The way it works out you could live in South Dakota or Wyoming and shop in Montana. The other spot where this works is living in Nevada or Washington and getting what you need in Oregon. With that in mind here are the five best places to retire!
1) Ranchester, Wyoming
Ranchester is a few miles from the Montana border and as best as I can tell the nearest town in Montana is Wyola which is 21 miles away. Beyond Wyola is Billings, MT which is another 96 miles away. Billings has Costco, Walmart and Home Depot. It would be a bummer if you got home and realized you forgot spacers for your tile project, or Teflon tape for your plumbing job but that is close enough to be functional.I found 16 real estate listings for Ranchester on realtor.com. A range between $200,000 and $300,000 would certainly get it done, there were a couple for less than $200,000 but I have to say $200k-$300k seems a little high to me but it is probably affordable for folks coming from a bigger town.
2) Spearfish, South Dakota
If you move to Spearfish the whole idea kind of unravels. I looked at maps on several websites and it appears as though there is literally nothing in southeast Montana. Billings is 420 miles away, oops.Maybe that is why out of 270 real estate listings 103 were below $200,000. Rapid City, South Dakota is close by but you do have to pay sales tax remember. A partial offset to not avoiding sales tax is that according to a site called Tax Foundation, South Dakota ranks 33rd out of 50 (a lower number is better) for property tax collection per household at $2469 as of 2006. If you figure that Spearfish is not one of the bigger towns then maybe the number is a little lower there.
3) Walla Walla, WA
Walla Walla might actually be a real possibility. The nearest Oregon town is Millton-Freewater which is about ten minutes away but there is a Home Depot less than an hour away in Hermiston, OR which also has a Walmart but there is no Costco (or Sam's Club). For anything big, like a Voodoo Doughnut, Portland is four hours away.Realtor.com only had 21 listings and only nine of them were below $300,000 which again surprised me.
4)Homer, AK
Alaska kills both birds so to speak; no sale tax or income tax plus you get a check of varying size from the Permanent Fund. I've written about the Permanent Fund both on the blog and for theStreet.com. There was one year where it paid out over $2000 so for a couple living modestly that could be one month's worth of expenses which could take a little burden off of the portfolio. Unfortunately the payout has actually been a lot less than that most other years. Quite candidly and perhaps unfairly, every time I have ever looked at the investment results they are not great and anytime I read the commentary they are explaining poor results.Homer appears to be quite far from anything, 222 miles from Anchorage which has more there than anywhere else in the state. I have read a couple of articles over the years proclaiming Homer to be a good place to live. There were 181 listings on Realtor.com and 103 of them were below $300,000.
5) Denio, NV
Denio, NV is near Denio, Oregon but I'm not sure there is actually a town in either location. I found one house listed in Nevada for $170,000 but it was on some sort of Yahoo page not Realtor.com. The picture indicates there is at least one other building besides the house for sale but if anyone is from that area please let us now if there is a town there. Even if there are towns there, both Denios are a long way from anything.This post is obviously mostly tongue in cheek. Anyone really fired up about this could live across from Portland in Washington or live near Anchorage (there is plenty that would be difficult about living in Alaska).
I do think the idea is unique and saving a few thousand on income tax and a few thousand on sales tax in a year could make a difference in annual expenses and relieve the portfolio a little.
While the idea of doing backhoe work in Ranchester, WY while your partner makes a little money answering texted questions for KGB and driving to Billings every two weeks for provisions is not going to be the solution for too many people this is a different way to think about things. And I think that far more people will have to be very resourceful to make their "retirements" work.
18 comments:
Hopefully your clients will be able to retire in places a bit nicer than these...
not sure if you're joking or not but this post is a parody more than anything else.
Roger, if you want to do parody you'd better make it more outrageous. Some people would take this seriously.
Obvious trouble is none of these places have the kind of climate most people want to retire to.
Interesting discussion. Having spent 20 years in the military, we spent most of our "vacations" going back home to visit parents, relatives, friends, etc.; obviously, personal choices, but ones to consider. How important is it to you to live near your aging parents, relatives, friends, etc.? Also, the availability of medical care (Homer, AK?), cultural events, etc., are personal choices that must be considered. Any way, it will be interesting to see what comments this discussion elicits.
You ARE a skinflint! [lol]
A fun post, and not a bad way to think outside the box. I can easily imagine some entrepreneur establishing a retirement community catering to conservative libertarians and other anti-tax types with just that theme in mind (being careful not to market the "community" aspect too much to avoid conflation with words like "communism"). [g]
What little research I've done in this direction suggests that taxes correlate weakly with economic activity and cost of living but identifying variables that really make a difference to the individual and then sorting based on those factors is certainly the right kind of approach. For example, a desire to go on working part time should be keyed to places where the kind of work you desire is relatively abundant.
PS: It gets REALLY dark and cold in Homer in the winter but, on the plus side, you can play golf at midnight in the summer.
Aalan, so Ranchester, WY wasn't that outrageous you say?
RW I prefer to be though of as a cheap SOB not skin flint.
Anon 6:18, the things you mention clearly go into everyone's particulars but anyone who is 70, healthy and has aging parents to be concerned with might want to think about continuing to work as they are likely to be around for a long time.
Roger,
I love it.
After a quick chuckle I realized that it is probably the most thought-provoking list of "best things" I can remember.
Thank you and keep up the excellent work,
SA.
My retired parents in law just went through a serious "we're going to move to Delaware to avoid taxes" kick.
All the work they'd have had to do, including selling a waterfront house in a bad market, would have ended up netting them only a couple thousand a year in savings; meanwhile they've have moved 2 hours away from everyone they know. Delaware doesn't have a sales tax, but most everything costs more; it's obvious that stores know their advantage and mark stuff up
Parody????
Do not give up your day job
Ditto for Oregon, no sales tax but prices are often higher. Not just due to merchant's working the advantage though I think; for example, Oregon is not a rich state and employs various means to stabilize unemployment rates since the economy, strongly dependent upon commodities, can be chancy -- I do believe it must be the only state where patrons are not allowed to pump their own gas and all gas stations must therefore have attendants; when logging tanks, as it frequently does, that may help families stay off the welfare roles but it's overhead that will be passed through regardless. TANSTAAFL
Fun post, Roger. I read the same article, but the only angle that dawned on me was to do a lot of buying online to reduce the sales tax burden. My wife is doing her part :)
Hope your panel discussions went well. It's too bad that there's not some way to videocast things like that for those of us who live too far away to attend a money show.
Hello Roger,
this is for Mike C.
I found a Yamada piece. It is interesting and makes more sense than previous.
http://www.financialsense.com/fsn/main.html
Best,
Jeff From Milan, Italy
P.S. Roger, what the hec an Italian do in alaska or wayomi. (Lol). Consider Italy - Free health care. I can attest it is better than paying health insurance and getting nothing in return.
Hey Roger,
I moved to a little town called Prescott Arizona from Rochester New York. My house here in Prescott is more expensive than the house I left back East BUT my property taxes are one fifth what they were in NY, my income tax rate is about half. Sales tax is about the same as is food, gasoline. In fact the only thing much more expensive here is water. Seems like a good retirement tradeoff to me AND we have Walmart, Costco, Home Depot, Lowes, Sam's Club ..all withing about 20 min drive....not to mention all the bars on Whiskey Row. Hard to beat ...
I definitely think that Vancouver WA is one of the best places to live in the US :) I always wondered how stores in Geneva, Switzerland made any money when prices were so much lower for everything just across the border in France. Or how such an anomaly could persist...
Found my little piece of heaven - Brunswick County near Wilmington, NC.40% less than if I would have bought two years ago.
Of course, compared to my previous locations near Akron, Ohio my hometown Cicero, Illinois, Kabul, Afghanistan would be a step up.
T
Roger, nice parody, but Money Magazine also picked Walla Walla as one of the ten best places to retire in 2006...maybe you are on to something.
scott
I'd like to shop and pay state income tax in New Hampshire (both 0%), but live in Vermont.
By the way, what's with everyone shopping at Walmart, Costco, Home Depot, Lowes, Sam's Club ?? These places are so ugly, un-user friendly, sell so much cheap chinese crap and are decimating our small towns. Why can't you shop at local places where people actually know what they are selling and where it comes from, and help the local economy?
anything wrong with florida? no income state tax, beaches, golf, great community life, everything close, yes,if you need it a home depot at every corner and then some. Why would anyone want to retire in WYOMING???
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