors on the other. 4,100 in taxes - no rubbish or sewer. Full time paid fire/police. 1 high school, 1 middle school and 2 elementary schools.

Nice to hear people's properties backing up to woods. Mine backs up to other people's properties!

unfortunately for me i have neighbors with less than pleasing views - on one side is the sarengetti, although they are slowly landscaping it with bushes and trees, although no lawn
across the street partially blocked by trees (come on hemlocks GROW) at the nice new home the people have decided to use their gargage driveway, and part of the yard for storage so they park 2 pick-ups on the street and two cars in the driveway, just a shame
next to them is a old cottage type house and unattached small barn that should be bulldozed, thier yard currently has a dozen huge felled oaks lying on the ground by the street with other assorted crap. horrible.

Great description, Bill! You should be a realtor.

yeah right - knocking down my propert values:) the rest of the road/area has nice homes

note that i left out additional detail on the cottage due to space limitations and attention spans:)

Our land did back up to land that was for sale---my DH tried to talk our next door neighbor into buying it 50/50---it was 20 acres---but the neighbor had no money at the time, DH didn't want to add more to the mortgage payment---long story short, there are now 3 houses down there----but the folks are quiet, except for the ones who live directly behind us---their 2 teens drive a quad back & forth on the dirt road driving my dale---and me---insane. Good thing they'll be off to college one of these days.

Well, I grew up in Ohio, lived awhile in England (my 2nd favorite country!) and have lived in NH, MA & now CT since I graduated from college. I love New England EXCEPT for the winters. SAD is a killer for me, it's all I can do to survive until spring without leaping off a bridge.

So it will be the Caribbean for me when the kids are out of college! I adore St. John in the USVI, no passport required, laid-back lifestyle, and I figure it will get the kids to visit more often than if I lived in some non-exotic locale, LOL. If I find out I miss the seasons ... I'll visit someone still "enjoying" them for a week or two. :-D

Wow, how expensive is it there?? I love your DG name!

that is a great name!!!

a great name - funny last night we watched a re-run of criminal minds and they asked a neighbor baout an "unsub" - during the conversation the neighbor says "do you know he has not a blade of crab grass in his yard and he won't tell me how he does it" - cracked me up.

We went to see our accountant today and he told us that New Jersey is actually a good place to retire because:
There are no state taxes on Social Security benefits
There is a $20k tax exemption for pension income
Real estate taxes on your primary residence are deducted off the top
Some medical expenses are deducted
There is a $1k exemption per person, and that's doubled over the age of 65, so for a couple it's a $4k exemption
The only real problem is property taxes, and there's a freeze on them at age 65 for couples with less than $80k in yearly income

Using round figures, a retired couple over 65 with $100k in yearly income would only pay on about $40k of that in state taxes. Our accountant says that this is much better than a lot of other states that look cheaper on the face of it.

Something to ponder, anyway.