Retirees, Brace Yourselves For Florida’s High Cost Of Living

Florida is so beautiful, and yet so full of dangers and pitfalls, that it would make sense for an emoji depicting the outline of Florida to mean, “Let the buyer beware.” You can build a mansion on dirt cheap land, but as soon as you snap selfies in front of your new stomping ground and post them on social media, a hurricane will come along and knock down your dream home. You can go for a swim in the middle of a boating trip on a picturesque river, but as soon as you swim a few feet away from your boat, an alligator will snap you up and put you in a death roll. Perhaps these are only the worst-case scenario, but there are plenty of ways that your plans can fail spectacularly in Florida. Middle-aged people shivering as they commute home to far-flung suburbs from work in snowy metropolises have long considered Florida a retiree’s paradise, a land of endless sunshine and affordable prices. When you arrive in Florida, you find out that the sunshine is endless except when it isn’t, and the prices are anything but affordable. Of course, affordability is in the eye of the beholder, and it varies according to your means. To find out how well you are on track to affording retirement in Florida, contact a Tampa estate planning lawyer.

Don’t Be Fooled by Promises of Low Taxes

The aspirational spiel about how inexpensive it is to retire to Florida usually begins with a discourse about all the taxes that Floridians have to pay. Some would argue, though, that simply by moving to Florida, the high prices count as a tax on your foolishness, just as people who buy lottery tickets are paying taxes on their poor understanding of probability.

Florida may have a low tax burden, but the costs of property insurance are astronomical, whether you own your home or rent. The average cost of homeowners’ insurance or renters’ insurance, nationwide, is about $2,400 per year. In Florida, it is more than $10,000, in other words, more than four times as high. If that were the only sky-high bill you had to pay, you could work the rest of your budget around it, but almost everything else in Florida is expensive, too. Your transportation costs will not be a fraction of what they were when you were working. Florida has virtually no public transportation, and everything is spread out, so you will have to rely on your car to go anywhere, and when gas prices increase, so do your transportation costs. Groceries are expensive in Florida, too, even though the cookies you can buy from Publix during the holidays are worth every penny.

Contact David Toback About the True Costs of Retirement in Florida

A Central Florida estate planning lawyer can help you make realistic plans about how much it will cost to retire in Florida.  Contact David Toback in Tampa, Florida to set up a consultation.

Source:

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