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Old 03-05-2007, 12:35 AM
 
43,011 posts, read 108,049,575 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallysmom View Post
It's more than paid for itself... and with our earnings 20 years higher and self employed we can sock away a lot of money. So we can retire early... and move!
That's a steep comfort price to pay for retiring early. I'm glad you've been happy with it. I personally would have gone stir-crazy in a 1,000 square foot house after just a few weeks. That's the standard of living I was talking about. For me, it's priceless to have the space I need in a nice neighborhood and still sock away serious money. My property appreciates in value throughout the years too, just not at the incredible rates of CA property. But I get to raise my children somewhere I prefer to live, while you've been spending your years looking forward to moving away someday. That's cool because everyone has different priorities.
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Old 03-05-2007, 10:08 AM
 
487 posts, read 1,380,401 times
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Originally Posted by Tallysmom View Post
Very tricky -- I live in California, and my property taxes on my 500K house (which is 1,005 square feet, over 80 years old in a not so nice section of town!!) run around two thousand a year. Sounds like heaven, huh?
And one additional complication that adds to the trickiness: the assessed values (used in property tax valuations) may be very different than the market value that we're all familiar with. So, determining real estate tax dollars is not as simple as multiplying the current market value times the published millage rate, which is what may people tend to do.
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Old 03-05-2007, 10:37 AM
 
15,639 posts, read 26,259,230 times
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Originally Posted by Hopes View Post
That's a steep comfort price to pay for retiring early. I'm glad you've been happy with it. I personally would have gone stir-crazy in a 1,000 square foot house after just a few weeks. That's the standard of living I was talking about. For me, it's priceless to have the space I need in a nice neighborhood and still sock away serious money. My property appreciates in value throughout the years too, just not at the incredible rates of CA property. But I get to raise my children somewhere I prefer to live, while you've been spending your years looking forward to moving away someday. That's cool because everyone has different priorities.
Not having kids helped in a small house -- but we have 9 cats...

It is funny when I hear people talking about downsizing when they retire....I'm looking at 2500 square feet homes for us. It wasn't so bad till I lost the ability to cross stitch and crochet from carpal tunnel. The grasping of a needle and pulling the threads HURT, and crochet movements could only be done for a few minutes before they hurt, too. That made me switch my focus to quilting. Which became a mania. Now I don't have a dining room. I have a dining room/sewing room/ library/exercise room. Which sort of makes the room sound huge..... it's 11x11. A 2500 square foot home will get me a Quilting Studio bedroom, an Exercise Room bedroom and my hubby gets his spare room to load up with finds.... and then OUR bedroom.

The other problem we had was the inability to move up. It happened to a lot of people. My house is in a marginal area. Nothing dangerous happens here on my block, but a few blocks away all sorts of stuff happens... and all the houses around me are 2-3 bedroom homes 1000-1100 square feet. Houses in better areas are much more expensive for the same square footage. For us to move up in area and house size we're in the way more expensive 800-900 thousand dollar area. Which we could afford, but that means every spare dollar is in the house and not the retirement account. And the really nice area houses are around a million... not do-able at all.

The whole new house thing got nixed because we are self employed janitors. At 47 years old, we don't know how much longer we can do this. I've spent the last three winters in Physical Therapy for various issues. My husband has back pain and knee pain... retirement is looking good to us. And being self employed at least we make a really good living.
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Old 03-05-2007, 08:32 PM
 
Location: Foot of the Rockies
90,297 posts, read 120,759,995 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Hopes View Post
That's a steep comfort price to pay for retiring early. I'm glad you've been happy with it. I personally would have gone stir-crazy in a 1,000 square foot house after just a few weeks. That's the standard of living I was talking about. For me, it's priceless to have the space I need in a nice neighborhood and still sock away serious money. My property appreciates in value throughout the years too, just not at the incredible rates of CA property. But I get to raise my children somewhere I prefer to live, while you've been spending your years looking forward to moving away someday. That's cool because everyone has different priorities.
Sometimes the tradeoff is having a job.
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Old 03-08-2007, 06:21 PM
 
67 posts, read 221,273 times
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Snow is constant it seems within 3 hours of Pittsburgh and taxes vary even within the city - but even squirrel hill (one of the highest neighborhoods it seems) is less than burlington, VT.

It really doesn't matter -as was pointed out, the differences in the cost of the houses can make up for it even after 10 years, and there is not much I want to spend the extra $ on anyway in this consumer economy of ours - I can only eat so many big macs!

Good people, good parks, and chance of snow within 3 hours much more important - thanks!
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Old 03-08-2007, 06:31 PM
 
15,639 posts, read 26,259,230 times
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Originally Posted by pittnurse70 View Post
Sometimes the tradeoff is having a job.
Well -- we married in 1983. And lived in Monaca, in a cute little walk up apartment. But Brent got canned from his job and there weren't any back there at that point in time.

I know Monaca is depressed, but at the time it was quaint... and quiet, with no traffic -- they had just closed the Monaca/Rochester bridge for repair. We walked to the little library, walked to the Silver for 50 cent drafts...

So yeah -- the trade off was having a life. I really missed home, and I still do at times, but I don't regret moving to California at all.
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Old 03-08-2007, 07:37 PM
 
Location: Foot of the Rockies
90,297 posts, read 120,759,995 times
Reputation: 35920
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallysmom View Post
So yeah -- the trade off was having a life. I really missed home, and I still do at times, but I don't regret moving to California at all.
I used to miss Beaver County a lot, but I've been away so long I really don't any more. I also do not regret moving to Colorado. The west is great in a very different way. I love the live and let live attitude, the relative lack of discriminatiion, etc.
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