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Retired military pension is a good start. That also might qualify you for very inexpensive health care that is not offered the ordinary citizens of Maine. I think Forrest Beekeeper can help you guys here.
If you knew nobody, landed in Bangor, and began applying for openings at either of the 2 hospitals or the various medical facilities in Bangor. It would take you 2 weeks to simply apply to all of them [assuming that none of them hired you before you finished applying everywhere].
Down town Bangor does have at least one homeless shelter. I know a guy who has a street ministry there dealing with the homeless in Bangor. And I know a second guy whose ministry is outside of Bangor, but they go into downtown Bangor, offer the homeless folks jobs, take them back to their farm, and work with them individually to rebuild their lives [job, bank account, wardrobe, apartment, and Bible study] until they are functioning independently.
So if you blew into Bangor riding your thumb, you would survive.
There is also a good chance that you would be able to bunk with someone, until you got things going.
Your retired military buddy, could likely go into a VFW post and find someone to bunk with. I know that I have been offered a couch to sleep on, by folks in the post.
Ask around, make friends someone with a motorhome sitting out front of their farm might offer that you could stay in it, until you get fixed up. More so if you cut some firewood in the mean time.
I work in the medical field......i do have a huge 401k but I want to come there and start making a living immediately
Others have answered this well already. The others who have responded are not normally as curmudgeonly as I am, so I am going to add my two cents' worth.
You really need to think long and hard before considering Maine as a "safety valve" for your pent up frustrations from living in Atlanta. Maine is a relatively big state for the northeast. Georgia is larger.
Maine has a population of slightly more than 1.2 million people and is ranked about 38th in terms of population density. Georgia has a population of around 9 1/2 million people, and is about 18th in population density.
Atlanta has a population of around 550,000. It is Georgia's largest city. Maine's largest city is Portland and it has a population of around 75,000.
Do you get this picture yet? If you want to land here and earn a living right out of the box, you had better line up jobs before you head north. You are in a good area for work as there is plenty of work around for health care workers. BUT a lot of it is minimum wage or relatively low paying semi-professional work in nursing homes, sometimes hospitals and private pay situations for the elderly. Plan on making about one half what you are making in Atlanta, and plan on your living expenses being nearly as high as they are depending on which part of the state you live in.
Maine isn't "just like Atlanta" without the problems of the big city, or the problems of urban living in general. Maine is a very small, very poor state economically by comparison to ANY of the southeastern states, and although there is great opportunity for wonderful living here, you need to have your eyes wide open when you head north or you will be terribly disappointed right out of the box.
If you haven't been here in the winter for a couple of weeks looking around, talking with potential employers, and exploring the general terrain, you should stay away until you have a LOT of money to sit on for a year or so while you figure out where in Maine you want to go, and what it is there that you want to do.
I really don't want to sound cold and forbidding. But there are many, many people who think of Maine in terms of the picture post cards that they have seen, or the pretty scenes of quaintness on "Murder She Wrote". That is not at all the real Maine, which is a wonderful place to live and where the quality of life is far superior to most other places that you can mention. But in order to realize that "quality of life" you must understand what it is and what it is not; what you gain and what you give up to be here. And you will give up a LOT compared to the more populous and wealthy areas of this country have to offer.
My daughter lives in southern Virginia. She would much prefer to live in Maine, and I would much prefer that she live here and that my two granddaughters were close by. But they are getting a better education and a better life experience living where they are now, than would be possible in Maine unless my daughter was able to move here at a salary increase. Since her job is not duplicatable in Maine, I have urged her to stay where she is.
Tough choices need to be made, and until and unless you have done some time exploring around the state, you may be setting yourself up for a big disappointment that is totally unnecessary as a life experience.
You had better have a good-sized safety net if moving up here without things lined up! We moved back up here last Fall after living away for 8 years - had no job or home lined up. Luckily my parents are up here. It took us 6 WEEKS to find a place, which meant 6 miserable weeks staying with my folks. If you don't have a friend or relative willing to help you out, you might go broke staying in hotels until you can get into a place. Of course it depends where in Maine you're looking at. It wouldn't take as long to find a place in the Bangor or Portland area, but jobs are quite scarce everywhere in the state and it could take several weeks to find something, especially a professional job such as you would be looking for. You could find a burger flipping job quickly somewhere perhaps, but for the medical field, it could take months even!
Do lots of research - and it is very possible to line up jobs in advance. Look at the online papers such as Bangor Daily News (Home - Bangor Daily News) or Maine Sunday Telegram, many places in the state actually hire people from out of state, who do phone interviews or fly up for them, and then move up here once they get the job. That happens quite a lot. So it is possible to plan things out.
The same goes for finding a place - if you are looking to rent, you can post an ad in the papers stating when you are moving up here, what you are looking for, you might get a few hits (that's how we've done it in the past, especially on Craigslist). It's not too hard to line up living arrangements in advance.
If you are looking into buying, that's a whole other story! But anything is possible, and everything is doable - you just have to work on it a little (or a whole lot).
Others have answered this well already. The others who have responded are not normally as curmudgeonly as I am, so I am going to add my two cents' worth.
You really need to think long and hard before considering Maine as a "safety valve" for your pent up frustrations from living in Atlanta. Maine is a relatively big state for the northeast. Georgia is larger.
Maine has a population of slightly more than 1.2 million people and is ranked about 38th in terms of population density. Georgia has a population of around 9 1/2 million people, and is about 18th in population density.
Atlanta has a population of around 550,000. It is Georgia's largest city. Maine's largest city is Portland and it has a population of around 75,000.
Do you get this picture yet? If you want to land here and earn a living right out of the box, you had better line up jobs before you head north. You are in a good area for work as there is plenty of work around for health care workers. BUT a lot of it is minimum wage or relatively low paying semi-professional work in nursing homes, sometimes hospitals and private pay situations for the elderly. Plan on making about one half what you are making in Atlanta, and plan on your living expenses being nearly as high as they are depending on which part of the state you live in.
Maine isn't "just like Atlanta" without the problems of the big city, or the problems of urban living in general. Maine is a very small, very poor state economically by comparison to ANY of the southeastern states, and although there is great opportunity for wonderful living here, you need to have your eyes wide open when you head north or you will be terribly disappointed right out of the box.
If you haven't been here in the winter for a couple of weeks looking around, talking with potential employers, and exploring the general terrain, you should stay away until you have a LOT of money to sit on for a year or so while you figure out where in Maine you want to go, and what it is there that you want to do.
I really don't want to sound cold and forbidding. But there are many, many people who think of Maine in terms of the picture post cards that they have seen, or the pretty scenes of quaintness on "Murder She Wrote". That is not at all the real Maine, which is a wonderful place to live and where the quality of life is far superior to most other places that you can mention. But in order to realize that "quality of life" you must understand what it is and what it is not; what you gain and what you give up to be here. And you will give up a LOT compared to the more populous and wealthy areas of this country have to offer.
My daughter lives in southern Virginia. She would much prefer to live in Maine, and I would much prefer that she live here and that my two granddaughters were close by. But they are getting a better education and a better life experience living where they are now, than would be possible in Maine unless my daughter was able to move here at a salary increase. Since her job is not duplicatable in Maine, I have urged her to stay where she is.
Tough choices need to be made, and until and unless you have done some time exploring around the state, you may be setting yourself up for a big disappointment that is totally unnecessary as a life experience.
I have a pension, my Dw has a part-time job. We had a small portfolio that we used to get us started.
I drove up to Maine, met with a realtor that I had been corresponding with, and spent a week looking at properties. Then I went home.
A month later, I drove up to Maine again, met with a different realtor, and spent a week driving around Maine looking at properties. Then I went home.
A while later I drove up to Maine again, met with that same realtor, and spent a week driving around Maine looking at properties. Then I went home.
blah, blah, blah. Really I lost count of my trips to Maine shopping for property. Meeting with a buyer's agent realtor and him sending me out to find properties. To walk the property lines and look them over, then to talk to the selling agent and find that their MLS sheet was total fabrication and misleading. I think it was my fifth trip, when I finally called one of those phone numbers on a hand written sign offering land for sale by owner.
That guy is / was a forester who buys land from logging companies, clear cuts it, and manages the treegrowth while offering that land for sale.
At the time, he had a three page list of his properties. I toured a couple of those properties, found one that I liked and I bought it.
The following spring, I filed my building permit, and by fall the outer shell of our new house was completed.
My Dw arranged for her job to transfer to an opening in Bangor [within the same corporation]. In the fall, I moved my family up to Maine, into an apartment. While I worked through the winter, on the interior of our house, just to get it to bare habitability.
Then we moved into our house the following spring.
I bought the property in 2005, and we moved in 2006.
Others have answered this well already. The others who have responded are not normally as curmudgeonly as I am, so I am going to add my two cents' worth.
You really need to think long and hard before considering Maine as a "safety valve" for your pent up frustrations from living in Atlanta. Maine is a relatively big state for the northeast. Georgia is larger.
Maine has a population of slightly more than 1.2 million people and is ranked about 38th in terms of population density. Georgia has a population of around 9 1/2 million people, and is about 18th in population density.
Atlanta has a population of around 550,000. It is Georgia's largest city. Maine's largest city is Portland and it has a population of around 75,000.
Do you get this picture yet? If you want to land here and earn a living right out of the box, you had better line up jobs before you head north. You are in a good area for work as there is plenty of work around for health care workers. BUT a lot of it is minimum wage or relatively low paying semi-professional work in nursing homes, sometimes hospitals and private pay situations for the elderly. Plan on making about one half what you are making in Atlanta, and plan on your living expenses being nearly as high as they are depending on which part of the state you live in.
Maine isn't "just like Atlanta" without the problems of the big city, or the problems of urban living in general. Maine is a very small, very poor state economically by comparison to ANY of the southeastern states, and although there is great opportunity for wonderful living here, you need to have your eyes wide open when you head north or you will be terribly disappointed right out of the box.
If you haven't been here in the winter for a couple of weeks looking around, talking with potential employers, and exploring the general terrain, you should stay away until you have a LOT of money to sit on for a year or so while you figure out where in Maine you want to go, and what it is there that you want to do.
I really don't want to sound cold and forbidding. But there are many, many people who think of Maine in terms of the picture post cards that they have seen, or the pretty scenes of quaintness on "Murder She Wrote". That is not at all the real Maine, which is a wonderful place to live and where the quality of life is far superior to most other places that you can mention. But in order to realize that "quality of life" you must understand what it is and what it is not; what you gain and what you give up to be here. And you will give up a LOT compared to the more populous and wealthy areas of this country have to offer.
My daughter lives in southern Virginia. She would much prefer to live in Maine, and I would much prefer that she live here and that my two granddaughters were close by. But they are getting a better education and a better life experience living where they are now, than would be possible in Maine unless my daughter was able to move here at a salary increase. Since her job is not duplicatable in Maine, I have urged her to stay where she is.
Tough choices need to be made, and until and unless you have done some time exploring around the state, you may be setting yourself up for a big disappointment that is totally unnecessary as a life experience.
Bingo. Moral of the story: don't let your emotions override common sense.
And to the OP, I'd love to hear how you managed to keep a huge 401(k). Mine's tanked about 50% and was well diversified
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