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rainbowgardener
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how to retire

I just made this post, but it was buried at the bottom of a landscaping thread. I thought it should have its own thread, so here it is again:

That $30,000 difference [how much cheaper the house we own was than a lot of the prettier houses we looked at when house hunting] is what is going to allow us to put solar panels on. We just sold our Cincinnati house (which has been on a two year lease to own). This house is enough cheaper than the Cincinnati house (which was almost paid off) that the sale price allows us to pay off the mortgage on this house completely, pay off the loan on our truck, AND have enough left over to do solar panels.

We just signed a contract for the solar panels which will be operational before the end of the year!! :D

It is an all electric house, so the solar panels will wipe out most of our utility bills as well as giving us a very low carbon footprint.

This is the way to be retired: no mortgage, no debts, minimal utility bills, grow a lot of our own food. We retired with not very much cash and fixed income, but we have made it so we need very little money.

Just a note on how we did this, never having made a ton of money by middle America standards. When we bought the Cincinnati house, we bought a house that cost half of how much the bank said they would loan us. It also wasn't everything we wanted - prettier than this one and with a nice big separate dining room, but very little gardening space and right on a big busy street. We bought it on a 30 year mortgage, but after two years, we refinanced to 15 year mortgage. And then we paid an extra thousand directly on the principal once a year. That is why that mortgage had only $2000 left on it when it was sold and why we came out with enough cash left over to do all those things above. The 15 year mortgage payments weren't that much higher than the 30 year ones had been and saved us thousands in interest. I really recommend it, if there is any way you can do it.

Here's the ugly house we bought cheap :) It is ugly, but has a big fenced in backyard, with a lot of flat sunny garden space and a huge deck.
front of house and yard.jpg
front of house and yard.jpg (66.52 KiB) Viewed 1616 times

gumbo2176
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I'm pretty much in the same boat. I've bought 3 houses as an adult and all 3 were considered "fixer-uppers" and I did just about all of the work with the exception of some electrical that needed changing. I have built a lot of "sweat equity" over the years and have not lost on any house I bought.

The one I'm currently in has jumped in value in the last 10 years to crazy numbers I never thought it could bring. I bought it in 92 for $54,000, have put a good $20,000 into it over the years and it is now worth in the $375K-400K range. I'm retired and living on a fixed income and have been looking at property in a more rural setting and the bargains there are making me want to sell this and buy now. Only problem is, my wife is still 5 years away from retirement age and loves her job.

I've looked at some places on-line in rural parts of Louisiana and Mississippi and it is easy to get 3-7 acres with a 3 BR, 2 Bath, 1500+ sq. ft. house----some with a pond to boot, for $150K or so. And if I wanted to tackle another "fixer-upper" then the price is less, and I'm not opposed to that.

Like you, the wife and I have 3 vehicles, a car for her, pick-up and motorcycle for me and they have been paid off for years. The house has been paid off too, but to live in the city with both of us retired is pretty costly with insurances, property taxes and such. Rural property tax is far less than here in New Orleans, even with acreage to consider.

I am chomping at the bit to sell this house and make my final move to the country, but I've got to wait on the wife.

PaulF
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Sounds like you are on the right track with your new retirement home. Congratulations!

We retired twelve years ago in a similar fashion. We bought my wife's childhood home from her mother when she went into a nursing home and spent three years renovating before we moved there. By selling our home in Iowa we moved to Nebraska without any debt even after doing all the work involved with updating a home built in the 1870s. The yard and gardens took several more years of work and the new climate and soils took some getting used to but everything is working out.

We were lucky enough to have had good jobs with nice retirement packages but there still is not a lot extra. Living happy makes up for that.

Your home looks fine to me and the yard and garden makes it even better. Keep us posted on your updates.

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rainbowgardener
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Wow!! Congratulations everyone! :clap: :clap: :clap:

It really is the way to do it.

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My road to retirement wasn't so easy or planned. I used to make good money. I had "disposable income". Unfortunately, uncle Sam thought I should dispose of it in his pocket. I was penalized for saving and paid one third of my income to the feds and 10% to the state. I still pretty much never had to think too much about spending or what things cost. I never ran up credit cards and paid them off monthly. I put away money every month, but I still could not save fast enough because the cost of the home would out pace my savings.

1 bought a townhouse. A 500 square foot ground floor unit with a small courtyard. I hated it, my mom helped me with half the down payment. It cost $50,000 at 9% interest. The mortgage was a little over $500 a month, but I put in extra principal and paid about $1300 a month.

I worked full time, I did not have cable, I don't use a lot of utilities even to this day, I don't really travel or miss it and I had a $500 a year budget for "luxuries" like movies or orchids. I joined one and then a second orchid club. I started my orchid collection from there. I got married, had to pay a marriage tax the first year, shocker, but I continued to pay off as much of the mortgage principal as I could every month, except when I had to pay big bills.

In 5 years, I had enough money saved $20,000 to pay off the mortgage or try to buy a bigger house. Well, I needed $50,000 down payment for a mortgage I could afford so I could not keep the townhouse as a rental and get bigger house. I sold the townhouse for $83,000 and had the downpayment for the house. New houses were small and we were easily outbid. We looked at this house that was 16 years old, 912 sq ft but a decent layout if you ignore the view of the sink from the front door , a small but functional galley kitchen with way too little storage for all my gadgets, and the back door opening up next to the toilet (who designs these things). It had good storage, a 2 car carport with storage, and it was 3 br 1.5 bath with a small footprint and about 3,000 sq ft of yard. Close to shopping, unfortunately, I did not realize why being so close to a school was not a good thing (traffic and noise). That cost $182,500 in as is condition. It had been a rental, had termite damage (but it was treated), everything from the floors, cabinets, and doors were painted a chocolate brown so it was very dark. There was a nice rubbish tree in the front yard. and it was fenced. The interest rate was 11% and it really is the interest that determines affordability. Although we both worked we still could only qualify for a $200,000 loan because of the interest rate. We refinanced to 9.5% and my husband did not want to move to a different house so I told him we had to fix this one up then we took out an improvement loan of $50,000 and put the things in the house that I wanted (final space 1986 sq ft). Refinanced a couple of times more to an interest of 6% and again each month we put extra dollars into paying off the mortgage so it was paid off in 20 years instead of 30. We bought a second house for retirement income and then we got divorced. No retirement income property since we each got a house and I made sure I got the one that was paid off. I retired from my well paying job early for a lot of reasons I just couldn't do it any more. I now work for just above the minimum wage just to be able to afford health insurance. I am glad I have the house but it is still expensive to maintain even without a mortgage and I am barely getting by. Today, I am getting a 15 year old water heater replaced before it leaks in the house. I am not happy that the new water heaters cost more, installation costs as much as the heater and it won't last as long. Still, I am glad that my family is supportive, I have my cats, and I don't miss things like tv so much anymore. I still have my garden to supplement and my orchid clubs only cost me $20 and $15, a year, so I can afford that. My community garden costs $80 + $25 in dues, but I probably break even with the produce, and some of the gardeners like my calamondin so I trade for other things I don't grow.

I have learned to downsize and I save everything from grocery bags, water from the sink to flush the toilet, and I reuse zip locs. I have an occasional splurge and get a steak or prime rib for a special occasion, but I am pretty used to eating stir fries and they are good and probably better for me since it has more veggies and less meat. I don't eat a lot of starches but I do like baked potatoes. I buy a lot of my home and garden clothes from the thrift shop. For $20 I can get a big bag of clothes some of which were gently used and of good quality.
I eat out a lot, but mostly at costco, Sam's club, and McDonalds.

I have a new used van. It uses more gas than the Honda but I usually don't drive far and I don't go to the beach or just out for a drive like I used to once a month and I am happy to take my 'vacation' by spending more time in the yard or with the cats.

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tomf
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I am on my last fixer uper!!!!!! I got a house in Portland did a very nice job on it sold it for a good price. I worked for Boeing for almost 39 years and then when the new contract went into affect I could retire younger without penalty, so I did at 62, it has been a year now. We have a good amount in 401k and IRA that we do not even need to use yet, and between SS and my pension I am doing well, so I am one of the few lucky ones. Although maybe I need to retire from being retired, I built a 20x8 wood shed, a large shed, a patio area and a 20x20 greenhouse since I retired. Not to mention working on the land and downed trees I had cut as a thinning job. I just got back from California remodeling and foxing a duplex we have down there, I need to go back to finish the job. I hired contractors to put in new windows, paint it, and a new heating system in one unit. I ripped out the old ugly smelly carpet on one of them and will have laminate floors put in. Carpet and renters does not seam like such a good thing. Rainbow that house is not ugly, it has the Dutch roof that is just a style.

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rainbowgardener
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Wow! You do work harder being retired than most people do working.

Dutch colonial is not a style I love anyway. But the house is imitation Dutch. It has those yellow wings sticking out, so it doesn't actually have the barn style roof line. The front facade has red brick, yellow smooth wood, and very dark nearly black rough "rustic" wood. To me that all adds up to ugly.

We can improve it some. We will be adding front steps and porch railing. Paint the yellow wood some other color. Lighten the color of the rough wood. Add shutters on the upper level windows and window boxes on the lower level and of course nice landscaping.

It still won't be my dream house, but it will be better. And I will take an ugly but functional house with nice garden space that is PAID OFF over a dream house that would keep us in debt for the rest of our lives.

Ksk
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This sounds so cool. So Rainbow...did you buy the solar outright or lease to own? The reason I ask is that when they lease them out here, it is considered a lien on the house. People I know had difficulty refinancing due to the lien when they wanted to finance a remodel. It worked out but was a real hassle. I am four years from retirement so am thinking of solar but this made me wonder whether we should buy outright.

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rainbowgardener
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bought it outright, with the cash left over from sale of our Cincinnati house.

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ElizabethB
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RBG - Congrats on your financial planning!

BTW - your house is not ugly - it just needs to live up to it's potential. :P

gumbo2176
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PaulF wrote:Sounds like you are on the right track with your new retirement home. Congratulations!

We retired twelve years ago in a similar fashion. We bought my wife's childhood home from her mother when she went into a nursing home and spent three years renovating before we moved there. By selling our home in Iowa we moved to Nebraska without any debt even after doing all the work involved with updating a home built in the 1870s. The yard and gardens took several more years of work and the new climate and soils took some getting used to but everything is working out.

We were lucky enough to have had good jobs with nice retirement packages but there still is not a lot extra. Living happy makes up for that.

Your home looks fine to me and the yard and garden makes it even better. Keep us posted on your updates.

My wife's dad, who passed away 6 years ago had a nice piece of property in the country in central Louisiana that consists of 2 tracts. The one with 2 houses and shop on it is just a bit over 6.5 acres and he had a separate tract of 10 acres nearby, but not connected to his property. I would love to head there and get the land put in my wife's name, build a house since the ones there have been abandoned for years and in dire need of repair, if that is even feasible now since they've been boarded up for years. Problem is, he got the land when his father died and never did a probate to put it in his name and now there are so many people tied up in the lineage that it is a legal nightmare to get it in one person's name.

All of my wife's brothers and her sister said they don't want the land and they would be willing to simply sign over their portion to her, but there were a few of her dads brothers and a sister, and their heirs that can put in a claim on the land if push came to shove. Under those circumstances I'm not willing to invest in building a home on land I don't own.

Therefore, I'm looking at rural land that has nothing to do with that nightmare-----but I hate seeing the land and building simply go back to nature like it is since it was a beautiful piece of property next to a wildlife preserve with great hunting and fishing nearby.

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tomf
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You could do a probate maybe?

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rainbowgardener
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ElizabethB wrote:RBG - Congrats on your financial planning!

BTW - your house is not ugly - it just needs to live up to it's potential. :P
I think we can improve it, but at best I still think the fake Dutch colonial is kind of ugly. But it's OK, we didn't buy it for its looks!

gumbo2176
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tomf wrote:You could do a probate maybe?
It can be done, but it may be a long, drawn out process. The property was bought in the 30's at a tax sale and my wife's grandfather got clear title on it. However, when he passed and my wife's father took over the land, he was just 1 of 11 kids in line to inherit it.

Here's where it gets sketchy. Only 7 of my wife's father's siblings were alive at the time and they all signed off to allow him to use the property to do what he wanted, however, the 3 siblings that had pre-deceased their dad (my wife's grandfather) weren't around to sign off and nobody in their family signed off. All these folks had children, and their children had children, so there are tons of folks now that could put in a claim to part of the property or compensation----not that it would bring any real windfall since this is rural property, but the prospect exists.

PaulF
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I have heard of situations like this require a 'due diligence' search for claimants and a time involved for those potential claimants to come forward. And also heard that if there is an overwhelming percentage of the potential claimants who waive their rights to the property, it can then be probated to a free and clear title.

Out of the woodwork claims will most likely occur if you fix the property up and give it some real value. Then you will have a couple of 5th cousins you never heard of. I just hope it works out.

gumbo2176
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PaulF wrote:I have heard of situations like this require a 'due diligence' search for claimants and a time involved for those potential claimants to come forward. And also heard that if there is an overwhelming percentage of the potential claimants who waive their rights to the property, it can then be probated to a free and clear title.

Out of the woodwork claims will most likely occur if you fix the property up and give it some real value. Then you will have a couple of 5th cousins you never heard of. I just hope it works out.
Therein lies the problem. The relatives are scattered to the wind in all parts of the country now and the property as it sits is only really worth the land value since the 2 houses on it are in such disrepair. I would opt to build my own home on it, but before I'd invest in the neighborhood of $100K or more in building my house, I'd surely want free and clear title on the property.

thanrose
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Circumstances have necessitated postponing retirement by several years. I have a few marginal revenue streams or trickles that I need to augment. In my field, some people work into their late seventies. I admire anyone who takes steps toward self-sufficiency. I have at least two siblings who seem to think that I will figure greatly in their retirement years, but I think that's because I cared for both of our parents into their nineties.

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I'm the oldest in the neighborhood and if you bring 10 Americans together, I will be older than about 9.1 of them link :wink: . The little lady in the duplex a half block down now has a job as a crossing guard at the elementary school nearby. Two doors down, the guy who retired last year has gone back to work. He accidentally set off his car alarm at 4:20am, recently. It's exactly the same time he was leaving for work in 2015 ...

Our youngest DD wants me to "retire" from the post-retirement job of selling produce at a farmers' market.

Let's see, seasons come and go, there are holidays thru the year, garbage day comes once a week, the mail carrier drops junk in the box about noon, except on Sundays. There are the meds an hour before breakfast, others a half hour after ... let's see, have I forgotten anything? I'm sure I will, you know the mind is the first to go.

Steve :wink:

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tomf
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So many people can not retire due to a number of reasons, I know some people who barley got by and found it hard to save fro retirement, and I know some spent like crazy and did not save. Also pensions are not there for many people and it is hard to get by on SS. My mom worked and due to divorce she lives on SS, us kids try to do what we can for her. Her only real vacation is when I fly her out to visit us she lives north of Boston. I was lucky to have worked 39 years in a good job at Boeing and get retirement benifits. Go Sox! Had to add that last part.

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rainbowgardener
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We are going to have a generation in crisis as the baby boomers age. I worked hard, got advanced degrees, never spent much. I did pay for a lot of education for me and helped pay for my son's education. But I worked in public sector service jobs and I never worked anywhere that had a pension; fewer and fewer people will have those-- they are disappearing. I will be OK, partly because I learned how to live on not very much and partly because I used good judgment about a few things (like working hard to pay off a house). I retired with a tenth as much savings as the financial advisors say you should have. It will work because I am debt free and frugal and would rather stay home with the chickens and gardens than take fancy vacations.

But I did retire with savings. At least half of the boomers coming behind me (I am the leading edge of the boomer curve) will be retirement age with NO savings. The reason the Social Security system is in trouble is because Congress stole from it. SocSec money comes from Soc Sec taxes. It was supposed to be kept completely separate from regular government money, not used for regular government operating expenses, "firewalled." That did not happen. If we don't do something to protect Social Security and get Congress to pay back the "borrowed" funds, a generation of us (including me) will be starving...

I guess we're going to be like the Eskimos, who allegedly put their elders out to die.

imafan26
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Social security is failing because it was not started until after the great depression in 1935 with FDR. The reason for choosing 65 was because at the time, I think the average life span was 68. Before then people counted on their families to look after them when they got older.

Although a lot of people still do that, more and more of them are ending up in nursing homes instead and medicare only pays for 3 months a year for that, the rest has to come from insurance or they have to be declared poor enough to qualify for other government payments like medicaid.

Advances in medicine have extended the life span so people are living longer and sicker requiring more care. The government works against itself because it forces doctors and hospitals to do tests they know are low yielding because they are required to go through certain steps to get paid or because they don't want to get sued for not doing an available test. C. Everett Cooper said in testimony while the original affordable care effort was being debated was that no insurance company or the government could afford to keep spending money on futile care. The most medical dollars spent are spent in the last months of life, often with aggressive care instead of palliative care. The decision but not the cost of continuing futile care rested with the emotional families. At some point someone needs to say that continuing heroic efforts are futile and only offer palliative care.

That decision should be left to the person which is why a good advanced directive is important. The generic one the hospitals have are not very specific. I saw an advanced directive once that was well drawn up. This person made sure his designated spokesperson who had medical power of attorney understood exactly what he wanted. His advanced directive was very specific in defining quality of life. He said he wanted to be able to play golf, engage in conversation and be able to live independently. He specifically said spending his last days in a nursing home unaware of his surrounding, being feed through a tube and having someone wipe his butt everyday with no hope of improvement was not what he wanted and preferred a death with dignity. He even set a time limit in case there might be a chance of improvement of 1 year. If there was no improvement after a year all supportive care would be stopped.

In the beginning social security was flush with cash with the post war boom. Then in the 60's social security funds were tapped not only for retirement but for aid to dependent children,disability, medicare and other social programs that cost more than the fund was making. Money was spent and an IOU was put in its place. The social security fund on paper should still have money but most of it is money that it is owed. Today there is so much red tape to go through to get reimbursed and the government has cut the payments to doctors and hospitals so much that some doctors are not accepting any new medicare patients. They have to have other insurance. Hospitals depend on insurance payments to pay their costs. They have to cut back on personnel, services, hours since they often are mandated to provide x amount of services for medicare patients even though they are being underpaid.

The early retirees still got good payments and most of them also had pensions.

Today, there is no guarantee that social security or medicare will be around for the next generation. When people are young and able to make money, they really don't think about putting any of it aside for emergencies, healthcare, life insurance, or retirement. Even buying a house is far out of reach since few of them even have saved enough for a down payment.

Since I am technically not of full retirement age yet, and social security is only funded until 2035, even I don't have any guarantee it will be there for me when I most need it.

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tomf
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What both of you are saying is true. But SS should have plenty and had they invested it and not taken it for other uses it would be flush.
I think this is could be getting a bit into the area of politics and we should leave it at this before we cross the line. One thin people need to plan better for retirement, but to many it is a long ways away and until it is almost too late they do not think about it.

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Gary350
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When I lived in Arizona solar was very popular. There was a lot of companies that would tell you things that are not true. Solar City was the most honest but still only in business to make money. I interviewed 8 companies finally decided not to have solar on the house. I had solar on my Tennessee house several years ago. If you put solar panels on the roof the roof always leaks. I removed my own panels and put them on again 3 times to repair roof leaks last time I removed them and put on a new roof I did not put the panels on the roof again. I have 28 solar panels in a storage shed in the back yard I will never put them on the roof again. The plan was to build a place in the yard to put the panels up on legs. A 4 leg roof frame work just for the solar panels never need to work about roof leaks again. When I lived in AZ lots of houses had roof leaks from solar panels the companies promised to maintain the roofs but when it came time to do roof repair everyone got the run around and nothing ever got repaired. The solar companies claimed solar will save you money and make you money. The contact is basically a lease contract for the company to lease YOUR house roof to mount THERE solar panels. Solar electricity was sold to the power company during the day at the high price day rate then bought back at night at a lower price that is suppose to be a savings. All the sales people told me stuff and I took notes then I did the math and none of there claims added up. I took engineering in college I know what I am doing. Math was telling me it will take 20 years to break even I will probably be die of old age before I ever break even so why have solar. My neighbor had solar that has not worked in 2 years the company already made their money and had no interest in repairing his solar panels. Neighbor was trying to sell the house but every buyer wanted a new roof but the solar company contract said no one can remove the panels but the solar company because they own the solar panels. Neighbor lost 6 chances to sell his house because everyone wants a new roof. Attorney found a loop hole in the contract so the neighbor sold the house on the agreement that he would pay for the new roof after the house was sold. New owner had signed NO agreement with the solar company so he had the solar panels removed. The house got a new roof and everyone was happy. LOL. I bought my solar panels when the government was offering the tax break so I got them 10% cheaper. I built my own system using with battery storage. I could use electric in the day and charge batteries too then use electric at night. I still had electric service with the power company my electric bill dropped 90%. The money I saved on electric bills just about broke even to pay for solar but it never saved enough money to pay for 3 new roofs. My solar power ran out about 4 or 5 am every morning I used the local electric service for a few hours until the sun came up. About 3 months after I moved away from AZ power companies in AZ started charging everyone with solar a $50 per month service fee this is an extra fee added on to the monthly electric bill. Power companies claim since they are not making a profit selling electricity to houses with solar they are not making enough money to pay for maintenance and up keep to the power lines to those houses. The $50 per month service fee is suppose to be for maintenance of the wires to the houses with solar. To make a long story short be careful what your getting into with your solar company.

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rainbowgardener
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I don't know. I don't have experience yet. But I certainly have some friends that have had solar panels on their houses for some years already and have not heard any stories like that.

Our company is TN Solar Solutions which has a very good reputation. They tell us everything is warrantied for 20 years and they will do all the monitoring and maintenance.

I was disappointed to realize that in fact our panels will not be powering our house, just generating electricity for the grid which subtracts from our utility bills. You can do it the other way, but then you have to have battery back up and it is more thousands of dollars. Or you have to have a hybrid system which can switch from one to the other, but that is expensive also. The way this is, if the grid goes down, we have no power the same as anyone else. We talked to them and we can retrofit later to add the batteries and be powering ourselves. I would like to do that when we can, but for now we have spent all the thousands of dollars we can for awhile.

We are 70 years old. It is a toss up whether we will live long enough for this to pay for itself (they say 8-10 years). That partly depends on what happens to energy prices. The more expensive energy gets, the faster it is paying for itself. But we didn't do it for the money. We did it because reducing our carbon foot print is the right thing to do.

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@Gary350 Omg, I haven't ever heard anything about solar panels causing leaks on the roof. Are you sure it was not the roofing material that did all the trouble, or perhaps the company you hired didn't have professionally-trained employees (?).

Nowadays, solar gains popularity all over the world, which gives more space to fraud as well.

Also the remarks about the house sale surprise because I have heard only the opposite - that solar panels increase the property value on the market.

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rainbowgardener
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Yes, I know people who have had solar panels on their roofs for years and never had any issues. We had our roof inspected before putting the panels up, just to be sure and the inspector (independent, not connected at all with the solar panel company) said it would be fine. And yes, usually the solar panels do increase the resale value of your house.

"In a state like California, for example, a small 3.1-kilowatt (kW) system can add an average of $18,324 to the value of a medium-sized home. The property value advantages of solar energy only increase as you scale up. Installing 5kW of solar panels adds an average of $29,555 to the retail value of a medium-sized home." https://costofsolar.com/is-my-home-worth ... ar-energy/

We aren't expecting to move again unless it is to a nursing home, but it seems like if you do sell your home, you can pretty much recoup the entire cost of the system in added value.
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tomf
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People love giving advice and before I retired a number did. Mostly they told me that I should keep busy. I had to smile, they obviously don't know me well.

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rainbowgardener
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I was just looking back at this thread and noticed this:

"In a state like California, for example, a small 3.1-kilowatt (kW) system can add an average of $18,324 to the value of a medium-sized home. The property value advantages of solar energy only increase as you scale up. Installing 5kW of solar panels adds an average of $29,555 to the retail value of a medium-sized home." https://costofsolar.com/is-my-home-worth ... ar-energy/

The system we installed is 8 kW. So it sounds like if we do sell this house, we will get more back than we paid for it, not even counting all the money it saves us in the meantime.

gumbo2176
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rainbowgardener wrote:I was just looking back at this thread and noticed this:

"In a state like California, for example, a small 3.1-kilowatt (kW) system can add an average of $18,324 to the value of a medium-sized home. The property value advantages of solar energy only increase as you scale up. Installing 5kW of solar panels adds an average of $29,555 to the retail value of a medium-sized home." https://costofsolar.com/is-my-home-worth ... ar-energy/

The system we installed is 8 kW. So it sounds like if we do sell this house, we will get more back than we paid for it, not even counting all the money it saves us in the meantime.
You really need to check that in relationship to property values in your part of the world. These things are skewed in places like the left coast, especially California. I'm betting your home in California would be worth 3 times what it's worth in your current location.

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rainbowgardener
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Oh easily three times as much. More depending on what part of Calif. My son lives in Oakland across the bay from SF and property values there are crazy. He has a house that is one third the size of ours with a teeny little fringe of yard around it (vs our almost half acre) and he paid more than three times as much for it as we paid for ours. Five years later he's getting ready to sell it for five times as much.

So yes, in $$ value our solar panels wouldn't likely add as much here as they would in Calif, but in % of the home's price, probably similar. But that part is all academic, because we won't sell this place unless we have to go into a nursing home.

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rainbowgardener wrote:Oh easily three times as much. More depending on what part of Calif. My son lives in Oakland across the bay from SF and property values there are crazy. He has a house that is one third the size of ours with a teeny little fringe of yard around it (vs our almost half acre) and he paid more than three times as much for it as we paid for ours. Five years later he's getting ready to sell it for five times as much.

So yes, in $$ value our solar panels wouldn't likely add as much here as they would in Calif, but in % of the home's price, probably similar. But that part is all academic, because we won't sell this place unless we have to go into a nursing home.
I've just turned 65 last month and am waiting for the wife to reach retirement age in a few years. Our plan is to sell this house in the middle of the city and buy something a bit smaller with more land in a rural setting and that will be the last house I will live in until we can no longer survive on our own or just go to the great unknown. I can sell my house and buy a house in the country and still put a nice chunk of money away because of the disparity in home prices between the two.

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rainbowgardener
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I admire that, gumbo. I'm 70 and we bought this place a couple years ago. Many of my friends around my age are down-sizing selling their big houses and gardens and moving to a smaller, closer-in place or even a condo or apt, saying they are tired of gardening, don't want to work so hard etc. We up-sized! Similar sized house, but more yard, more gardens, more animals.... I love it. It is what makes me happy.

gumbo2176
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rainbowgardener wrote:I admire that, gumbo. I'm 70 and we bought this place a couple years ago. Many of my friends around my age are down-sizing selling their big houses and gardens and moving to a smaller, closer-in place or even a condo or apt, saying they are tired of gardening, don't want to work so hard etc. We up-sized! Similar sized house, but more yard, more gardens, more animals.... I love it. It is what makes me happy.

By the time my wife retires, I'll be pushing 71. I would love a place for a bigger garden, some fast growing fruit trees, blackberry bushes, grape vines, etc.

I would also have chickens for fresh eggs, possibly some ducks too, but no big farm animals like cows and such. I just hope my health is much like it is now and if it is, that move will be a piece of cake.

And I agree, you need to do what makes you happy in life, and if living rural on a nice big piece of land makes you happy, then go for it.

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11 years ago I sold my city home on ¾ acres where I did have a garden to move out of town where I eventually wanted to retire. I worked in a suburb of Portland on the same side as where I moved to (between Portland and Mt. Hood) and drove 40 minutes to work. We are not far from shopping the next town over has stores, the mall and hospital are 35 minutes or so the other way. We did not down size as we went from a 2150 SQ foot home to a 4600 SQ foot home on 21+ acres. We have the smallest yard on our street and we are surrounded by miles of forests. There are only 4 homes on our road, 2 of them have over 40 acres so we are not on top of anyone. The house is somewhat big and I needed to put a lot of work into it but we have a room for all our activities and extra bedrooms for people to visit, and a nice music studio. I was luck and smart in that I had been putting away in my 401K for many years and working for almost 39 years at Boeing gave me a good pension, and I have had no need to touch my 401K so far. I retired last year at 62 with no penalty on my pension (new contract allowed that). I worked since I was 14 years old by starting working construction with my dad so even though I do much out here it is so nice not to have to go to work.I love living out in nature. gumbo plan for a tractor and a ton of tools when you move.

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I do believe a tractor will be needed for some of the things I want to do, especially if the wife and I can take over her late father's land which consists of 2 tracts, one being 6.75 acres and the other being an even 10 acre tract. The one with the house and shop on it now is the smaller of the two and only has about 1.5 to 2 acres cleared with the rest heavily wooded. I would want to clear off some more of that land and manicure it a bit for a walking garden with paths in the woods.

A friend of mine did this on his property in Mississippi and it is very peaceful walking his trails with the occasional bench, gazebo, garden spots with native flowers, etc.

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rainbowgardener
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Very nice... I would love to have a little bit more land. But compared to where we were, I'm pretty happy. Our little half acre so far has two peach trees, two apple trees, two fig trees, two serviceberries, two elderberries (just like Noah's ark for trees! But a lot of things do produce better with two), one hazelnut, one hawthorne, all the new foundation plantings, a couple dogwoods, AND eight vegetable gardens (soon to be ten) and our chicken enclosure. I really want a bee hive sometime, to take care of all the fruits and berries.

This is my version of how to retire and I love it!

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tomf
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gumbo2176 wrote:I do believe a tractor will be needed for some of the things I want to do, especially if the wife and I can take over her late father's land which consists of 2 tracts, one being 6.75 acres and the other being an even 10 acre tract. The one with the house and shop on it now is the smaller of the two and only has about 1.5 to 2 acres cleared with the rest heavily wooded. I would want to clear off some more of that land and manicure it a bit for a walking garden with paths in the woods.

A friend of mine did this on his property in Mississippi and it is very peaceful walking his trails with the occasional bench, gazebo, garden spots with native flowers, etc.
I got an HST one as for doing FEL work with it you can control the speed with your foot and leave the throttle alone, gear tractors are good for plowing big fields.

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[quote="tomf I got an HST one as for doing FEL work with it you can control the speed with your foot and leave the throttle alone, gear tractors are good for plowing big fields.[/quote]

Had to look up those two---HST and FEL since I don't know much about tractors being a city slicker and see they refer to hydrostatic transmission and front end loader work. Yes, that does sound like the ticket and I would probably get a small to mid size tractor for what I plan to do. I would want an attachment to run off the PTO for digging post holes for fencing or setting posts for certain structures like decks, a gazebo, etc.

Definitely need a bucket for moving soil, gravel, other debris and leveling ground. I would also like an attachment for disking soil and forming rows. No need down my way for a snow blower attachment. LOL

I've got time to think about all this since the wife still has a few years to go before she is retirement age. Who knows, this may all be a pipe dream in the end depending on how healthy I am and what I can honestly undertake by the time she can call it a day and retire. I do know if I feel anywhere near how I feel now, it's definitely going to happen.

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rainbowgardener
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gumbo... re " depending on how healthy I am and what I can honestly undertake by the time she can call it a day and retire. I do know if I feel anywhere near how I feel now, it's definitely going to happen." Sounds like by the time you are talking about, you will be just about the same age I am now. I am going strong and enjoying all this. I attribute much of that to being a regular at the gym for years and getting enough exercise. Use it or lose it happens a lot faster at our age!!

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rainbowgardener wrote:gumbo... re " depending on how healthy I am and what I can honestly undertake by the time she can call it a day and retire. I do know if I feel anywhere near how I feel now, it's definitely going to happen." Sounds like by the time you are talking about, you will be just about the same age I am now. I am going strong and enjoying all this. I attribute much of that to being a regular at the gym for years and getting enough exercise. Use it or lose it happens a lot faster at our age!!

Oh, I agree. I have friends and even a couple of neighbors that are younger than me that are much worse off physically just because they lead such a sedentary lifestyle and don't take care of themselves. There's really not much I can't do if I want to do it. I did try to get back into jogging a few months back and that didn't work out. Considering I've had 3 knee surgeries just on my right knee and the pain I started to feel after a few jogs let me know that part of my life was done.

Medicare allows me free gym membership at several local gyms. I'll probably check into that after the new year and all the holidays are done and dusted.



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