Videos like this (best places to retire) are fun to watch, but in reality, most retirees want to stay near family and friends and things that are familiar. Some of the best places to retire suck for the rest of the family, i.e. Nebraska. I personally plan on talking at least one of my kids into moving to a warm sunny state and building a casita out back for me. That means I have to be super nice to one of my kids, but I have 7 so I can be myself with the other six. Hehe!
Wow. Impressed to see Knoxville #1. I'm in Chattanooga but love the Knoxville area. Plenty to do and, in general, Tennessee is great. Moved here from California a few years ago.
Successful aging? Briggs, I am a Viet Nam era veteran. I never dreamed I would live to see the 21st Century. (Of course, now that I am here I am not necessarily sure I belong.) I just turned 70, which is a major miracle and something I never even considered would happen. I sure as h*ll am not rich, but I am comfortably retired. So, yeah. There can actually be such a thing as successful aging. I wish you the same.
Jason, First, from one Veteran to another, I salute you sir. My name is Wayne. And I feel the same as you. Especially today's music is just lacking something. There's a choice few like John Legend, and that girl who played in the last Super Bowl. She's a damn good guitar player. But our favorite bands and musicians are moving on to the other side. I'm very surprised that the Rolling Stones hasn't passed on yet,,,
@@jasondaniel918 You as well. I can't believe the Rolling Stones are still around. Now I know there's alot of Beatles fans, but I preferred the Stones.
I was wondering all the way through if you would mention Tennessee. As a transplant from another Southern state, I have to say I LOVE Tennessee. We have NO state income tax. Kids can go to college tuition-free at any of the community colleges. There is no state sales tax on food, although local municipalities and counties can tax it. It's a prosperous state, and not terribly expensive to live here. I am about to be 65, and I plan on spending the rest of my days here. By the way, thanks for choosing Knoxville as the # 1 place to retire. You made a good choice!
He also said the place sucks and it’s dangerous! Never heard anyone in any video explain Knoxville in that manner but it’s probably music to the locals ears to stop the influx of people moving in. Lol I’ve heard crime is up but that seems to be the normal in most larger cities people are flocking to. I guess its the only thing that makes Knoxville suck in his opinion.
Don't drink tap water in Knoxville, TN.. Coal ash pollution in east tn water is rampant thanks to TVA, and is well documented. Don't eat any fish from the Tennessee River, and for sure don't swim in it. Part of the reason houses are so cheap. The topography of the Knoxville area traps alot of air pollution. High cancer rate.
Nothing left of Nebraska!! I live in Southern Oregon on $1000. a month. Of course I have no life either but I have enough to eat and stay clothed and buy an occasional toy on amazon. So it's ok.
William MacGregor that’s good to know. I’ve been looking into Oregon or Washington as places to relocate, but didn’t think I’d be able to make it on social security income. Do you mind sharing what general area you’re in? Thanks!
Tracy Moore Try looking into the Douglas county area. Inland not coastal. Roseburg is the large (ish) city and county seat. There’s at least a dozen smaller towns within 30 miles of it. There’s plenty to do year round and it’s a beautiful area. It has a pretty good assortment of retail stores as well, there’s Home Depot AND a Lowes plus a few independent hardware/lumber stores. A full range of grocery stores such as Walmart, Fred Meyer, Safeway, Albertsons, Sherm’s, Ray’s, Shopsmart, plus the little guys Dollar General, Dollar Tree Etc. For a City on the small to medium size it’s doing well. They have lots of activities year round but most are in the spring summer autumn. Drive 1-2 hours east and you are at Crater Lake National Park. Do the same going west and you’re on the coast. Just understand that most people in that area think Republicans are to liberal lol. So make sure to wear flannel shirts, don’t cry if you see someone in a monster truck listening to serious country music while waving their MAGA hat out the window lol
Briggs’ cousins’ ex-wife running gag is like the ‘Frau Blucher’ joke from Young Frankenstein ... lightning and thunder rolls, horses freak out ... I’m here for this kind of quality content
PLEASE!!! Not everyone can scrape up the $ for a down payment on a house! The money you save up for a down payment could be used for several years rent!
I knew my research would pay off. I've been planning on moving to Knoxville TN and ultimately retire there for a while now. Glad to see it make number one on this list.
If you're arthritic or have even a chance of being prone to allergies, don't do it. The pollen here is so bad we have pollen alerts almost daily for most of the year, even if it's pouring rain. Which it does, a lot. About half the days of the year see some precipitation, and sometimes that is a literal pattern. From Oct 2019 to May 2020, I think we had 48 straight hours without rain about twice. It was about every other day. As an arthritis patient, I find the constant yo-yo of the barometer less than fun.
Helped me. Retired at 58, looking for a landing spot back in the States. Been tracking home prices in many areas there for a while. Several cities mentioned here are on my watch list.
Knoxville is a good place to live. Lived there five years myself. Not the best-looking city, but Lake Loudon and the Smoky Mountains make up for it in spades. Be sure to check out Big South Fork if you're an outdoors person. Winters are mild with only one or two snowfalls, but Knoxville gets a lot of rain. If you want the really big city experience, Knoxville is about 4 hours to Atlanta. It's a solid choice.
Knoxville resident weighing in: This is joke, right? Sure, there's no state income tax, but sales taxes are nuts. 9.25% for most things, 7.75% for qualified food items. Yes, you read that right. Just shy of 8% tax on your basic groceries. Great for someone on a fixed income, right? If by some incredible miracle you can afford to buy and actually find a house for 179k, it's going to be a 50 to 70 year old two bedroom with an illogical floor plan and tiny rooms, built on a hill (everything is built on a hill here), so a retiree will have to struggle with that hill for mowing grass, stairs to get into the house, and a nice, steep driveway where you get to back out straight into traffic, because having shoulders on the roads is a totally new concept in this neck of the woods, so most streets don't have them. (Or continuous sidewalks, if any at all, but that's a whole other problem.) Also, be prepared to shell out a lot of extra money to not be in earshot of heavy traffic. The bulk of the city is built around what is essentially a giant strip of commercial areas running alongside major east-west thoroughfares and interstates. Said small, old house is going to cost a lot more than that mythical 179k, though, because - assuming it was well-built to start with - it will not have been well maintained. Knoxville is packed full of half-assed construction and even worse building maintenance. If it can't be hidden under a new coat of paint or new vinyl siding, it just gets ignored until the creatures living in the water damaged walls win. Expect the allegedly cheap house to need a continuous flow of money to convert into something livable. And yes, there are bug problems. Lots of them. This place is a deciduous rain forest, which makes it a great home for all kinds of things with 6+ legs. Not so much for those of us of the 2 legged variety. Precipitation about 50% of the days in any given year. (Yes, really. Average of 178 days a year, last I checked.) Hot, humid summers where there is rarely a breeze worth mentioning unless it's raining last about 6 months of the year. The pleasant temps of Spring and Fall are "blink and you miss it" situations, most years. Most winters manage to provide just enough snow and ice to shut down the city for a day or two, about 3 times each winter. The bulk of winter is spent with temps staying just above freezing until the skies are clear, so miserable conditions without the snow to make it pretty. And did I mention the rain? It rains here. A lot. This town is also one of the allergy capitals of the nation. So much so that many people who move here who have never had allergy and sinus problems develop them when they settle in. Lots of smog, too. But fewer tornadoes than the western and middle parts of the state. And all for the same reason: Knoxville is basically sitting behind a wall of mountains. The sales pitch is "Oooh! Check out the view!" The reality is that those pretty mountains keep the air a little more still than it should, so you feel like you're living in a giant bowl of pollen, smog, and city noise. Also, that 14% of the local population that's retired? They're mostly assholes. I've been in customer service positions in this city for nearly 2 decades, and the highest concentration of rude, uncaring, entitled people in Knoxville is by far the older portion of the population. Not the kinds of friends you'd suggest for your grandmother.
Bought my first house in Des Moines last year with a mortgage of $665 a month. Two bedrooms, half acre, attached single car garage... Can't vouch for Zebra races but the East Village is always having events.
Fayetteville is nice, that first picture of it is exactly how I saw it. Knoxville is nice too and is near beautiful western North Carolina. May consider the latter in 10 years Great video
Green Bay is a nice place, I lived there for a year in the 1990's. But the winters are brutal, that's one of the reasons my family left. Pretty city, nice parks, if you can get through the winters, it's a good place to retire.
GreenBay = you'll die of Frost Bite just trying to get your mail in especially January and February. It's not uncommon for it to get down to -10 below zero or even colder with a wind chill of -40 below. In addition from Nov - April can be extremely cold (so that's 6 months of not wanting to go outside). Remember people that are of retirement age tend to not like ice or snow, because it's hard (unsafe) to drive on, and they can easily slip and fall down (and you get hurt when you're older).I would expect Green Bay to be A LOT less expensive than the rest of the country just based on it's extremely harsh Winters.
I'm retired in Houston TX, which has a low cost of living for people over 65. However, it is ESSENTIAL that you have your home paid off so you can defer your property tax. You pay only sales tax if you do that. The brutal summer heat is the only disadvantage.
I prefer cool weather, but would never live in a place where they get ice and snow when I retire due to the danger of slipping and falling. Plus I would never consider retiring to a high crime area.
@@ThomasLeonard454 Good Hope we get to know each other with time and patience Do you mind suggesting any means we talk off here more often if you don't mind?
Des Moines is surprisingly cool these days, if you can make it through some brutal winters. Hated it when I was young, but it sucked back then. We've made a remarkable turnaround over the last 30 years. It's a cool place off the beaten path. Some fantastic employers, too.
"To earn more you are required to have multiple diversified means of income", Which is why investment is an avenue of making more money once it's profitable.
Most loss and failures in an investment usually happens when you invest without proper guide and the analysis of the profit and risk percentage of the investment
It's safe to have an investment manager who has vast knowledge on investment, to make you profit from your investment on your behalf while you monitor the investment growth
@@billlouie335 Good Hope we get to know each other with time and patience. Do you mind suggesting any means we talk off here more often if you don't mind?
Mid Michigan. Lakes , woods, deer, ducks, hunting, abandoned houses. Retiree homes aging out. And land. Close to Cities with great medical care. Harrison, Tawas City, West Branch, etc. close to resort towns for fun.
No City in Florida? Most of your city’s are up north where you have to spend more on clothes. I live in shorts tank tops and flip flops! Is it 5:00 yet? Fort Walton Beach is cheep to live in? Most of the fast food places are ran by seniors not stupid teenagers. My 2 bedroom 2 bath is $550. With a view of the Gulf. If a storm comes up I just go see my daughter in Jackson Mississippi.
T. N. Schumacher I used to live in Moorehaven... Could not stand the triple digit heat in the summer, Fire Ants, very restrictive gun laws and utter disregard for our 2nd Amendment Rights, and the disastrous Hurricanes...!
Best small towns to retire in would be great! Actually, what I’m looking for is a quaint, safe, inexpensive small town on the outskirts of a city. Yeah!
Great Video Briggs! NWA is on my list! Not for retirement but just because I want to. Ozarks with all the caves, springs, waterfalls are very beautiful. Most people are friendly too👍 Its the perfect medium for weather from the north and deep south. Lots of huge companies throw $ into the communities so they never see a recession (Tyson, Pepsi, Mitsubishi Systems, Energizer, Planters, P&G, Walmart, JB Hunt, Hersey, Heinz, just to name a few). Also worth noting is North Augusta on the SC side is nice across the Savannah River too. Less crime than Augusta GA.
The cheapest city to retire to is San Fran. You don't have to pay for anything, you can take anything you want from stores without fear, and you can go wherever you want. You just have to be able to navigate the feces and the used hypodermic needles
Knoxville was my first choice for awhile, but, unless you consider UT football culture, it’s sorely lacking (for me). Settled on Raleigh, moving there next month. Maybe Knoxville next step. Well done, sir!
@@kristenmarie9248 Moving to Raleigh alone Dec ‘19, then Covid hit in March ‘20 made the challenge much bigger, but would have been the same anywhere. Chose it over Knoxville for culture, of which there’s been next to none. People are wonderful. Cost of living more than expected and still rising, but still less than CA. Being a big city a lot more blue than I prefer, which has been a little more difficult last year, but I’ve just tried to remain friendly. So green and plenty of lakes. Lady winter very mild, one evening of snow, which was pretty exciting for me. This year much colder a few weeks with highs in the 30’s and tons of rain, unusually so I’m told, but only one night of snow flurries, gone by noon. (Christmas night sat out with neighbors at a fire in the yard while 20!) 😳. Critters and plant life SO different and wonderful. I didn’t think the humidity of the summer was terrible, but I wasn’t out working in it and was hiding away inside with Covid. No regrets just poor timing to move due to Covid. But who knew?!
As a self proclaimed frugalists I prefer affordable rather than cheaper. The difference is I maintain value just pay less for it. Like my car a grand Marquis I paid $2k for it sure it had been used but it's ride and reliability is unquestionable. The car looked nearly new when I got it even though it was a 19 year old car. Had I been cheap I would have gotten a Korean or Chinese car or remember the Yugo.
@@harleancarpenter8043 A lot of people up here live elsewhere in the winter. If i had the financial means this is exactly what I would do. It's beautiful up here from June (sometimes May) through late October, often reaching 85-90 degrees, but November through April is pretty much winter. It can get sort of depressing, I'm not going to lie. Especially these upcoming days, which are the shortest of the year. Sun comes out around 7:30 a.m. and sets by 5:30 to 6:00 p.m. Its beautiful out RN though, at least 40 degrees, the sun is shining, its not windy and some snow is melting.
It doesn't have to do about being a hermit some people stay to themselves..why they don't want to get caught up in people's lives/bullcrap others people issues can't always be my issue. Thanks
I used to live in knoxville omfg what a great place.. it's cheap, gets alil chilly in the winters but that's normal and the people are hella nice... if my job opened a base I'll relocate and not think twice about it
Retires should be interested in the crime rate ! Why did you leave it out ? Also no town listed in or around the Rocky Mountains and west, shy of Cheyenne Wyoming. Health care quality and availability ?
Another excellent video! I live in Atlanta Georgia but I don't plan on staying here when I retire but Knoxville seems like it might be a nice place. Thanks again
Anywhere that does not include NJ, NY, CT, CA, HI, or AK, which are all, for the most part, extremely expensive, high taxes, cold, or all of the above.
My mom, family and family in law are seniors and love to live in Fort Wayne because it's safe zone and less traffics, festivals, best farmers markets, and many more. Fort Wayne is so friendly.
Love you and your videos, but there is NO WAY that only 12 percent of Des Moines people are over 65! Have you been out there? I have a family farm out there and let me tell you, the main hazard I face is dodging old folks! Lol
I'd like to know what a community can offer for entertainment. Of course what is fun is subjective but so is what is boring, an often listed reason not to be somewhere.
@@MrRabidtroll Good Hope we get to know each other with time and patience. Do you mind suggesting any means we talk off here more often if you don't mind?
@@lydiaanderson582 not going to happen. It is blatantly obvious that you are doing some kind of scam. Your channel has no content while you have subscribers. Using a picture of a hot woman is a bait for men. Like so many fake dating profiles you probably are trying to get personal information from gullible men so you can steal their identity or gain their trust then ask for money.
steven hamlin You may well ask yourself that. At the same time ask why Congress allowed insurance companies to treat people with the long term disability benefits that either they purchased or their company purchased as a lottery system. This is all thanks to the Republicans. Dirty lobbyists hands all.
My sin wants me to retire in Dallas, GA. It is about 45 minutes NW of Atlanta. I am hesitant because when compared to my home in Albany,NY real estate is way more expensive. And the air quality is much worse in GA. I know the entire state of NY is expensive but I own my home free and clear and there is a reasonably variety for Senior Citizen opportunities for education, decent Healthcare, and no fire ants. What are the stats for the suburbs of Atlanta? The recent wave of Anti Asian hate crimes worry me and I am not Asian. The whole sense of Atlanta seems to be the haves vs the have nots is a hot mess. Have you done any stat research that applies to this area?
Lincoln Nebraska is actually a great place to visit especially during college football season. Lots of great bars and nightlife in the Hay Market area. Our favorite is the Starlight Lounge which is a great martini bar with probably 60 different martinis. It has a great retro decor with a solid '50's vibe. Our second favorite spot besides the speakeasy where they only seat like 20 people and you have to knock to get in. A guy actually looks through a sliding window in the door, great custom cocktails there - well, then I guess would make The Happy Raven our third favorite place . They have an awesome selection of craft beers. If it sounds like we're alcoholics we als love the restaurants too but I just can't remember their names. Probably because we've been to our favorite bars first. But they're in the Hay Market as well. And the people in Nebraska are top notch.
House in St Louis MO can be had for $40k, 1 acre lot, 4 car garage. Forest Park has museums, golf, biking, hiking. Unless your standing on a street corner late at night, it's not unsafe.
Great video Briggs! I was totally shocked when you said Knoxville is #1! That's my previous town (I'm now in Sevierville). I thought maybe a town in Florida might be on the list as well, so I'm surprised at that as well. Everyone here that is planning for retirement (or just a great place to live) Knoxville is a great place. Sales taxes are a bit high (and even higher where I live) but nonetheless, lots of fun things to do here, and you have the Smoky Mtns just a short drive away.
I’m from Green Bay, WI and I saw my house on your vid! Kinda cool. But the weather is also. Very cool. Nope, great place to raise family but I won’t retire here
