<p>“Climate does matter a lot to me, but so is a harder to predict item – where my kids will be.”</p>
<p>Let’s see… East coast weather or west coast weather?
That is a hard choice? :)</p>
<p>Shawbridge, I hope your wife finds an artist community to her liking.</p>
<p>My friend is incredulous that her mom prefers Chicago’s 4 seasons (including ice & snow of winter) to Hawaii. She has her mom come and visit for months but then mom always wants to go back to Chicago to enjoy the ice & snow and rest of what Chicago offers. (She is basically a shut in when the weather is bad in Chicago.) </p>
<p>My friend is already caring for her grandma who is 100+ and moving around less and less. Originally, it was expected that grandma would live a few weeks or months–it’s been quite a few years now and increasingly labor intensive for my friend. She likes when her mom comes and can help with grandma too. She works full-time out of her home and her H is still working full-time as well.</p>
<p>I have to admit the winter ice/snow just makes you feel alive-and then especially appreciating spring.</p>
<p>After living in FL for years, icy weather does nothing for me. I can imagine my son preferring to stay on west coast than return to MA for his grad degree. If you have lived in the South most of your life, it is hard to adjust to freezing cold weather.</p>
<p>@dstark, for me, the West Coast wins on weather but for ShawWife, who grew up in cold parts of Canada with lots of snow, winter is heavenly. We’re working on art communities.</p>
<p>Shawbridge, I am just curious. Where are the art communites in the SF Bay Area?</p>
<p>I will report back on that. They are apparently being displaced by high real estate prices. </p>
<p>Ok…thanks.</p>
<p>There’s a thriving community of artists living in Santa Cruz. Every year, they have an Open Studio, 2 full weekends of open house where you can go to the artists’ studios attached to their homes. It’s quite competitive to be included.
<a href=“http://www.artscouncilsc.org/open-studios/”>http://www.artscouncilsc.org/open-studios/</a>
They also have a converted warehouse that provide spaces for artists to live, work and show their work.
<a href=“http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/ci_20770089/former-leather-factory-bustles-artists”>PG&E boss says company wasn’t fully ready for California outages – Santa Cruz Sentinel;
<p>Is anyone taking RMD? In the first year, how do you decide how much to take?</p>
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How would u ski w/o snow? 
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<p>I’ve been skiing since I was 8 years old. But yesterday was start of winter (snow, and by evening it got down to 11 degrees). I walked in the blowing snow from my home office to the mailbox, down the street only about 150 feet, Along the way I though, “I’m not quiet ready for the ski season…” </p>
<p>Found out our employee benefit package for next year, and health care costs are being thankfully kept in check. Now I have a short time to figure how much we want to put in our medical spending account (this company never gives much lead time; once we had only a couple of days - at least I have until Nov 30 with current enrollment).</p>
<p>Also found out something that may be beneficial to this group - attended a church sponsored information event where a prominent senior center came and talked about Alzheimer. Marketing manager was also there. This particular community allows people to ‘buy in’ after people are at least 62. Say you are in their independent living and one spouse needs ‘skilled nursing’ - which is nursing home level care (or rehab level care is short term on this level of care) - outside community pays $7000/mo, but community people pay $3500/mo.</p>
<p>My take is that if you do not have LTC insurance but you think one spouse may need care (family HS of dementia, heart issues, joint issues, etc - or even have a ‘glimpse’ of this) - you have to be healthy enough to buy into community (and of course they do have higher monthly type of fees than if you owned your own home and did things yourself) - this community refunds 90% of your ‘buy in’ - but you have to have a good retirement picture to be part of them.</p>
<p>However in thinking about this, the current spouse is paying for their apt/monthly fee, so essentially most of the discount is because they already are getting a monthly level of payment for other spouse.</p>
<p>If you can stay healthy, active, and mobile - however many move into these kind of senior complexes when they can no longer drive, are getting isolated, are getting worried about too many things at home or knowing being at home is too dangerous due to declining abilities. One of their current residents drove until age 102 and then moved in - and she is now 108 and very sharp mentally. </p>
<p>H had a great aunt that didn’t move into a ‘facility’ until she was 106 - she was the oldest one there, and she would go around and cheer up ‘the old folks’. She died shortly before turning 108. He had several other great aunts that lived to 103, 105, 105 - two lived together in AZ, and one of the 105 lived in her own home in IA. However I do plan to outlive my H!</p>
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<p>There is a formula that the IRS imposes. Here is it:</p>
<p>Find your age in the IRS Uniform Lifetime Table
Locate the corresponding life expectancy factor
Divide your retirement account balance as of December 31 of the prior year by your life expectancy factor.</p>
<p>There are many sites on the web that provide calculators to determine the amount. Here’s one: <a href=“Taking your required minimum distribution (RMD) | Vanguard”>Vanguard - Page Not Found;
<p>Yes, tis the season for benefits enrollment. My company and others seem to be pushing HSA (Health Savings Account), with cash deposits to get it started. It seems appealing, since you can supposedly roll over HSA with no “use it or loose it” concerns. </p>
<p>ANY FEEDBACK ON HSA? I’m hoping to hear from families that used them this yea. The plan I am looking at is for a high deductible PPO with HSA. This loosely ties in to the thread theme because the HSA could be used to stash away pretax funds for retirement medical expenses.</p>
<p>I have never had an HSA myself but I’m a benefits consultant and I know lots about them. Two huge advantages:</p>
<p>Because the funds roll over from year to year, you can accumulate quite a bit of money.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>If you use the money before you turn age 65 for any health-related expense, the money is tax-free.</p></li>
<li><p>After age 65, if you use the money for health-related expenses, the money is tax-free. But if you use the money for any expense, it’s taxed as ordinary income. It’s like additional money in your 401(k) because it accumulates tax-free for the entire time it’s in the account.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>We take the RMD that the IRS requires–not a penny more. The websites for most brokerages also have calculators or you can generally speak with their customer support folks to help calculate. There are also calculators on the IRS website. We’ve been taking RMDs since H turned 70.5. He also inherited an IRA from his late sister and takes RMDs on that as well. He also takes the require RMD from his TSP of the federal government, which is a slightly different formula that does no.</p>
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<p>VH, thank you! If I retire next year at age 71 hypothetically and convert all my 401k to roth, I should withdraw an amount I had at the end of this year divided by the life expectancy factor. After that, I don’t have to withdraw anything?</p>
<p>There is a cost to converting your money to Roth–it is ALL ordinary income in the year you convert it. As the tax code is NOW, once the money is in a Roth, the owner of the Roth does NOT have to make withdrawals while s/he is alive. H has not touched his Roth funds and he’s over 70.5. There are rumblings here and there that the tax code may change and require distributions from Roths, but so far, it’s only distant rumors. Even if there are distributions required, it will be withdrawn tax-free, since you already paid your tax to convert or used after-tax dollars to fund the Roth. Roths grow tax-free (earnings in the Roth are NOT taxed).</p>
<p>HSAs wouldn’t work for me – we would never get to the part where any of the contributions could be rolled over. We hit the OOP max every year now, which is higher than the HSA limits. We use the flex spending account (pre-tax reimbursement of copays, deductibles, etc.), but miss the days when it was $5,000 per employee. We would both max it out and still not have everything reimbursed.</p>
<p>IIRC, there are income limits on Roths?</p>