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I never buy milk, and today was the first time I went to the grocery store since your post above. I checked the price of a gallon of milk and it was $3.39. And of course we have no sales tax on that. Perhaps your aunt lives in an out-of-the-way place where groceries are higher?
She's a couple of towns over from Oakland. Certainly, not in the boonies.
The aunt may be buying organic milk as it has a much longer shelf life but costs much more. My 89 year old mother started buying it at a recommendation of a neighbor. She could not get through a regular carton of milk before it spoiled.
Nope. Not organic milk. Just regular old whole white milk.
You are perhaps unaware of my city's - Philadelphia - stature as a cultural city in North America. That is why I live here.
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So, forgive me for being a bit of a "booster" for my town, but I am something of a "culture vulture" myself, and I assure you that Philly belongs on the short List you refer to.
You may well be right. I would be willing to expand my short list from four to six by including Boston and Philadelphia.
I wouldn't want to live in Leisure World. I grew up in Seal Beach, so know the area well. While where I lived was about a block from the beach, Leisure World is a bit inland and much warmer. It wasn't part of Seal Beach back then..it was later annexed along with another inland area. You really do need to be right along the coast as someone already mentioned for the cooler temps.
The show stopper for me is that I don't want to live in a senior community. I tried a 55+ community and didn't like it. There was a lot of gossiping and agendas and a lot of the older people were dying. There were seven deaths in one month. It reminds me of when I was growing up in Seal Beach we would hear the ambulance going out to Leisure World all of the time. I don't know if it was true, but we heard that there were a lot of suicides. I'm sure some people like senior communities, but it's not for me or my husband.
As for California, as others have said the cost of living is high. Property taxes are high and the cost of housing is very high to insane depending on where you live.
I now live in Florida and it's much more affordable. I like the humidity. It's very pretty here. People are nice. It is hot here a few months in the summer, but I find the heat more tolerable than the heat in many inland areas of California such as Temecula, Sacramento, Riverside, Chico, Redding, etc. Overall, I much prefer Florida to California.
The property taxes can be high in Florida if you are a newcomer to Florida. Newcomers to Florida have much higher property taxes than long term residents. Florida also has other high costs for flood insurance, wind insurance, and home owners insurance. There may be a fresh water problem in Florida on the horizon too.
Florida has a homestead exemption and some other exemptions. With the homestead exemption our property tax is less than $300 per year. Without the exemption it would be around $800. Still very low.
Our house insurance is very reasonable, as well. Our flood insurance, which we decided to get just to be on the safe side, but wasn't required, is $300/yr. Our house insurance, which includes hurricane ins. is about $900. In California, we paid around $800 and that didn't include earthquake insurance, which was crazy high and had very high deductibles. I didn't know anyone there who opted for earthquake insurance. It's so expensive.
By the way, your comment about "newcomers" versus long term residents isn't correct. We're newcomers. It's whether you are a Florida resident, or not, and whether, or not, you own another home out of state that can make your property taxes higher.
Last edited by lily4; 01-11-2014 at 10:55 PM..
Reason: typo
If weather was the only factor, I would pick California for a location to retire, but the cost of living and congestion is the driving factors that would make me want to look elsewhere.
If weather was the only factor, I would pick Hawaii for a location to retire, but the cost of living and congestion is the driving factors that would make me want to look elsewhere.
Besides, If anyone living with me or visiting wanted to get in the water, they wouldn't need to bring a wet suit.
California has not made it on my list of places to retire even though under some circumstances, it can be affordable. I cannot handle all of the congestion getting from point A to B in many of the more desirable areas. The drives that I used to make when I worked in Orange Co. in 1992-93 took about twice as long when I visited in 2008.
Good weather is just not enough.
OTOH, if you are retired you can live where you can walk to everything you need, and not have to take a snow shovel with you. Rarely need an umbrella, as well.
I was born and raised in Southern California and living in Monterey and Frisco.
I will never go back there to live!!! I even hate driving through it. It has become a socialist paradise with government trying to regulate every phase of your life. The taxes are horrid and government services stink. Driving the freeways and interstates shows a sad degree of neglect. It's becoming overcrowded with homes in places they have no business being built.
I want to cry just seeing what has happened there.
The following may have something to do with it....
"Frankly, I don't know what it is about California , but we seem to have a strange urge to elect really obnoxious women to high office. I'm not bragging, you understand, but no other state, including Maine , even comes close. When it comes to sending left-wing dingbats to Washington , we're Number One.
There's no getting around the fact that the last time anyone saw the likes of Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein, Maxine Waters, and Nancy Pelosi, they were stirring a cauldron when the curtain went up on 'Macbeth'.
The four of them are like jackasses who happen to possess the gift of blab. You don't know if you should condemn them for their stupidity or simply marvel at their ability to form words."
Columnist Burt Prelutsky,
Los Angeles Times
Barbara Boxer, Diann'e Feinstein, Maxine Waters, and Nancy Pelosi..... enough said lolol
California is out of the question. It's bad enough I have to pay high taxes where I am. Add CA taxation, no thanks. I'd rather live in the cold weather.
You are perhaps unaware of my city's - Philadelphia - stature as a cultural city in North America. That is why I live here.
For art museums and art colleges we are near the very top, well above either Boston or Chicago. Philly is home to the oldest art institute in America, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, which produced everyone from Thomas Eakins, Mary Cassatt, John French Sloan, Maxfield Parrish, Charles Demuth, etc., etc. Boston's and Chicago's art museums are very fine, but our Museum Of Art is even better. When the Barnes opened here, Philly now has more European Impressionists, Post-Impressionists and Modernists (Renoir, Cezanne, Matisse, Van Gogh, Monet, Carot, etc.) than any city in the world except Paris itself. Yes even more than NYC or Washington.
For legitimate theater, film festivals, ethnic street fairs, restaurants, craft breweries, symphony (which boasted the finest conductors from Leopold Stokowski to Eugene Ormandy), the world class Curtis Institute (which rival's NYC's Juilliard). Our University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology has one of the finest collections of classical antiquities ... the third largest Egyptian Sphynx in the world is in there.
So, forgive me for being a bit of a "booster" for my town, but I am something of a "culture vulture" myself, and I assure you that Philly belongs on the short List you refer to.
Philly has really nice amenities and a lot going on at all times. And if one decides that they are not getting enough of what one wants in Philly several other very interesting places are a manageable train ride away. I guess that explains the growing flood of retirees. I wonder how long before the complaints will begin about said flood - LOL!
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