Am retiring to beautiful Bar Harbor, Maine

[HsiaoChu]

Since I don't know what the age for early retirement is, I don't know if I qualify.

My wife and I are retiring after 39 or 40 years in public and private education. My wife is/was a kindergartern teacher and I'm a counselor educator. We will have a planned benefit pension worth about 80% of my current income until I die whenever that is, and social security will bring it up to more than I make now(they will not be happy if I live to age 94). My wife will have a small SS pension. We are moving into a big house and will welcome all new friends and family who have either been to Acadia National Park and love it, or who want to see it. We own the house now and by the time we move we will have no mortgage. My wife fully expects to find a nursery school or kindergarten job and probably will considering her experience level at all levels from base teacher to management. I might plan on working at the local mental health facility, or not. I'm quite qualified for many of the available listed jobs.

We will have other assets enough to do some renovations on the house and still have a nest egg, and some future inheritance will increase the nest egg considerably.

We have two kids who live far away, one in grad school at Notre Dame about 3/4 of the way to his PhD in nuclear physics, and one in San Francisco working for a famous publishing company non-profit. No grand children yet.

Both of us are pretty healthy and don't take any medications for anything. We expect to continue avail ourselves of the hiking on MDI.

Z

 

[Gumby]

Welcome aboard Zarathu. Bar Harbor? I'm envious. The young wife and I rent a place in Damariscotta, Maine every summer for two weeks. Bar Harbor is one of the most beautiful places we've ever been.

 

[W2R]

Welcome to the Early Retirement Forum, Zarathu.

I retired three months ago at age 61, but there are plenty of members here who are older than me so I'm not sure what the age for early retirement is, either! I guess it is "earlier than otherwise".

 

[Rambler]

Welcome! I'm not there yet, and don't have as many years of experience, but glad to have you aboard. This is a great place to come to share experiences and learn.

R

 

[Midpack]

Congrats, it appears you are well positioned for retirement. And I could not agree more about Acadia, absolutely beautiful. We visited Bar Harbor about 10 years ago, planned to stay 4 days/nights and visit Acadia once for a few hours. We ended up spending 3 full days of our 4 at Acadia, could not get enough. And the 1 day we didn't go to Acadia, spent in town, half of it was spent on a whale watch - also a wonderful experience.

Hope you enjoy your years in Bar Harbor, it would be hard not to.

 

[HsiaoChu]

Congrats, it appears you are well positioned for retirement. And I could not agree more about Acadia, absolutely beautiful. We visited Bar Harbor about 10 years ago, planned to stay 4 days/nights and visit Acadia once for a few hours. We ended up spending 3 full days of our 4 at Acadia, could not get enough. And the 1 day we didn't go to Acadia, spent in town, half of it was spent on a whale watch - also a wonderful experience.

Hope you enjoy your years in Bar Harbor, it would be hard not to.

Thanks for your response, Midpack. And Rambler, WZR, and Gumby, thanks for your kind response too.

The Island and the immediate vicinity has its own senior college(there is also one in Ellsworth.) I've gotten actively involved in setting up a forum for them. The forum is there but now we have to encourage people to participate. Also the island has a very active Quaker Meeting. In addition the scenery and shops, there is the College of the Atlantic(a very ecology oriented 4 year college) and two large biological laboratories(Maine BIO and Jackson Labs.) All of these things make it easy for people who are from Away to move to the island and the immediate places right on the Mainland. While its much quieter in the winter, the community there is very closely knit, and the senior college, COA, and the public schools combine to offer to lots of interesting things to do and go to. Certainly there are more things than my rural southern Lancaster county community has.

One of the people we already know who transplanted from Bucks County, PA, refused to leave the island at all for the first two years. I think she was afraid it would be like Brigadoon and disappear if she left.

While Maine is not super friendly to retirees financially, MDI is a great place for people to retire to. And even though the land and housing prices are great than many places in rural Maine, they are not much different than central Pennsylvania. Taxes are less. Its not like Oakland CA(my daughter's living place) where nothing is purchasable for less than $800,000.

IMO, if you are going to move to retire, you have to move where your heart is; don't move just where its a good financial deal, but move where you will love living.

Z

 

[mickeyd]

Bar Harbor is a beautiful place in the summertime. We camped at Acadia NP for a week or so several years ago and were very impressed. Not sure though how the winters would be there.

 

[HsiaoChu]

Weather in BH.....

Bar Harbor is a beautiful place in the summertime. We camped at Acadia NP for a week or so several years ago and were very impressed. Not sure though how the winters would be there.

I've kept a really close watch on the winters for more than three years. Three years ago it was in the middle. Last year was a bear. This year has been nothing, compared to my 73 inches of snow in south central PA.

People always confuse weather on the coast with weather in the interior.

I live in south central PA and have done so for about the last 40 years. The weather in Bar Harbor closely matches here by about 6-8 degrees. Usually its 6-8 degrees colder in BH than in here. At night its 10-12 degrees colder.

But right now its 31 here, and over 40 in BH.

Now in Bangor.... thats a horse of a different color. And Bangor is only about an hour north by car in the summer.

Z

 

[JOHNNIE36]

W2R questioned what is early retirement? And, that is really a good question! I look at it this way. In the past, the "normal" retirement age was 65. That's when Social Security would kick in. Then that moved to 62 because you could retire with reduced monthly benefits. Then companies figured out how to get rid of excess people by offering them "special early retirements". This happened to me. I was offered a "special" early out at 52 by getting some nice benefits. The mega company paid me social security until I turned 62 and started to collect my benefits from Uncle Sam and then they eliminated that amount from their payment. I look at it like I got Social Security at "52", ten years early. I've never figured out the advantage for mega corp (eXcept getting rid of me), but there must be something in the tax laws. Having worked for MegaCorp for 34 years and seeing others retire at 57 on "special earlies", and going to all those retirement parties, I thought, "this is for me". Never thought it could or would happen at 52, but there was a clause in the fine print about "age plus length of service" had to equal 85. In my case that came out to 86 and I qualified. Not only that, but I got two years salary when I left. I just couldn't see working two years for nothing and I got a decent monthly retirement for life. Also, health care was paid for until a year ago and all that was taken away.

So, you have to consider all the circumstances. First and foremost, you have to have some outside interests. You can't just retire and sit on the porch. You have to be financially sound and/or have a plan to survive the next 30 years or so. Also, my wife had cancer and didn't know how long she had to live and we wanted to take advantage of every minute. As it turned out, she is a survivor and has been with me every minute since that retirement date of 3-15-1988.

PLAN AHEAD! Anyway, I retired early at 52, I'm now almost 74 and have been retired 24 years. I think I've had it pretty good and wish the best for all of you that plan on retiring early.

 

[REWahoo]

W2R questioned what is early retirement? And, that is really a good question!

Some past thoughts on that question:http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f28/what-is-the-age-cutoff-for-re-23468.html

You can't just retire and sit on the porch.

Oh yes you can!

True, that isn't recommended or what most of us might choose to do, but the great thing about retirement is you can do whatever you want - assuming you can afford it.*



* And your spouse approves.

 

[JOHNNIE36]

Some past thoughts on that question:http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f28/what-is-the-age-cutoff-for-re-23468.html


Oh yes you can!

True, that isn't recommended or what most of us might choose to do, but the great thing about retirement is you can do whatever you want - assuming you can afford it.*



* And your spouse approves.

Thanks for straightening me out. Somehow, I forgot about that prime point. "You can do whatever you want".

 

[WhoDaresWins]

You are so lucky Zarathu! I love Maine. We used to vacation there a lot when I was a kid. Campobello, Acadia, Bar Harbor...so many sweet memories. I wish you and DW all the best in retirement!

 

[HsiaoChu]

You are so lucky Zarathu! I love Maine. We used to vacation there a lot when I was a kid. Campobello, Acadia, Bar Harbor...so many sweet memories. I wish you and DW all the best in retirement!

Actually.... we're moving to Maine. But.... we never wanted to live in Maine. it was always Acadia or nothing. Originally we had planned to move to Western PA on a tract of 40 acres that we bought and then lovingly built a 2 story 20 x 24 foot cabin, that we were going to double in size when we retired. But the joy of it for the past 12 years turned out not to be the same joy when we contemplated retiring to it. It was surrounded by another 600 acres, and the nearest house was 1/2 mile away. The nearest store was 5 miles away. The nearest book store was 25 miles away. The nearest real movie theater was 40 miles away. The nearest medical facility was 20 miles away.

And then we asked our friends and relatives if they would visit us during our retirement to this beautiful but isolated place, and they pretty much said, "Sure.....if we have to."

And then there was the 27 pictures of ocean and light houses that my wife decorated the cabin with......

Suddenly one day in the summer in Acadia, someone said to us, "You both love this place so very very much. Why are you not retiring here?" We both looked at each other. At that moment we gave up the house that we lovingly put together with our bare hands with no electricity, and made plans to buy property on-island, and move in 4 years. It took us two years to find a buyer for the 40 acres, and we'll be putting the other regular house on the market next year at this time. And regardless, I will be retiring in June of 2011. As soon as the house is sold after June 30, 2011, and we get the renters out, we move.