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We are always one skiing (or other, fill in the blank) accident from utterly hating stairs.
There is a big difference between the low odds of the unforeseen accident and the near certainty of arthritis or other issues continuing to progress, which some of us face. It's not pessimism to try to mitigate the likely outcome, it's realism.
We are still about 7-15 years from retirement. Kids are gone, no more pets and no plans to get anymore pets, so this year we will plan to minimize and eliminate junk.
Ideally, I would like to be a snowbird in retirement where I primarily live in Raleigh, NC, spend some time in FL in the winters, and stay about a month or so in the Pacific Northwest (Western WA State) July-August. Since currently I already go back and forth between Raleigh and Miami for business, we already got a head start by purchasing a 1 bedroom condo in Raleigh. We have been going back and forth about selling our home in Miami since real estate prices have gone up and it's a good sellers market, but we decided to hold off on selling in large part due to the convenience of having my own home to stay at when in FL. Since last fall I'm already spending more time in Raleigh. My wife, well since she works from home and likes Raleigh much better than FL, she will already be living primarily in Raleigh. We do like our small condo in Raleigh, but right now it seems a bit small for our primary residence.
One of our plans if we sell our Miami home is to buy a small condo, villa or townhouse in FL, but not Miami. We like Palm beach county, and more than likely will look into purchasing something in Palm beach county or north. We like Satellite Beach in Brevard county which is east of Melbourne and about 1 hour-1 hour 15 minutes from Orlando depending on traffic.
My personal philosophy is "plan for tomorrow, but live today". We decided that we much rather have 2 small homes in 2 different areas, than a decent size home in one place. Now, if push comes to shove and we have to decide in 1 place only, it will be in Raleigh, NC. We like the city, the people, the beauty of the area, and the change of seasons. I don't care for extremely hot weather for 4-5 months out of the year. Yes, compared to Miami it can get cold in Raleigh, but it's really not bad. Also, outside of Jan and Feb it's really not bad. There are many days between Nov-March that it could be cold in the mornings (in the 30s), but it will be sunny and in the 50s in the afternoon. There are also several months in the year where the weather is simply amazing and you do not need to have the AC nor the heater on.
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