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Want to retire cheap? Your biggest expense will be housing.
Whether you are renting or purchasing, you need to find a home that is within your budget. Look in small towns across the
United States where you can purchase a cheap home under $70k, or rent a home or apartment under $500 a month. Look
for a cheap place to retire in a town that also has the basic amenities like a movie theatre, ample shopping for
your basic needs and the opportunity to enjoy more natural beauty than you can find in a big city. These smaller
towns are not only attracting seniors who are trading in their big homes for a quiet retirement lifestyle, many young
families today are looking for smaller communities. They have discovered that the extra hour driving to work
is a small price to pay for a quiet lifestyle. And they are great places to raise children.
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RETIRE CHEAP IN MONTANA: Montana is known as big sky country and offers many outdoor amenities with lush green flatlands, cool lakes and rivers and imposing mountains. There are many small towns you might find in Montana where you can retire cheap. Anaconda is one of them. A step back in time where you can dine at a nice restaurant, watch a movie in a theater that's ranked the 5th most beautiful theater in the country. Want a little more excitement? You can gamble (make sure you take only enough money with you that can afford to lose) in one of several casinos, or buy a dollar beer at a favorite watering hole - all within a four block area! You can even fly fish! How is it that you can retire cheap in this Montana town? It all comes down to the economy. People started leaving the area in the 80's, after the mines and smelters closed. Jobs are still few and the ones that are left don’t pay well. Where there are no jobs, the housing market slows and sometimes comes to a grinding hault, like a lot of towns across the country and even some large cities in states you never would have thought this could happen several years ago. In this small Monana town you can purchase a home for less than $45,000 at the time of this writing. Other States, Same Amenities: You can find these little gems in other States like Idaho, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Arizona and Nevada that have similar amenities while still being close to the great outdoors. These cheap places to retire can be found sprinkled across the U.S. in small towns of less than 4,000 people.What you can't get very easily in these small communities will not come as a shock. High paying jobs. But most seniors aren't looking for employment anyway, and if they are they only need a little extra income or just like working to stay connected and have a purpose. You may also have to be content without big box stores, malls, and higher crime. You can begin your own search for your best places to retire online. Put in small towns under 4000 population, and see what comes up. An alternative if you still want to live in a larger city would be to buy in the inexpensive part of town where you already live, or buy different types of homes like condos, pre-fabricated or modular homes that cost less. Don't set your mind on one type of home or one neighborhood before you know all the alternatives you have to choose from. And I’m not talking about buying a cheap dump in a bad part of town just to save money. It is more about a philosophy of defining your true needs so you can find the least expensive way to meet them. You may be surprised at what is available for less. Look for older homes. Most don't have any HOA fees that can take a good chunk out of your budget and you don't get anything in return except maybe someone that cuts the grass in common areas. And let's be honest, most HOAs could care less about how the neighborhoods look. They just want our money. I’ve seen better kept neighborhoods that don’t have HOAs and every year they find some way to dig deeper into your pocket. The only HOA fees I've found that are worth it are in some of the 55+ retirement communities like Del Web. Iif you want to retire cheap, you just need to make some modifications. It doesn't mean you can't still retire in a city on your best places to live list . Do's and Dont's - Cheap Houses You Don't Want To Buy If a town is in decline, with no possibilities to recover over the next several years, it isn’t a good choice even if you can save money on the cost of the real estate and retire cheap. If, when you look down a street you notice that most of the buildings are boarded up you can be pretty sure that the town is dying. Especially when everyone is trying to sell their homes at the same time. You might be able to find a home for $11,000, but you will be all alone. You don't want to buy a home in a drug-infested area, or high crime area. Call the local police dept and ask how many times they're called a week or month to the neighborhood you're interested in. Look for graffiti. Look instead for Cheap Homes In Paradise…ok maybe not paradise, but there are wonderful towns all over the country from Florida to California and everything in between. A few more guidelines on buying a cheap house in a small town: 1. Population between 4,000 and 80,000. 2. 6 or even a few more homes for sale under $50,000, but not all. 3. A grocery store that is well stocked. 4. A movie theatre. 5. A nice library with internet.. 6. A town that is inviting and clean. 7. A town that is either close to a larger city with jobs and amenities or close to resorts or places tourists frequent. There are even homes for sale under $30,000 in some towns! Using a phone and the internet, searching for your affordable dream home is easier than ever to find that home.  |
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INTERNATIONAL LIVING THAT MAY BE WITHIN YOUR BUDGET... Ever wondered what it would be like to live in the country where most Europeans want to vacation?
It's considered to be one of the most romantic countries in the world. Click Here . ITALY-Venice is inarguably the most romantic
city ever, but it's expensive. Try one of the little villages in the north, or the Tuscan countryside... Click and Read More ` SPAIN- A place of sun-drenched beaches,
modern cities, verdant mountains and tradition. . MEXICO- ONCE CONSIDERED ONE OF THE BEST PLACES FOR AMERICANS AND CANADIANS TO RETIRE CHEAP. Today... . . RETIRE
CHEAP AND LIVE LIKE A KING FOR $20 A DAY By Bruce Webster Think International....places like Ecuador, or Thailand.... Americans are often surprised when they hit 65 or 66. This it the age they planned to retire and now they can't afford it. At least not the retirement they'd hoped for and been paying into for the past 45 years or more. Polititians are still screaming about how to get rid of social security too. (Of course most of them are wealthy and it wouldn't affect their bottom line but that's another topic) So, the question is...how can we retire cheap? According to recent reports, most of us will only have our social
security benefits as income, which in today's market may pay for the bare minimum living expenses, but that 700-$1500
check you receive from SSI in 2009 won't pay for any luxuries, and it wont be going up over the years
as the cost of living rises. In fact the current Administrataion is trying to find ways to reduce our SS checks. Let’s face it, high-priced cities like Chicago, Hawaii, New York and San Francisco are out of the question for anyone who wants to retire cheap. A two-bedroom apartment will set you back almost $2,500 a month. If you own your home free and clear you are better off than most, but you will still have property taxes, possible home owner's association dues etc. that will take a chunck of your monthly income. And as the basic cost of living increases, your retirement lifestyle decreases once you are on a fixed income. Like many, I wanted to retire in 2009, a couple of years early, but when I ran
the numbers I discovered that I will have to keep working until I'm 70 if we want to live in the style
we've grown accustom to, or anything close to it. The economy pretty much knocked out my stock portfolio, my wife's home
business income that had been growing steadily over the last few years dropped to half...and yet our expenses did
not. So how were we going to be able to make it work? After racking our brain one day about how we could make it
work we thought, there’s got to be a way to retire cheap and still enjoy the things we've grown accustomed
to… and after doing some research found that there is. It’s a matter of priorities. If we wanted to have the
retirement lifestyle we had dreamed about, we would have to make some changes. Some would be easier than others,
but we had to start by defining what we wanted most and then figure out how to achieve it. Our solution to the retirement dilemma was becoming clearer. 1. My wife decided she had to rebuild her business and possibly start another with more momentum. Her income would be crucial, and the residual checks will allow us flexibility to live wherever we want. 2. We are selling the big home we raised our children in. 3. The income from the home business, along with the social security check I'll be qualified for should put us up to 50% of my current income. Financial planners say you need 70-80% of your current income in order to retire comfortably. We can buy a smaller home in a less expensive city and live on that, but we won't be able to have the retirement lifestyle we wanted. So, we were back to how to retire cheap. Where there's a will, there's a way. ...So I got on the internet. I put in key words that were associated with retirement and for the most part all I got were websites trying to get me to invest in stocks, insurance programs, financial planners etc. But after a few days I started finding some answers. Luckily there are alternatives if you want to retire cheap and still be able to enjoy your retirement years. But as we're discovering, there may still have to be more changes if we want to enjoy leisure and travel activities. Were we ready to embrace them? Were we ready to become expats? People who couldn't afford to life the lifestyles they wanted here in the U.S. so they looked elsewhere, like Thailand or Ecuador, where you can live very comfortably for as little as $20 a day. Or other tropical countries lilke Panama, Honduras or Nicaragua? (Costa Rica was too expensive) The trick to being able to retire cheap is to find a place you'd like to live that has most of the things you enjoy doing within your budget. To do that... READ MORE Beachfront Retirement on My Budget? We've all dreamed about retiring someday on a glorious sandy beach with aqua blue water lapping at our toes. But, is this reality? Can You Retire Cheap and still live the lifestyles of the rich? Read more... Retire Cheap in Central America. Plenty of lush jungles, pristine beaches and bustling cities. CROATIA,
not the war-torn, backward, poor country you may be imagining. Today this wonderful retirement community is alive with emerald
wooded hills and crystal turquoise seas. Low density towns meander along the 1,00 mile coastline beneath firey hills
dotted with orchards of sweet fruits and citrus. A far cry from the
former Soviet Union. And the new Croation government wants to keep it that way. . Home
prices have been increasing, but are still a bargain when compared to other Mediterranean and European properties so
you can still retire cheap. Taxes are favorable to retirees and income from pensions received from abroad,interest payments
from loans and other investments, capitol gains from stock trading, capitol gains from real estate owned for more than
3 years and first line of succession inheritance are also exempt. Click
if you are interested in more information on the real estate climate of Eastern Europe . Need More Money for your retirement? Think you may have to try and find a job for that
extra income you need? You don't. I've researched the "home business ideas" market for years and
I want to share a secret with you so you won't get sucked into a scam. . Still thinking you want to retire in the U.S.? Here are . 10 more popular locations to retire cheap in 2011: · Pinehurst, North Carolina · Reading, Philadelphia · Independence,
Ohio ·
Lexington, Kentucky ·
Elgin, Arizona ·
North Miami Beach, Florida ·
Indian Rocks Beach, Florida ·
Rio Verde, Arizona ·
La Mirada, California ·
Rotonda West, Florida |
IDAHO has warm summers, snow in the winter. The valleys and flatlands where ranching and farming are
big are surrounded by gorgeous mountains, lakes, streams and even sand dunes for the outdoor enthusiasts. In fact,
the Boise real estate market hasn't seen much of a real estate decline like other places in the west. A good indication the
economy is stronger in that region. 
