Perhaps this is becoming more of a criterion for some people, because people have been getting further apart from each other politically, to the point that political differences are more likely to seen intruding on quality of life (consider the example of COVID-19, where mitigation measures may be seen as “infringements on freedoms” and lack of such may be seen as “imminent danger to health and life”).
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I would prefer to move to a state more in line politically with my beliefs. My city and I align, but my state and I do not. I have tried to explain to my kids how exhausting it is, being politically active in this statewide climate, and how relocating to ds1’s area would be so refreshing. Where ds2 lives, it would be more of the same as here … but, again, for grandkids I’d be there in a second.
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I don’t think someone is a soulmate; I think they become one. Multiple people can become your soulmate. And if you are lucky, one will.
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I think people missed my point. 
I only meant that I love my husband, I think he’s great. Not everyone would. But I’ve learned to love his quirks.
I was just comparing places to live. You can learn to love where you are, I have. It wasn’t where I thought I was going to love, but I do. Most of the time. Kinda like the spouse 
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I’m not trying to put words in anyone’s mouth- but these places have a bunch of Universities all in a small area. Plus tech, medical… I think that might be what @shawbridge means.
I was thinking the same. Raleigh-Durham is a research triangle. I live in the vicinity of Berkeley and Stanford. Same thing. Or maybe, he doesn’t like living near dumb people. 
I was in the gym a few days ago and there were two tech workers exercising. And me. One tech worker told the other tech worker the difference between software engineers and hardware engineers. Hardware engineers like to fly, because they can test until failure. Software engineers can’t/don’t/won’t do that, so they prefer not to fly in an airplane.
Where else can you get a conversation like that in a gym? Near a university.
(tongue-in-cheek post)
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I have hidden several off topic posts which were not conducive to a healthy conservation.
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Do not make more work for moderators by replying to hidden posts. It’s annoying.
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Do not make more work for moderators by flagging a post made by a moderator just because she hid your post; it won’t be deleted.
Seems like those statements are so obvious and unsurprising as to not warrant being made. Like different people are looking for different things in retirement and thus something that one person is looking for or needs in retirement may not be of any interest to someone else.
I retired 10 years ago. DH is winding down now. We are transitioning from the saver to spender model. We have saved a significant amount of liquid cash…and we are using it to make some upgrades to our house. We are looking at getting solar installed, and getting kitchen cabinets painted. Upstairs bathrooms will get new floors, and vanities…and mirrors. All carpeting will be replaced.
As long as we live here, we want to enjoy what we have…and I convinced DH that if we were going to do these things, we should have time to enjoy them.
So…lots of projects on the horizon here (and a number of them already done).
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That’s exciting. Seems like a nice way to spend your hard earned / saved money. I’ll look forward to your photos on home renovation threads
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Day 3 of retirement. Not bored yet. 
Researching my health insurance options now… We are too young for Medicare, so it’s COBRA, ACA, or private insurance.
COBRA is a PPO/HSA plan will cost us around $22k with $6k in deductibles but no coinsurance. You can use the HSA to pay COBRA premiums so there could be some tax savings there.
ACA plans seem to be in that neighborhood, although they are all HMOs. No direct income subsidies however the American Rescue Plan limits premiums to 8.5% of income, which could possibly save several hundred dollars per month.
Haven’t looked into private plans yet.
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When I do a retirement calculator, the result feels like a ransom note: you need to have $10 million dollars saved by tomorrow. As someone who lives in a high-tax, high-cost, high-salary state, I’ve realized that the assumptions aren’t always very helpful. For instance a huge portion of our discretionary income goes to college savings, retirement savings and other savings. We don’t really do luxury spending or even eat out/order in much for that matter. I’ve realized that in retirement, I’m not going to spend 20% of my post-tax income on savings.
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Most of the retirement calculators are useless. For one, hardly any of them allow you to drop below 60% of income as your retirement needs, which is ridiculous, especially for high earners who are good savers.
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@itsgettingreal21 right.
Seven out of the last eight years I worked, 100% of my salary went to cover college costs, and retirement contributions. That’s it. We were easily able to live on my spouse’s income only for all other expenses (including funding the spouse’s retirement).
And we also have zero big debt…no mortgage, no car payment, no college loans, etc.
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There is the, “pile,” and there is the income stream (cash flow). Of course, the pile should also be generating some income stream as well. As an example, if one has a great pension, the amount in the pile may be less important.
I have a friend who is 71 and just retiring this year. Even though not a super high earner, she worked so long (and waited to collect) that she is getting the max SS benefit. Same for her husband who also delayed collecting SS and continued working. So perhaps their pile doesn’t need to be as large to live comfortably.
They also have no children and are thus less concerned about spending down than others might be. She doesn’t understand our desire to leave anything to our ds.
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This is a reminder that discussing moderator actions is against Terms of Service, which all users agree to when they join CC. Terms of Service | College Confidential
See #6.
A number of posts have recently been hidden in this thread for directly discussing moderator actions or questioning why a post has been hidden. Remember that posts can also be hidden by senior users when several of them flag a post. I believe that number is three. So sometimes posts are hidden because other users found them to be problematic. If a post is hidden, there is a reason.
At any rate, it’s disruptive to the topic of the post, which is retirement, to keep posting about why a moderator took an action or why something was hidden. Please stay on topic.
Interestingly enough, in our area the appraisers of homes don’t seem to care if a home is energy efficient (!) - the one we just had Monday said “so the house has extra insulation” (we have 2 X 6 wall construction instead of 2 X 4, so high values with walls, windows, and attic) - it probably saves us $3,000/year in energy cost. In September will be the 30 year anniversary of move in. A prior appraiser (very ill mannered and ignorant individual said “I can’t measure 2 X 6 versus 2 X 4” - so not true!) Some people actually do notice and value a well constructed home that has better materials (most of our carpet is top of the spectrum - we had some damaged and the insurance report came back with a high rating that our insurance company had never seen such a high rating before - we could replace with wood floor instead of carpet which we did for that room). We have interest in our home w/o putting it on the market. IDK how our current appraisal will come out - the appraiser seemed pretty conscientious but it also is a refinance versus trying to hit a sales price.