Thursday, October 31, 2013

Retirement Communities in Maine

When many people think of over-55 retirement communities, they often believe that the vast majority of them are located in the Sun Belt states of Florida, Texas, Arizona or California.  However, as nice as many of these locations are, many people do not want to move far away from their families, friends, doctors, churches and social network.

Recently, one of my readers asked me about retirement communities in Maine and I promised to do some research to discover what is available.  I was pleasantly pleased to discover that people who want to retire in Maine will have all the same options that are available in Sun Belt locations.

Full Spectrum of Retirement Choices Available

Maine has any type of retirement housing you are likely to need, both when you first retire and when you begin to age and need more help, including active adult communities, assisted living homes, senior apartments, continuing care, and dementia facilities.

Readers can find a comprehensive list of the facilities that are available in Maine at this website:

https://www.retirementliving.com/maine

Gorgeous Highland Green Active Adult Community

In addition, I wanted to mention one specific award-winning, over-55 community that is specifically geared towards active Baby Boomers:

Highland Green
7 Evergreen Circle
Topsham, ME 04086

1-866-854-120

http://www.highlandgreenlifestyle.com/location.html

This charming community is located near the college town of Brunswick and also provides easy access to the cultural opportunities available in Portland.   Because Highland Green is located along the coast of Maine, there are abundant recreational opportunities available in the area, including fishing, sailing, boating, hiking and simply relaxing at the beach.

Golfers will love the beautiful nine-hole golf course; non-golfers will appreciate the fact that you only pay if you use it.  Golfers and non-golfers alike will love the natural beauty that the golf course brings to the community.

Highland Green has a strong neighborhood feeling.  Approximately half of the residents are from Maine and the other half are people who retired to Highland Green from another state.

The homes in Highland Green are modern and energy efficient, built in a classic New England style.  Residents can choose from lots that are next to the golf course, adjoining conservation land, or that back up to wooded forest land.  All the home designs have a main living area that is one-story with two bedrooms and two bathrooms, ranging in size from 1,400 to over 3,000 square feet. The homes also have nine foot ceilings and extra tall windows.

In addition, homes may contain options such as basements, lofts, fireplaces, crown molding, chair rails, studies, sunrooms and screened porches, depending on the desires of the buyers.

Visit their website (linked above) for more information.

For More Retirement Help

There are also hundreds of additional articles in this blog about places to retire, financial issues, medical concerns, family issues and more.  Use the tabs at the top of the page to find links to the articles that interest you most.

Please feel free to leave a comment, below.  All comments are emailed to me and I will respond in this blog, if possible.

You are reading from the blog:  http://www.baby-boomer-retirement.com

Photo of Maine coast is courtesy of www.morguefile.com

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Beware of Advance Pension Loans

As if there are not enough scams that target older Americans and retirees, now there are people who are trying to cheat them out of their retirement income by offering to lend them money against their pensions.  

You have probably seen ads for payday loans.  The loans that are targeted at retirees are essentially the same as payday loans, except they are called advance pension loans.  The annual interest rate on these loans can be as much as 100%, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

An interest rate of 100% is outrageous, especially since the loans are taken out against secure pensions which are generally guaranteed as long as the person is alive. 

Warnings Against Advance Pension Loans

The CFPB is warning retirees to avoid these types of loans.  They report that the loans are being offered in very deceptive ways.  This is an important enough issue that I wanted to pass on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau warnings.
The companies making the loans are often secretive about the terms of the loan and may be very aggressive about getting people to sign up.  In addition, as mentioned before, the interest rates are usually outrageous!

How Advance Pension Loans Work

In particular, the lenders purposely target retired military personnel, police officers, firemen, state employees and others who are entitled to a government or private pension.  The lenders typically offer to loan the recipient a lump sum and, in return, they ask for access to the retiree's pension information until the loan is paid off.  Since the interest rate can be 100% (and sometimes more), it can be almost impossible for someone on a tight fixed budget to ever be able to repay the loan. 

These lenders are often operating illegally.  It is against federal law for pensions to be assigned to a third party; however, the lenders are getting around the law by opening special joint bank accounts with the retirees in order to hide what they are doing. The pension is deposited into the bank account and the lender removes it.

Since the lenders often do not reveal the exact terms of the loan, the pensioners frequently do not have any idea how much they will have to repay and many have no idea what they are getting themselves into.
The problem has become so serious that New York's Department of Financial Services has launched an investigation into these predatory lenders.  Several have already received subpoenas.  The governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, released a statement saying that these deceptive practices will not be tolerated.

The national Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is also concerned and they have issued a nationwide alert.

How to Protect Yourself from Predatory Lenders

How can a consumer protect themselves from these predatory lenders?

1.  Do not give a lender access to the bank account where you receive your pensions.  Do not enter into an agreement with someone in which you pledge your pension in return for a loan.

2.  Do not borrow money from an unfamiliar organization or loan company.  Go to your bank or a trusted financial advisor if you need money in a hurry.  There are better options and you may be able to take out a personal loan or a loan against one of your assets, while getting much better terms such as a lower interest rate, particularly if you have a long-term relationship with your bank.

3.  For more ideas, check out the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau article below.  (It is the third link listed in the Resources section.)

Resources for this story: 

In addition, if you want more retirement planning information, check out more articles using the index tabs at the top of this page.  In particular, you will want to check out the Retirement Money tab.
You are reading from the blog:  http://baby-boomer-retirement.blogspot.com
Public domain photo of military personnel is courtesy of www.morguefile.com
 

Sunday, October 20, 2013

What Will You Do After You Retire?

Like many recent retirees, I worried that I would get bored once I stopped working.  In fact, I have known many Baby Boomers who are nearing retirement age who have expressed this fear.

Frequently, they make statements such as, "I don't want to play golf every day," "I don't want to get roped into babysitting my grandkids too often," "I'm not the type to play bridge all the time," or "I hate just sitting around the house watching TV."

As I have mentioned before, I live in an over-55 retirement community with lots of activities ... more than any human being could possibly do.  Within weeks of retiring from my job, I had signed up for a circuit training class three days a week and a yoga class twice a week.  I also joined the Writer's Club and was pleasantly surprised by the number of published authors in my community.  Before retiring, I had already been involved in horseback riding and walking on the beach every weekend.  In other words, I quickly got involved in a wide variety of activities.

In addition, I also drive two of my grandchildren to school every morning during the school year.  While they could ride their bikes or walk to school, I actually enjoy having the freedom to pick up these two grandkids and spend that twenty minutes or so in the morning with them.  One day a week, when my granddaughter has a late start at school, I take her to Starbucks and we sit and chat for half an hour before I drop her off.  This extra time with my grandkids has been one of the perks of retirement.

I've also discovered that I like cooking again ... at least once in a while.  Let's face it, when you are a working wife and mother, it gets to the point where dinner is whatever you can put on the table.  In the past, I was most inclined to stop and pick up a pre-cooked chicken, order pizza or sushi, or do something easy that required the least cooking possible.  Now I'm preparing full meals that take a little more effort.  While I still fall back on my easy meal ideas a few times a week, I find that I am cooking more often than I have in years ... and actually enjoying it.

Of course, I also write this blog and provide content for a number of websites.   This not only is a creative outlet for me, but also provides additional retirement income, doing something I love.

However, this is my personal experience.  So, prior to writing this post, I also decided to canvas some of my friends who do not live in a retirement community and do not have grandkids that live nearby.  What surprised me is that they have no trouble filling up their free time, as well.

Some of them have signed up for classes from the local community college or senior center.  They also enjoy being able to engage in activities that they couldn't spend much time on before ... painting, writing books, hiking, reading and having lunch with friends.  They are cooking, gardening, spending time with grandkids, traveling, redecorating their homes, volunteering for charities, driving Meals on Wheels, and so much more.

While our level of activity will, of course, decline as we get older, I have discovered that Baby Boomers are finding a wide variety of ways to stay busy and enjoy their retirement.  In fact, one refrain that I heard over and over again is, "I'm so busy now, that I don't know how I found the time to work!"

So, if you are hesitant to retire because you believe you will be bored or you won't have enough to do, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.  Anyone who has the energy to work all day will be eager to find more enjoyable things to do after retirement!  Jump right in ... the water's fine!

You are reading from the blog:  http://www.baby-boomer-retirement.com

Public domain photo of an artist at work is courtesy of www.morguefile.com

Thursday, October 17, 2013

2014 Social Security Raise Expected to be Tiny

Social Security recipients are going to receive a tiny increase to their benefits again this year.  The preliminary estimate is that the increase will be only about 1.5 percent.  Considering that the average monthly benefit is currently about $1,162, this means the estimated increase will amount to approximately $17 for the typical beneficiary.

The size of the COLA not only affects retirees on Social Security, but also disabled veterans, disabled civilian workers, federal retirees, and SSI recipients, as well as their survivors.  The same cost of living estimates are used for all these groups.  This percentage may also be applied to other types of pensions, so this tiny increase will affect millions of retirees and disabled Americans.

Last year the increase was only 1.7 percent and, prior to that, there were no increases at all for the previous two years.  Over the past few years, more and more Social Security recipients are beginning to feel the pinch.  It is also becoming more difficult for them to put aside money for emergencies or unexpected expenses such as medical co-pays and car repairs.

The reason given for the low 2014 cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, is because consumer prices have not gone up much during the past year, according to government figures. In addition, fuel prices have actually gone down over the past year.  For people who are still working, lower fuel prices are certainly helpful, although this may be a less significant benefit for people who no longer commute and use their cars very little.

Some advocates for senior citizens say that the way the government measures inflation is unfair to retirees, as they tend to spend a higher percentage of their income on health care.  The low COLA doesn't help them very much since medical costs have actually risen an estimated 2.5 percent over the past year.  This is one reason that so many retirees feel that they have been falling further behind.

Things may become even more challenging for retirees over the next few years.  Congress is currently looking at making changes to all the entitlement programs, including Social Security, Medicare  and federal pensions.  The goal is to make these programs more sustainable in the long run, which is a worthy goal.  However, this plan is likely to make it even tougher for retirees to survive on their benefits alone.

For example, if the government switches to a chained CPI to calculate future cost of living increases, as has been suggested recently by several members of Congress, we can expect to continue to receive extremely low Social Security cost of living increases in the coming years.

AARP has been actively fighting against the use of a chained CPI to calculate future cost of living increases.  However, it may be a hopeless battle, since this currently seems to be the most popular recommendation for entitlement reform.  I will continue to keep my readers up-to-date on developments with regard to this issue.

(The number used in this post for the 2014 COLA will be revised should the actual increase be higher or lower than 1.5%)

Source:

http://news.yahoo.com/social-security-raise-among-lowest-years-122713809.html

You are reading from the blog:  http://www.baby-boomer-retirement.blogspot.com

Public domain photo of an early social security card is courtesy of www.wikipedia.com/commons.