The Shocking Truth About Retirement In Florida! What you need to know.

we moved to Florida and and found a few things I would say shocking some good and some bad we moved to Florida for a lot of reasons but it also happens to be the fastest growing state in the United States since 1957 and it's also the third most popular state in the country right now not popular populated populated yeah and populated behind California in Texas so we weren't alone in picking Florida as our new home you know traditional reason Florida definitely hit our radar screen right you know and some of those didn't seem shocking things like tax advantages yeah there's no state income tax that's not why we moved there but it was a consideration it was there but the mild Winters the beautiful beaches and the Outdoor Living really is what made us want to go there there were a few things that we were pleasantly surprised by when we moved and there were also things that we found that were honestly just a little shocking now if you're new here I'm Mark and this is my wife Jody we don't focus on the financial aspects of retirement but rather your lifestyle Health relationships and more so please hit the Subscribe button and the notification button so you know when our new videos come out so let's get started on our list kind of the good and the bad and leave comments if you've experienced any of these things or any other items we missed okay the first one visitors people want to come visit us in Florida in the winter and that was a plot surprise well in a way it was but everybody wants to come and and that and that was fine we what we loved is our kids want to come our family wants to come our friends want to come and even more distant friends love coming to Florida in the winter because it's warm right and I think we've we hosted people January February March and April last year like at every every month we had people coming and going which we love to do spending quality time with people we care about last winter I think was really one of the highlights for me it was but here's the thing that we noticed and I don't know if this really shocked us but we definitely noticed it shocked me when they come to visit whoever it is they're typically on vacation and we're not we are not down there from January well we're there from October to May that's our home that's not vacation for us now when people come we carve out time but with all these people coming they all felt well you should be on vacation too because we are that that was hard for us it was really a uh um an Awakening for us that we struggled with yeah I mean it was new for us so therefore it was hard for us and you know we felt our visitors really pulling us away from things we needed to do you know things we needed to do in the house and around the house and things we needed to do in the business it really kind of changed our personal life as well as our business life while they were there yeah and this was really hard on you more than it was me because you do love to host people and create experiences but for me I and I don't know if we've figured it out or not yet because we were going down again this year we want people to come so if you're one of our friends or family who watches yes we want you to come but we may have to tweak it a little bit which is hard because you know if you come to my house I like to plan meals and events and downtime and any extras and it's hard when you're working and you're a lot more diligent pulling us to work right and I'm more like whoa people we didn't do that we wouldn't be shooting videos like this I know but what I'm trying to do is find an equal balance on it where people come visit for three four days five days or more say look we've got a couple things that we do in the morning so we go uh we get up we have our routine we play Pickleball here's a car go to the beach if you want for the day if you want to be on vacation take a couple vacation days and this is where you sleep which is you know we feel bad doing that but yeah I'm so not good at that and it's a work in progress for sure and we definitely need to get better at boundaries in and around you know having friends so that we can balance you know the 20 hours we spend with you guys a week at retirement transformed and our clients and then you know that was the first thing that chocolate's about it was in Florida because we've had homes before that people come to visit but we have always been on vacation when they came to visit it was kind of interesting the next one has been a shockingly good outcome of living in Florida for us Mark and I both have noticed our overall health and wellness has gotten so much better we both lost weight we've gained muscle we feel healthier and we've tried a bunch of new outdoor activities I think the thing when we get up in the morning down there you know October through May we go outside right we walk first thing in the morning the weather is great even if it's a little chilly just put on the sweater but we walk 12 months of the year now we joined the YMCA down there we're playing pickleball playing golf we're cycling it really has created much more healthier lifestyle for us all year long and what's funny last winter we didn't even get I think we didn't have like one rainy day we were almost kind of in search of you know that day where you're like oh I can just kind of do a nothing day we didn't have that for almost four months that we were down there five months well the other thing that shocked us about living in Florida is how easy it's been for us to make friends that was one of our biggest worries like how are we going to meet people this is going to be so hard but here's the thing most of the people that are down there that live near us we're not in a community we're out actually just on a street everyone's there looking to make new friends too right um most of the people on the west coast of Florida are from the middle of America so Chicago and Tennessee and really great Iowa Minneapolis we're meeting people from parts of the country we've never even seen right but they all want to make friends and you know most of them are snowbirds right so they're looking to connect and we spend a fair amount of time with them connecting together and socializing and doing charity group work together and you know joining you know golf leagues or pickleball leagues or you know book clubs and it's it's an interesting environment that I don't think we put a lot of thought into we were more nervous about making friends realizing how easy it happened I know it's it's funny because it sounds odd but our relationships and friendships down there have gotten uh deeper quickly than our community here it's really because everyone's in it for the same reason right now moving from the Northeast which both of us have lived I mean I live all over the country but most of my life has been in the Northeast we were shocked at how expensive things are in Florida now yeah you know there are some things that cost less you know our landscapers a bit less and some of the trade contractors are a bit less let me go to the vegetable market those cost less fruits and vegetables are a little bit less but there are a lot of things that we were shocked at how much more they cost so we live on an island it's Marco Island so but it's not far from the mainland it's just a bridge but housing costs are more hotels cost more for visitors restaurants cost more gasoline costs more it's a dollar a gallon more I think on the island than it is just off the island four miles away Country Clubs cost more so it really was surprising because we thought everything was going to cost less we did I you know and maybe that was just us not doing good research or having rose-colored glasses but you know instead of joining clubs like gyms and fancy gyms that we always had Northeast we did things like join the YMCA instead and and it cost less money and our friend groups were there and everybody was looking to meet others and you know I think those are the little things that we had to tweak after we got over the shot and this past winter we ate in a lot more we did because it just you know you go out and for two people and you get the bill you're like we could cook better than that at home so we are cooking more at home and frankly it's fun because we cook together and it's healthier food and even golf I mean you know we look to join a club we thought we would move down there and join a golf club you know so that we could play and we could entertain people and play there but you know we've been playing the the public courses down there because it's just so less costly than well so that's closely plus private clubs it's between a seven and a ten year wait to get in as a member so it really isn't going to happen I'll be so so that you know that's been fine um but I think again because we live on the island it costs more so when we go off things are less money so we we're keeping an eye on it and more thoughtful about how we spend money you know the final thing that was a shock to us and we did do some research around this before we moved down as you know Mark is 66 and I'm 58. you know the U.S health and human services ranks Florida 36th out of 50 states when it comes to Health Care yeah and that means hospitals quality of care and any type of prevented preventive care that's available and also the treatments that you get the quality of providers and the assessment of deep Specialists available heart um yeah skin doctor skin doctors yeah it's not as good as the Northeast and we're used to a certain level of care right so we're having to figure that out down there and we thought we figured with a state with so many Elder people over 55 that everything would be the best available in the country super Top Notch and it definitely is not I tried to get a doctor's appointment in February and was told my earliest appointment would be September unless I went through the ER yeah and who wants to go sit in an ER just to make sure that you're able to get the testing so one of the things we did this has been helpful and this is now a new um thing that's happening everywhere what am I trying to find it's uh up and coming change in medical care we found a doctor that provides concierge service so we pay her an annual fee and she only has I don't know how many clients but we get access to her 24 7. she has great connections with Specialists and great connections with hospitals yeah that definitely helped the right place for anything and he gave us Comfort because you know we don't want to feel like we can't get good care right so we want to be careful now while there are pluses and minuses about living in Florida and even about things that shocked us we balance that with everything we know to be good especially the weather the healthy lifestyle and I think it's brought us closer together too oh you know we were shocked by the cost of living but you know Marco is such a magical place for us right now in this time in our life we love it our kids love it and our friends seem to love it too so if you like this video we hope you did this next one it's a really popular video how we decided to move to Marco Island now this video is going to give you the framework that we use to pick Marco but you can use this same framework to pick any place that you want to go for your next home so watch this next

Channel: Retirement Transformed

Views: 21,305

Keywords: Retirement in Florida, Florida for Retirement, Retirement, Retirement Transformation, Retirement Stories, Retirement Journey, Retirement Planning, Retirement Goals, Retirement Transition, Retirement Ideas, Retirement Tips, Retirement Strategies, How to Retire, When to Retire, Successful Retirement, Retiring at age 50, Retiring at age 60, Young Retired, Baby Boomers, Retirement Advice, Retirement Living, What to expect in retirement, retirement couple

Id: zZ7bELPSuYY

Length: 11min 8sec (668 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 16 2023