Making plans for our Longevity
Recently Dan and I went to check out Delaware. Part of why people choose Delaware are tax advantages-I have been on a misson of trying to save and maximize what we bring in so we can get on the road quickly! Paris Letters, a book by Janice MacLeod has some great pointers, and we recently listened to it and got super inspired. The guy who spoke at the RV show we recently attended also made a good argument for making your home state one with tax advantages. He gave us a link to an article that explains how this works and if you click on the embedded link in that article it takes you to a page that calculats how much you would save if you moved to a tax free state. Sounds like a no brainer, but is it?. Easy….maybe? In doing research for this blog I found very different opinions about all this. When we met people tho in Delaware, all assured us that they are in fact saving money, retirees and non retirees. And the beaches are free unlike NJ! Florida, Tennessee, New Hampshire (this would also be on our list), South and North Dakota, and Washington State, Nevada, Alaska and Texas (we do have loved ones here so maybe?) are also mentioned as tax havens.
To establish residency you must live there for 6 months, and apparently your old state may keep track. Apparently too NJ is very strict about this, I guess no one wants to miss out on their payouts!
So what is the draw for Delaware? It is a beautiful state, the first state actually, and has amazing free beaches. It has a lot of “active adult communities” which describe themselves as resort style living. Which they truly are! Beautiful homes, nice pools some with restaurants, all with activity directors, and clubs and things to do. This differs from a life plan community in which there is varying and increasing levels of care for the residents, allowing for more and more care as a residence needs. This style of living is way off for us. But a resort style home-maybe!
While in Delaware we found an amazing little lavender farm, some great restaurants and amazing (did I say free already) beaches. it’s tempting-truly, but in the end we have decided to keep New Jersey as our home base for now. There are just too many people we would miss, and if we are traveling we want to come home to them! We may still buy into a planned community being that as we travel more and more it might be nice to come home to a manicured lawn and no out side worries! As so many of us out in our age group we are planning this next phase, with intention, with research and with excitement!
We would love to hear about your shifts into your third act!
The book pictures is by Cameron Diaz and is fascinating-I was still reading on our trip! Click here to head to our affiliate link for the book (and yes we make a small commission through that link, but we only recommend what we love)
