The Most and Least Taxing States to Live and Retire In

[Danno 1,228]

I knew quite a few people when I was in university whose parents came down on a parents weekend, saw the prices of consumer goods, and home prices, then realized they could retire almost 8-10 years ahead of schedule if they relocated down there after retirement. I would consider it, you can get a nice home for 150K down there. In most metro areas, 150K will buy you alot of cardboard boxes and some tape.

You make a valid observation, it's one of the reason we have so many areas full of McMansions, in fact the numbers are stunning. Where I lived in NJ, the only big expensive houses were Historical ones.

People sell their levit Town home up there, move south and buy a house they could never ever afford up north.

One of the unfortunate results of having so many "yankees" move here is the willingness of them to vote for higher taxes.

[Captain Oates 911]

I bought an absolute film start house here in Washington State for the price of a lock up garage in Yorkshire - well my half anyway !

When I go to California the houses are tiny and all jammed in together - just like England and v pricey too - and then there are the taxes

Mixing house costs /climate/ taxes and crime, I reckon this is the best place in the US. It is certainly the best climate with no hurricanes or tornadoes or high humidity or crippling cold. A bit of powdery snow and I use my leaf blower to clear it. Lots of blue skies and little traffic compared to the big cities. Easy gun laws for shooters. I have lived in Florida near Clearwater and in Milwaukee and worked in Georgia and visited most States including Hawaii. I can afford to live anywhere and moving is easy as I am retired - but this is the best place - for me anyway.

[Karee 4,190]

I bought an absolute film start house here in Washington State for the price of a lock up garage in Yorkshire - well my half anyway !

When I go to California the houses are tiny and all jammed in together - just like England and v pricey too - and then there are the taxes

Mixing house costs /climate/ taxes and crime, I reckon this is the best place in the US. It is certainly the best climate with no hurricanes or tornadoes or high humidity or crippling cold. A bit of powdery snow and I use my leaf blower to clear it. Lots of blue skies and little traffic compared to the big cities. Easy gun laws for shooters. I have lived in Florida near Clearwater and in Milwaukee and worked in Georgia and visited most States including Hawaii. I can afford to live anywhere and moving is easy as I am retired - but this is the best place - for me anyway.

Sounds great. Are there any actual decent jobs there?

[Captain Oates 911]

Sounds great. Are there any actual decent jobs there?

Fantastic jobs but few vacancies. The whole of the Colombia is huge hydro dams and they are public utilities - a bit like semi government. They pay well.

I forgot to mention that we are all electric - heating a/c hot water/lights/computers everything

Our average bill is $38 for everything

The power is so cheap, the dams pay Alcoa (aluminum smelters) to take it when they have a surplus !

Getting over the Cascades to Seattle in the winter can be tricky - we have an airport but its hit and miss

as in 'the back door wont shut' or 'we haven't enough gas to get over the mountain so 13 of you cant get on'.

I prefer to drive.

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

Sounds great. Are there any actual decent jobs there?

Most of the decent jobs are on the West side of the mountains... MS, Boeing, etc... Central Washington is like a desert waste land unless you get up near the Canadian border where they actually have tree's and not that scrub ####### sage brush and munch grass like where Alan lives.

Edited October 6, 2011 by Why_Me

[Captain Oates 911]

Most of the decent jobs are on the West side of the mountains... MS, Boeing, etc... Central Washington is like a desert waste land unless you get up near the Canadian border where they actually have tree's and not that scrub ####### sage brush and munch grass like where Alan lives.

The price of low humidity is dryness that's true and I do miss the low gray clouds and drizzle of England - sometimes but not much. Seattle is like England for climate

..but there are better paying jobs here in central Washington than at Boeing/Microsoft in Seattle - especially since they are moving jobs to non-union South Carolina.

My wife earns more than I did when I was a finance director and says its the best job she has ever had.

If you don't have the skills then an apple picker or similar it is - but that applies anywhere

If you want to count salmon going up the fish ladders - there are people who do that. They go crazy after 6 months though. Most years there is no rain May to November and the dry summer at low humidity is pleasant. I mowed the lawn in 100 degrees and didn't sweat.

It'll do till I go back to the elephant's graveyard to die surrounded by pork pies and cornish pasties and Timmy Taylor championship ale and Icelandic haddock cooked in dripping and bisto and hp sauce and cheese and onion crisps and custard tarts and cheshire cheese and real bacon not burned straggly fat strips.

The food here is low quality - that's a downer - but its the same throughout much of the US unless you like grits or apples

[Saddle Bronc 124]

New York does suck ####

as does Joisey!

[mawilson 2,133]

I bought an absolute film start house here in Washington State for the price of a lock up garage in Yorkshire - well my half anyway !

When I go to California the houses are tiny and all jammed in together - just like England and v pricey too - and then there are the taxes

Mixing house costs /climate/ taxes and crime, I reckon this is the best place in the US. It is certainly the best climate with no hurricanes or tornadoes or high humidity or crippling cold. A bit of powdery snow and I use my leaf blower to clear it. Lots of blue skies and little traffic compared to the big cities. Easy gun laws for shooters. I have lived in Florida near Clearwater and in Milwaukee and worked in Georgia and visited most States including Hawaii. I can afford to live anywhere and moving is easy as I am retired - but this is the best place - for me anyway.

Cool

[Captain Oates 911]

Cool

Wife isn't keen on this place because its awful being so far from her family (Milwaukee) and I wouldn't understand. She is homesick.

I am living with a bunch of religious RWNJ westerners who can't understand my accent and I am 6,000 miles from home in Europe, and she is homesick for Milwaukee ?

Actually I have some good buddies here - via the gun club - and they can't help it. There are a lot worse types back in England.

Everywhere has down side and I mean everywhere. I am a 'grass is greener' type but when I really think about it, this place has a lot going for it and I will miss it when I leave one day

If the USA had free health care like every other 1st world country on the globe, I would really relax about staying forever

Edited October 6, 2011 by Austin Devon

[mawilson 2,133]

If the USA had free health care like every other 1st world country on the globe, I would really relax about staying forever

Well the USA does have free health care for people age 65 and older - it's called Medicare. It's a single-payer system, not unlike NHS.

[Captain Oates 911]

Well the USA does have free health care for people age 65 and older - it's called Medicare. It's a single-payer system, not unlike NHS.

yeah but I have no contribution record in the US and the wife is a young chick so I can't get a free ride on her coat-tails until she is 62 minimum. If she retires at 65 or they move her retirement age to 67 or 70, then I will be so fossilized by then that I could get a job as a museum exhibit in DC

I can buy in for $6,600 pa which isn't out of the question - but there are co-pays which would need extra insurance to deal with

I could get off with Tiger Woods' ex wife - she is free - move to Sweden and .... yes its a great plan

[mawilson 2,133]

I can buy in for $6,600 pa which isn't out of the question - but there are co-pays which would need extra insurance to deal with

Yeah, you should do that. $6,600 pa is not a big deal - most people pay a lot more for health insurance. $6,600 is still cheaper than the "free" NHS when you factor in lower taxes.

[Captain Oates 911]

Yeah, you should do that. $6,600 pa is not a big deal - most people pay a lot more for health insurance. $6,600 is still cheaper than the "free" NHS when you factor in lower taxes.

Being an ex accountant, I think along those lines. The cars here are for nothing. I have a V6 3.5 liter 268 horse power Toyota which cost me less brand new than I paid for my motor bikes in England. Sales tax 8% (20% in England). No State income tax. Gasoline cheap as heck - $4 - nothing compared to $10 in the UK.

I do thousands of stock and option deals in the US. In England I pay $100 tax on every $10k deal. Here I pay NOTHING and $7 commission with no VAT on the commission like in England. I simply could not do my hobby/business of stock/options dealing in the UK as it would cost me hundreds per week

Guns !

I was thinking of paying around $3500 a year for private health care in England seeing as the clientele at my local public hospital make it more like a downscale area of Kandahar than Yorkshire - so $6,600 is only 3k more than that and some of it is tax deductible too at 25% .

If the republicans get rid of medicare and I run out of vouchers, then the NHS will still be there and I wont die.