Hey there today, we are talking about the seven best and worst places to retire in 2022. And you're gonna make sure you stick around to the end where we share with. Three things that retirees should never overlook, but they often do all that. And more on today's episode of the retire wants show.

Hello and welcome to the retire wants show the show designed to help you get to retirement. But most importantly, stay retired. I'm your house? Jonathan Ranken. I'm the founder and CEO of theorem wealth management. And I am joined as always by my lovely co-host. Hi, I'm Melissa rank. Thank you so much for joining us.

Have we got a great episode in store for you guys today? What are we gonna be talking about? Well, first of all, we gotta go through the seven best and worst places to retire because, Hey, why not? I mean, this gives you something to think about. If you're in the bottom seven, do you move, if you're in the top seven, do you celebrate, you know, we're gonna go through all of that, uh, but make sure you stick around to the end because we've got three things that you wanna make sure you don't overlook in retirement.

But, uh, before we do that, what do we want people to do? We want you to subscribe. We want you to never miss one of our amazing episodes. That's right. Never miss one of these things and make sure you head to retire once show.com there you could download our retirement toolkit. Ask us a question for the show.

Uh, you can also schedule some time for your free retirement assessment and we'd love to connect with you. So head to retire once show.com, where you could do all that stuff. So with that, Mel. So let's kick it off. So every year there's an article done by wallet hub of the. Top places to live in the bottom places to live.

And they go through tons of different things to kind of come up with their formula, if you will, how to rank the cities. Right. Yeah. And I, I feel like before you even jump into what's the top, what's the bottom. We gotta figure out what they're measuring. What does that absolutely. What does that methodology?

So, uh, in looking at that, give us a little, what are they, what are they doing? How many, how many cities are they actually looking at? So they're actually looking at 182 cities, kind of all across the us, and they go through four different, um, dimensions or. I call 'em categories. They call 'em dimensions. We, we were going back and forth on what to call it, but they go through four, um, affordability, activities, quality of life.

Healthcare. Yeah. And so in each one of those, um, we're gonna call 'em categories, cuz dimensions is odd. That kind of makes me feel like we're in the matrix and we're talking about like some sort of dimension in another universe. So we're gonna focus on categories here. We're gonna stay in this dimension.

So in this matrix, in this simulation, as Elon Musk would say, uh, but they go through 46 total metrics to, uh, to evaluate those categories. And so just a couple examples of some of those metrics. So if we're looking at affordability in that category, They look at the adjusted cost of living and they rank that they look at the annual cost of in-home services and adult day healthcare.

So that's all that goes into the affordability. What are some of the other ones that, uh, so for activities, they look at, um, recreation, senior centers. Um, outdoor activities fishing. If you're into that golf, things like that. My favorite is they actually look at bingo halls per capita. Yes. Yeah. I forgot that one.

The most important one. I think that is the most important one. Get your Dobbs out and, uh, head to the nearest bingo center Dobb. That's what they're called. I know. It's just funny. You know that off, off the top of your I've been at bingo. We've been to bingo together.  yes, I that's true. We've been to bingo together because we are a retired couple that is in their sixties.

We are boomers. So, so with that in mind, it goes to the next point quality of life. That's right. So they look at the share population that is over 65. This is probably where we should be living, uh, mild weather. Now that is the largest weight in this category is so looking at the weather there and then air quality.

And then, uh, the last category or dimension is healthcare. I would imagine that this is probably a new thing they looked at, but, uh, the per the percentage of residents who are fully vaccinated and that carries the most weight in that overall category, which I found kind of interesting, which makes me wonder if.

Let's say they do this. Like we talked about, they do this every year, but it makes me wonder if the cities have changed so much because of that now being added in, well, we're gonna get to that, cuz we've done some looking back at previous years. So we'll look at that. Uh, but they also take a look at life expectancy and the death rate of the population over 65.

So, uh, fun times that they look at over there at wallet hub. But with that, let's get into Mel the top seven, top seven. So the number one.  Charleston, South Carolina. I've never been, but it sounds amazing. It sounds great. I mean, and it's it's number one. So who wouldn't wanna live in the number one city?

That is true. So congratulations, Sue Charleston, South Carolina. You are the top place that you should live based on Wal hub survey. And then, uh, they go through the rest of the top seven. Go ahead. So we've got Orlando, Florida. We've got Cincinnati, Ohio, and I, I don't know why I've, I've never personally been to Cincinnati, but for me that's not a huge.

At least I never considered a huge retirement area. I never, I never would've thought that. So that one surprised me the most. Um, yeah. And with football coming up, I mean, they did lose a super bowl too, so they don't even have that to look forward to. So I just, I mean, I don't think that was part of the study, but I'm, I'm a 49ers fan.

Just, uh, know that the 49ers did beat the Cincinnati Bengals in previous super. So, you know, Kind of, so you're surprised there, even on the list I am. Okay. So with that, moving on, we have Miami, uh, Fort Lauderdale, San Francisco, which that one surprises me because it's so expensive. It is, it is the highest cost of living, but it ranked second for activities.

So there is a lot to do there. Um, if you can afford to go do them, if you can. Exactly. So that is kind of the, kind of what I gathered. And what is that last number step? And the last one is Scottsdale. I mean, and we're from Arizona, so we can very easily say that it has a huge retirement community. That's true.

See, I'm born and raised in California. And then I, so, and then I moved to Arizona, which is, it is a beautiful destination. And that's where I met my lovely cohost slash wife. See, so there you have it. So that makes sense that made, you know, the top seven. So then that. Lead us to the next what's the bottom seven.

Oh, shift it to me for the negativity. So the bottom seven Vancouver, Washington, which in all honesty didn't know, was a city in the United States. Um, Detroit, Michigan Stockton, California, which to my family in Stockton, California. I am sorry, but I absolutely agree with this. Uh, this is where my Chinese family resides.

I'm half Chinese and this is where they all live. And I. Don't uh, know why they live there because it should be in the bottom seven, you know? That's so this is one of those that maybe you mentioned in the beginning, if you live there, do you move? Yeah. So this might be a yes. On that one. I, I would, yeah. Uh, Rancho Cucamonga, San Bernard, Bernardino, California, Newark, New Jersey and Bridgeport.

Connecticut is actually at the bottom of the list there. So, which that's surprising to me also, because you always see. Scenic and you know, like it's supposed to be SOS there. Yeah. But I, I would imagine it's probably not cheap in Bridgeport. Oh, right. So that, well, but like we said, San Francisco is on the other list and it's San Francisco's had a lot to do.

It's a concentrated city. There's but it's pretty. Okay. Well, yeah. Okay. There's moving on. Moving on. So I wanted to take a second to look at the top in each category, the top and bottom in each category, because for. There might be things in this study that don't, that, that aren't important to them. I mean, if in the healthcare side, if the percentage of people who are vaccinated is double weight, if you care about that, great.

If you don't, well, that might throw off where things are at in the listing. So, uh, the top in affordability in the bottom and affordability, so the top is Montgomery, Alabama, and obviously the most expensive place, New York new. Naturally now the shocking thing is in the list. They are right next to each other, 131 and 132.

So still kind of at the bottom, even though Montgomery is super affordable. Yeah, exactly. And then, uh, activities, what we got there for activities. Um, the top is Washington DC and the bottom is Modesto. California. Makes sense. It's near Stockton move. Okay.  just kidding. If you're in Northern California, I love you.

That's where I'm from. We're we're all family, but, uh, move . And with that, we're gonna be moving on to the next one. So the top and bottom, um, for quality of life. Yeah. So Fremont, California, and yeah, Fremont, California, and Springfield. Missouri is at the bottom. There never been to either one of those, but.

You know, you could take that for what it's worth , which I just was double back. I wanted to double check on that. So this is not the one with the death rate. Oh no, that was the that's the healthcare one. Okay. That's perfect. So we're moving to that one next. She's just not paying attention to the show. I was in the show.

I'm sorry to our listening. I wasting quality of life. It would make sense. I mean, I can see why it goes under healthcare, but. Okay, now I digress. Okay. Healthcare. So healthcare top the top is south Burlington. And the best part is that there's also. Burlington and they're they're right next to each other on the list.

I was surprised that, uh, wallet hub looked at both of them. I guess they're two separate cities. Oh, south. And just, yeah. Burlington. Okay. And then the worst for healthcare, the worst is, uh, Columbus, Georgia. Yeah. So, uh, whatever those factors are that they look at for healthcare Columbus, I'm sorry that wallet hub doesn't think you're healthy, but we don't think that you're UN.

We're just looking at what Wal hub says. So I did want to look at the consistency of this study because you know, if you do make a life decision, let's just say that you are planning on retirement and you go, you know what? I don't know if I wanna live where I wanna live. Charleston, South Carolina. Seems like it's a nice place to live, but number one, number one this year, but is this a study that over the years just changes where one years Charleston will be number one next year, it'll be number 175 and you go.

Well, I just, I just moved here cuz they said it was number one. What happened? So we did wanna look at the consistency. So going back all the way to 2019, which feels like it was a decade ago easily. Yes. Yes, it does. Remember the masked time where we all, some people are still doing it. I know, but I just like, think about, we went through that whole.

The world was shut down and we had to like go outside in full mask garb and everything. So we're gonna go before that. Okay. Before all of that happened before the craziness. Okay. So top seven in 2019, top seven in 2019 were Orlando, Tampa Scottsdale. Uh, Charleston was still in that. Yep. Okay. So some consistency here, um, and Miami.

Denver and Fort Lauderdale. So it was missing. Cincinnati was missing, but in 2019, it was 14th. Now it's in the top seven. So Hey there. So that's still not bad so that one's consistent. San Francisco was 20th. Now they're in the top seven. I still don't understand that one. And then Denver was in the top seven and now they're 14th.

So Denver get your act together. You're falling off the list there. So let's talk about the bottom. So the bottom, we have Fresno Newark, Bakersfield, San Bernardino, Warwick, Bridgeport, and Stockton. So, uh, four of them are the same. We have three newcomers this year to the bottom seven. Congratulations to Vancouver for making into the bottom seven, uh, Detroit and Rancho Cuca.

Now we're gonna look at this next category as, uh, I like to call it the most improved. I like that. So, uh, Warwick, I mean, they were a hundred 80th back in 2019. Now they've moved up to 160 ninth slowly making progress. That's okay. Bakersfield 1 78. Now they are 1 64. Okay. But the award for most improved goes to Fresno, California.

They went from 1 76 to 1 57, so still bad, but not as bad. I mean, No thing is bad. Everything is great. We can't say that things are bad, Melissa. Yes, we can. They ranked them from no it's best to worst. I know, but saying things are bad means that we're putting down whole cities. No, not at all. Not us. We didn't write the, the, you know, the survey we didn't the study.

Yeah. We're, we're just, we're just conveying it to you guys. That's true. So we're just giving you the information that, uh, that wall hub is giving us. But so if you live in any of these cities that, that we said.  good or bad. Don't blame us blame all at hub. That is true. But if you are thinking about relocating to a new city in retirement, that is where we can help.

We can help see if that fits into your retirement plan. See if it does make sense, because moving in retirement, I mean, there is a cost to that. It's not cheap to move. I mean, when we moved from Arizona to Texas, there's a, there's a cost to. A big cost. Yeah. So, you know, we had a, we had a client who moved from Arizona to Florida now is buying a place back in Arizona.

So it's, you know, there's, there's always, you never wanna have to do the move and then the remove. No. So, I mean, if you do, Hey, hopefully it works out for you, but all that has a cost and we're happy to help at least. See if that fits in your retirement plan, make sure you had to retire once show.com schedule that time, where we can put together that retirement assessment for you.

But now we wanna, with that, we're gonna shift gears a little bit. We're getting away from the, the good and the bad that's right. Um, we wanna talk about the three things that can change your retirement. That's right. There was a Forbes article that came out actually on, uh, it was September 7th. We're recording this on September 8th for whenever you're watching this.

Uh, and it was. The hidden retirement pitfall. It's not the money that was article catchy title. It is a catchy title and it was written by, uh, Carolyn Rose Blatt. She's the co-founder of aging parents.com a registered nurse and a certified public health nurse. And one of the key takeaways from this that I, when I started reading this article at, uh, it kind of made me chuckle and I, I wanna let Melissa share with you this, this excerpt from there, and I'll share with you my thoughts on that.

So she says successful retirement takes much more than adequate financial.  what else is there a plan for how you wanna enjoy your life? Find meaning in it and ma and maintain a purpose and identity is something financial advisors are typically not trained to explain, uh, excuse me. First of all, first of all, we are financial advisors.

That's why I had to chuckle. That's why to make it all the way through why I had to laugh too. When I read this, because clearly she listened to last week's episode. She must have, because that's in case you missed it. That's what we went. The whole episode. That was a part of it. Yeah. Where we talked about the importance of a good social strategy.

So she's listening. She must be, I don't know for sure, but I'm going to assume, because she wrote this. After we did that episode. Yeah. I feel like we gave her maybe an idea. We had to give her the idea. Definitely. But it is that important because you know, another thing she talks about is depression is common in retirement.

And the risk is there for anyone who is not given enough consideration to what they need to do to prevent it. And this is very important and it is something that that's why we talked about last week, finding that sense of purpose is very, very important in retirement. It really, yes. The. Helps get you there, but making sure that you can actually live a fulfilled and successful retirement, you get there's more to it than just money.

You wanna enjoy it. She talks about in the article three components of a true successful retirement. And so let's go through those. So the number one that Sheilas is structure. So structure the way she puts it is that it gives us a routine and without it, we can feel lost isolated and really purposeless.

So what are some practical advice that she shares in the article, shes us to design a weekly routine, something that you like, something that you can see yourself doing realistically every week now. Here's where I, I think about this practically though, the problem is, is that. I mean, do you really design your week?

You know, even like right now we've got our routine, but we never actually sat down and said, okay. So from this time to this time, we're gonna go to work this time. We never sat down and built that out. I guess that is something that in retirement, I was gonna say, we're not retired. So that might be part of it too.

We don't really have. The whole day of flexibility to kinda that's true, I guess. But yes, I think it is important to, uh, build out that routine that day to day of what you're gonna be doing. Number two, number two, purpose. So I love what she says in the article. She talks about how society respects those people who work and the way she puts is that you're commonly asked, what do you do now?

When you answer, I'm retired. The, what she talks about is how responding with I'm retired might leave you feeling less fulfilled than you were, even if you hated your job. Just being able to say what you did was somehow a, I dunno, a comfort for people. Yeah. And so it just, it gave them a sense of purpose.

And I, that was one thing that I took away from the article was that even if you hated your job, it gave you something to do, even if the only reason why you were working that job was to put food on the. So, you know, it still gave you a sense of purpose. So some practical advice that she gave was to what, to find a hobby, which, I mean, I think is it kind of goes ties in a little bit with the first one with structure, because if you have a hobby, chances are, you're probably gonna wanna do that often.

Um, find a hobby, anything that really is important to you that you like doing. I mean, it can be gardening, it can be going for walks or. I'm sure there's so much more to do. I would can't any sort of examples. I got Jamel, I'll pick this up. So, you know, you've got golf, volunteering, you've got a lot of different things you can do, but it's important to find that hobby or interest before you retire, you know, coming up with that routine and figuring out what is it that you want to do.

And one thing that she talks about is that if what you're planning on doing is too. Then it may not be enough to actually make you feel fulfilled, but if it's too hard, then you probably might lose interest. I mean, I know makes sense. Speaking Mandarin is hard. I don't think that it's something that I would be able to do for a long period of time without losing interest.

But yeah, you're probably not gonna pick that up. Just, you know, no, I'm sorry to my Chinese family that I cannot speak to you in our native tongue, but, uh, that's just, it's, it's hard. It's a hard language to. And that takes us to our third or her third point rather community. Yeah. So this is where, you know, thinking about how your job offered you, the ability to communicate and interact with other people through conversation.

And now that the job's gone, you don't really have that. So some of the advice that she gives is plan, whatever you're going to do, that's going to create interaction with other people. And, uh, I'm just gonna say it. The drive-through at McDonald's not interacting with. I mean, it can be the, the, the grocery store checker.

That's not interacting with people. So maybe something a little more fulfilling than just your day to day conversations while you're out and back. Yeah. Whether it's, you know, club activities or, you know, classes that you could take sports church anywhere where there's other people that, I mean, bowling leagues, bingo holes.

Volunteer work. See, goes back. I brought it back all the way to the beginning though. Bingo halls. That's what we do here. We're just wrapping it all back up. I wonder if people are watching this picturing us, just sitting there with all of our Dobbs and our little, our, our things, and just, that's a very accurate picture of how it was when we went, but that wraps up the three things that Carolyn thinks are the, the most important in retirement.

That again, people often overlook structure, purpose, and community. So if you can find something. All of those things that ties in together, you're gonna have a pretty good retirement. Yeah. Just make sure you add that to the list of all the financial things. You've gotta do, making sure that your money's gonna last the rest of your life, making sure that you've got a plan for sounds like we're giving you guys homework.

Yeah. So you've got a lot of homework and if you need help with that had to retire once show.com. Schedule that time for us to connect. We'd be happy to help put. Your specific retirement plan. But with that, before we get outta here, make sure that you hits up subscribe button. And I am Jonathan Rankin.

I'm Melissa Rankin. Thank you for joining us.

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