Houses

Chrissy and I have had a fun year. A road trip across the country to visit Chris’s niece in California, we have re-discovered the joy of live concerts, and have had some nice day and overnight trips so far this year. We are looking forward to a couple concerts, a Broadway play or two, and a trip to tour the Frank Lloyd Wright Falling Water House in PA.  Still, we can’t be on the road all the time,

My dad characterized his family as poor. My mom’s dad was an engineer on the railroad, and likely an alcoholic. Neither of my parents hit the inheritance lottery, so when they married in 1940, they started out with a blank financial slate.
They met while working at the Hostess Bakery, then owned a small restaurant for a while, with my dad finally getting a job at The Overland, AKA Jeep. After owning a duplex for several years,

I received a monthly newsletter from Andy Panko today, dated 9/1/2026, titled “How to move to a new state…tax compliantly”.
I think it is well written and a good read for anyone who commutes into another state to work, has multiple residences in different states or has adopted a RV or snowbird  lifestyle.
Andy’s article is focused on state level inheritance and estate taxes. The article references a 8/7/2026 WSJ article which summarizes a Connecticut estate tax case where the taxpayer’s estate and the State of Connecticut do not currently agree upon the taxpayer’s domicile at his 2015 death.

WHEN MY HUSBAND and I moved into a continuing care retirement community, we were both in our late 70s, healthy, active, and living independently. We had been considering such a move for several years. Still, friends sometimes wondered why we would move before we needed care.
That was precisely the point.
We wanted to decide while the choice was ours—while we had the energy to explore alternatives, review the finances, and talk honestly about what each of us wanted.

During the last couple of months I’ve saved around $1000, and I’m not very happy about it. It’s money I really didn’t want to save. I’d rather have blown it big time. My most earnest efforts and hopes to do so were thwarted by circumstances entirely beyond my control.
During this timeframe I’ve had the misfortune of being hit by a string of low level, unrelated plumbing issues. A shower diverter valve jammed, a toilet cistern flush button broke,

I just read an article that questioned the value of retirees downsizing, perhaps in the process relocating even to a new neighborhood. It got me thinking about our decision. What may be correct for you depends on your primary goal. That can be tricky and over time it may change. 
Our primary goal was convenience- it’s a good thing it wasn’t saving money. 
It has been almost eight years since we sold our house of nearly 45 years and moved 7/10 of a mile to a 55+ condo community of eight buildings with 12 units each on 16 acres.  

The door bell rang unexpectedly three times in three days. The first on Wednesday, was a couple high school kids trying to drum up some window washing jobs. They seemed like good kids, and after telling them I already had cleaners, I felt sort of bad sending them away empty handed. I hope they get some jobs in the neighborhood.
The second ring, on Thursday, was from a guy selling exterminator services. Pretty quickly he launched into his spiel,

We have now emerged from the hellish phase of moving and are settling into our new home. Our condo sale closed on Tuesday, all the money went where it was supposed to go, and our first new mortgage payment is due on Monday.
I have found it quite amazing/shocking how many expenses there have been over the last few weeks for both ends of the transaction. I’m not talking about the obvious (buying the house and paying sales commissions).

My wife asked me yesterday “did you know that 93% of seniors age in place?”. Really? That didn’t sound right. Where we live on Mercer Island (next to Seattle) there are many retirement communities, including a large one on the lake called Covenant Shores that was converted from Shorewood Apartments where I delivered newspapers more than 50 years ago. Folks in my yacht club live there, I see constant advertising for the Aegis Living, a higher end one from Era called Aljoya,

RENT, n. 1. A regular payment made by a tenant to a landlord for the use of property. 2. An amount of money earned that exceeds that which is economically or socially necessary.
When I became of age, after becoming thoroughly familiar with the legal drinking age in New York state, I quickly became familiar with the first definition. A decade later after obtaining an MBA, I then became familiar with the second,

My husband and I are embarking on an effort to identify a small home to purchase nearby so his adopted Latvian daughter (my stepdaughter) may begin living independently at 33 years old. She has permanent cognitive disabilities that impact her attention and executive functioning but she has learned how to drive and remains gainfully employed part time.
We set her up with an ABLE account via ABLE United here in Florida so that she can work and save beyond the Social Security Supplemental Security Income (SSI) cap of $2,000 in assets.

I’ve written two recent posts about our decision to buy a new (to us) home and sell our condo. I appreciate all the comments and well-wishes I’ve received, but I’ve decided to be candid about one aspect of this big “little” move: It’s financially stressful at a period of life where that might not seem to be…prudent.
First, the nuts-and-bolts. The home we bought is more expensive than the one we’re selling (a little more than 50% higher if you go by both sales prices).

Our condo HOA monthly fee is $950. It was $700 when we purchased in September 2018. All of the increase was higher costs associated with upkeep and maintenance, not improvements or added services. 
Now it’s likely the increase in July will be 7.4% to $1,020. ($840 a year). 
Annually the increases averages 4.82% since 2018. For reference the annual rate of inflation since September 2018 was about 3.65%, but that is not directly applicable to running a complex of nine buildings where repairs are needed on everything from elevators to fountain pumps.

When my husband and I bought our brand-new condo in Davis, California in 2019, the move made sense to a lot of people in our lives. We were empty-nesters in our late 50s, our youngest child having left home for college in 2014. The four-bedroom home we’d purchased in 1998 and where we’d raised our kids was more than we needed and was getting older. Our dog had died in 2018, so we didn’t need a yard as much anymore,

I’ve spent a fair amount of time documenting my financial journey here on HumbleDollar. Some regular readers might remember me documenting both the purchase of a home (in 2018) as well as the sale of that home (in 2022). I purchased the house (an 1100 square foot ‘starter’) for $375,000. I sold it for $600,000 cash.
I recently saw that the house changed hands again. The numbers, however, tell a sobering story: this time it sold for $500,000.