Where do You Want to Retire... and Why?

This ‘California 2.0’ thing is going to follow you anywhere desirable, as what you are taking about is just affluence. In Crested Butte the Texans are the boogeymen. But it’s the same thing.

if you want to be labeled a £€%!*! Californian, move to a small town and then suggest a new school bond...torches and pitchforks...

Probably the best thing about being Gen X is that all the boomers will be selling their vacation/retirement spots at once, just as we start shopping for real. since they outnumber us 2:1, all we have to do is fight off Chinese speculators for the good properties.
 
tick said:
This ‘California 2.0’ thing is going to follow you anywhere desirable, as what you are taking about is just affluence. In Crested Butte the Texans are the boogeymen. But it’s the same thing.

if you want to be labeled a £€%!*! Californian, move to a small town and then suggest a new school bond...torches and pitchforks...

Probably the best thing about being Gen X is that all the boomers will be selling their vacation/retirement spots at once, just as we start shopping for real. since they outnumber us 2:1, all we have to do is fight off Chinese speculators for the good properties.
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I think the goal of moving to a small town is to find a like thinking town and blend in. What’s the point of moving to a small conservative town and mucking it up like California?
 
tick said:
This ‘California 2.0’ thing is going to follow you anywhere desirable, as what you are taking about is just affluence. In Crested Butte the Texans are the boogeymen. But it’s the same thing.

if you want to be labeled a £€%!*! Californian, move to a small town and then suggest a new school bond...torches and pitchforks...

Probably the best thing about being Gen X is that all the boomers will be selling their vacation/retirement spots at once, just as we start shopping for real. since they outnumber us 2:1, all we have to do is fight off Chinese speculators for the good properties.
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Im currently paying for a new firefighting coverage bond that was added to my property in the high desert here in Cali. It almost doubled my property tax! :mad:
 
Mikie said:
I think the goal of moving to a small town is to find a like thinking town and blend in. What’s the point of moving to a small conservative town and mucking it up like California?
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You say that now, but in today’s lingo “conservative” = poor/grumpy, which makes for a very sad retirement.

towns that don’t want to shrivel up and die need new people, which means growth, which might require a school bond.

One of the ways a Californian will stick out is with our expectation of privacy. That’s going to make you conspicuous in a small town.
 
tick said:
This ‘California 2.0’ thing is going to follow you anywhere desirable, as what you are taking about is just affluence. In Crested Butte the Texans are the boogeymen. But it’s the same thing.

if you want to be labeled a £€%!*! Californian, move to a small town and then suggest a new school bond...torches and pitchforks...

Probably the best thing about being Gen X is that all the boomers will be selling their vacation/retirement spots at once, just as we start shopping for real. since they outnumber us 2:1, all we have to do is fight off Chinese speculators for the good properties.
Click to expand...

I disagree....at least in the way I mentioned "California 2.0" regarding Bend. It's not just the growth aspect but Bend had practically turned into California with it's trendy fu-fu-ness where people pay $22 for an organic spinach omelette. The area has lost its soul. You don't see that in Steamboat, Crested Butte or Breckenridge. Sure, there's been growth and new building by rich Texans and Californians but they've still held on to some of their old school character. I can't say the same for Park City which had one of the best "old town" Main Streets anywhere with Mom & Pop stores. Now, it's just a mix or corporate ski shops and fu-fu, overpriced restaurants.
 
mtbMike said:
Sure, there's been growth and new building by rich Texans and Californians but they've still held on to some of their old school character.
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CB’s town fathers knew enough to keep the old facades, but behind those facades are fu-fu shops selling $22 omelettes and “wellness” products. Bend probably didn’t have a “charming” downtown to resurrect, so strip malls are all you get. The part of CB I can afford is not at all charming anyways, it’s condo land.

The flip side of the the “charm” is onerous zoning
restrictions.
 
the first time I visited Bend they were still sawing lumber, but lumber was a dying industry. The next time the used clothes, used books and used appliance stores were king. The mayor was the used appliance store owner. Now with the telecommute age it has become the western metropolis of the great basin. It attracts runaway teens with attitudes and a large populace of e- workers. Thus the old downtown of multi story brick buildings now have bistro's and breweries. They have traffic jams that last all day, but they always have had traffic problems, just now on the quasi freeway. It is still a great place to relocate if you do not mind Oregon's tax and socialist state policies. It used to be if you purchased Oregon property it would never really increase in value, not true today but certainly not like so cal where if you sit out a few years the prices double again and again. A Bend home with no yard will cost you 450,000. Here a starter home costs 700,000.
Happy don't sell your So Cal real estate if you ever want to come back trails.
 
BonsaiNut said:
Split roll coming for commercial real estate in 2020. Just going to accelerate the speed with which businesses pull out of the state.

California: "If high taxes are the problem... let's just increase them!"



Next time you are out of the state, check to see what you pay for a McDonald's Quarter Pounder with cheese combo meal.

California average: $8.56
North Carolina average: $6.96

Note... that's BEFORE sales tax.
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I haven't had one of those in at least 10 years, and the thought of eating one....
Mcdonald's menu is the last thing on my mind when I think of "the cost of leaving".

I'm not criticizing your food choices. I just know that if I ate "Quarter Pounder with cheese" regularly I wouldn't make it to retirement.
 
scan said:
Literally??!! What exactly do you mean, crawling traffic for minutes or hour(s)
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the Dalles-California hwy and the Santiam highway intersection backs up for a mile or so all day long, in each direction. Big traffic for the middle of nowhere. Oregon hwys are 2 lane roads with limited passing lanes.
Happy great condition roads with red garnet shoulders and old wagon road trails through the lava fields
 
HBkites said:
I haven't had one of those in at least 10 years, and the thought of eating one....
Mcdonald's menu is the last thing on my mind when I think of "the cost of leaving".

I'm not criticizing your food choices. I just know that if I ate "Quarter Pounder with cheese" regularly I wouldn't make it to retirement.
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You should try the McNUGGETS!
 
da big hills said:
the Dalles-California hwy and the Santiam highway intersection backs up for a mile or so all day long, in each direction. Big traffic for the middle of nowhere.
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When we were there five years ago we got stuck in this mess around dinner time on a Saturday. I remember a "Y" intersection that seemed to be designed to CAUSE a traffic jam. Add in a wife who had to pee thirty minutes ago and it was really crappy night. I did love the outskirts of town and the Sisters area on Sunday morning.
 
HBkites said:
I'm not criticizing your food choices. I just know that if I ate "Quarter Pounder with cheese" regularly I wouldn't make it to retirement.
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I'm just using it as an easy and convenient measure of how the high cost of living in California impacts all goods and services - not just real estate. That and @DangerDirtyD joked about people coming to "make and eat cheeseburgers" :)

I am personally amazed that McDonald's is still in business. They have gotten the lowest food quality scores in the industry for decades, and yet the one close to my house has a double drive-thru and a line across the parking lot at most times of the day and night.
 
BonsaiNut said:
I'm just using it as an easy and convenient measure of how the high cost of living in California impacts all goods and services - not just real estate. That and @DangerDirtyD joked about people coming to "make and eat cheeseburgers" :)

I am personally amazed that McDonald's is still in business. They have gotten the lowest food quality scores in the industry for decades, and yet the one close to my house has a double drive-thru and a line across the parking lot at most times of the day and night.
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I think you should have referred to the McNugget Index rather than the Quarter Pounder Index
 
BonsaiNut said:
I'm just using it as an easy and convenient measure of how the high cost of living in California impacts all goods and services - not just real estate. That and @DangerDirtyD joked about people coming to "make and eat cheeseburgers" :)

I am personally amazed that McDonald's is still in business. They have gotten the lowest food quality scores in the industry for decades, and yet the one close to my house has a double drive-thru and a line across the parking lot at most times of the day and night.
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This has hit home for me even more. I've been going to the gym at 4:30, coming home around 6am. The line at McD's is probably 20 people deep by then. It's crazy. People will sit in their car for 20 minutes to get food so they don't have to get out of their car and even breakfast costs are getting up there. I can make an 'egg mcmuffin' at home in about 5 minutes that's better and healthier. Even my kids love them. And it's definitely the labor that's driven the costs up. Less than $10 buys a hell of a lot of eggs, muffins, ham and cheese.

The wife and I talk almost daily about leaving CA when we retire, but ultimately it will probably come down to our kids and where they end up. I'd love to have some property and a bigger shop and some other stuff, but in reality we are sitting pretty good where we are at, should have the house close to paid off by the time retirement comes. It was one of our main decisions when we added on to our house instead of moving. Kept our property taxes pretty low comparatively for the long term. It never gets less tempting to sell out here though and pay cash for something in another state though...

DangerDirtyD said:
Get a job with a pension so that I can pay for you to play.
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Guilty....:whistling:
 
kazlx said:
And it's definitely the labor that's driven the costs up. Less than $10 buys a hell of a lot of eggs, muffins, ham and cheese.
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Because I used to work at Taco Bell, I can tell you that the two greatest costs that were out of the control of the company (or franchisees) were (1) real estate and (2) labor. Otherwise food costs were pretty flat across the country... an egg in California costs about the same as an egg in Boston.

Believe it or not, because of efficiencies of scale, the big chains probably pay about half what you do for their eggs, muffins, ham and cheese.

DangerDirtyD said:
Get a job with a pension so that I can pay for you to play.
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I have a pension at PepsiCo. It isn't huge - I only worked for them for eight years - but every year I get a letter from them begging me to take a lump sum payout :) No way. Call it "utility money" or "beer money" or whatever... but I like the idea of that constant stream of payments. It is an emotional, versus a rational, decision... but sometimes I am like that :)

And by the way, it isn't a pension you want, per se. The golden benefit is retiree medical. If you can retire with lifetime medical coverage, all the rest IS beer money.
 
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