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On Retiring...in CT?

Follow up to my prior post, On Being in Connecticut for Thirty Years...

I came here in the early 90s from Texas, chasing a job and ended up staying because of a woman (25 years married last month). For that entire 30 years period I've been saying that I'm ready to either go back to Texas or to my family's origins in Louisiana (we've even purchased land in Opelousas). Or just move somewhere else! Thea, who is from CT, has been resistant mostly because this is where she grew up and her brothers and nieces live here (well, the nieces are in MA now, but you get it).

So now we're approaching retirement age and the talk is getting more serious. I'm not feeling any lowering of resistance to moving away from Thea. But now I watch the news about various natural disasters around the country and remind myself that we don't have major huricanes. Or tornadoes. Or floods. Or forest fires. Or drought. Or searing heat (or winters with enduring bitter cold or deep lake effect snow). Or alligators (or mosquitoes or a lot of venomous snakes).

Generally speaking, our lights are staying on and we can buy gas/heating oil. And we still have a local nuke plant (for now) if we go electric.

And I'm beginning to understand that while the politics in Connecticut suck, they suck everywhere. And on the suckage scale, CT is certainly not as bad as, say, California or New York or New Jersey.

And the history of New England and the things to do within a couple hours of our house in central CT are simply amazing. Stay in the state, go to NYC, go to Boston, go to Vermont/NH, upstate New York and Canada a little farther out (no, not New Jersey).

We're within 30 minutes of an airport that can get us anywhere in the world we want to go. And let's not remind Thea of how many excellent race tracks we have within a day's drive (13 at my last count?) And when I stop racing and start doing more stewarding, I can get back into flying there instead of letting someone kill me on the highway.

Yeah, it costs more to live in the Northeast (I'm really really worried about continuing rises in property taxes and energy) but with Connecticut's recent changes to discontinue income taxes on retirement income below $100k*, at least I won't have to worry about that.

Alternatively, I could sell our CT home and build on four acres of land I own in Cajun Country (and have money left over) but would I get all this other stuff too? And how many times will I have to evacuate from a hurricane (and flee from robin-sized mosquitoes)?

Sure, we all gripe about Connecticut politics. And I'll continue to do so, as long as CT remains financially solvent (they're trying hard not to).

But when I think about it, we actually have it pretty good up here. So we might just stay...I guess we'll see.

*2023 Postscript: Connecticut has passed a law that will make retirement income from pensions, IRAs, and 401k not subject to state income taxes, within AGI limits (within what we'll be pulling in).



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