Moving to Save Money for Retirement: 3 Costs That Surprised Us
We did not sit down one day and decide on moving to save money for retirement. We started with a conversation about a beach.
One afternoon I came home and told my husband Terry that I had not felt the same peace at the beach that I usually do. He said he was glad I told him, because he had been to Spokane years ago and had thought about living there ever since. That was news to me. That one exchange opened up something much bigger than either of us expected, about where we wanted to live and whether we could afford the life we wanted. The numbers came after that, not before.
When we did finally run them, three things surprised us. Here is what went down, what stayed the same, and the one we almost got wrong.
Moving to Save Money for Retirement Did Not Start With a Budget
That afternoon at the beach was an ordinary one. It was a beautiful day, the kind I had loved my whole life growing up in California. I went with a cycling friend and I should have come home happy. Instead I came home unsettled, and I said so.
What I did not know, and what I found out as we kept talking over the following weeks, was how much Terry had been carrying on his own. He had lived there thirty-four years. He loved his friends and he loved the area, and he did not want to leave. But he knew what our mortgage was doing to our savings. If he wanted to retire, he was going back to work as a chef, commuting into the city, and putting in long days to make the numbers work.
He had not told me any of that. My one sentence about the beach is what opened the door.
The costs that went down when we moved
TTerry knew roughly what our California house would sell for, and he knew it would be enough to buy a house outright in Washington. That alone was enough for us to consider it.
But housing was not the only thing that dropped. These all came in lower than what we were paying before:
- Property taxes
- Electricity
- Natural gas
- Water
- Fuel for the car
- Vehicle registration
None of that was in our plan when we started moving to save money for retirement. It adds up every single month, and it added up in our favor.
I will be honest with you about my part in this. I did not look at any of those numbers. I trusted Terry with the finances. What I cared about was whether this was somewhere I actually wanted to live. That worked out for us, but I would not hold it up as the right way to do it.ted to live. That worked out for us, but I would not hold it up as the right way to do it.
The costs that did not change at all
Here is what surprised me more. A whole category of expenses followed us across the state line and did not move an inch:
- Health insurance
- Home insurance
- Cell phones
- Internet and television
- Restaurants
- What a contractor or a repair shop charges for their time
You would think labor would be less expensive in a small town. Where we live, it is not. If you are moving to save money for retirement, this is the category that will quietly follow you.
If you take one thing from this section, take this. Those costs are the ones you can lower right now, today, without going anywhere. And whatever you save on them, you keep whether you move or not.
The Cost We Almost Got Wrong When Moving to Save Money for Retirement
This is the one that matters most, and it is the reason I am writing this.
When you move somewhere less expensive, the pay is usually lower too. That is not a coincidence. It is the same economics looked at from the other side, and for many people it cancels out the savings entirely.
For us it went the other way, and the gap is worth showing you:
- The house we bought cost about sixty percent less than what ours sold for
- My pay here is about thirty-five percent less than what I was making
Housing dropped a lot further than our income did. That gap is the whole reason this worked. Terry did not have to go back to the kitchen, and I only had to work part time.
So if you are pricing a move, run both sides of it. Moving to save money for retirement only works if the gap goes your way. Not just what you will save on housing, but what happens to your income. And look at what your particular work pays in that particular town, because a national average will not tell you a thing about the place you are actually going.
I will add something personal here. I chased pay and a title for years. I got both, and I was miserable. So taking less money here was not the hard part for me. That is its own story, and it is one of the reasons I do this work now. I talk about it here: Steps to Find Work That Matter!
The cost I could not put a number on
Missing my friends was the hardest part. When you move, you have new streets, new people, and nobody knows you yet. It takes time to build that back. I miss the beach too, though less than I expected, because we have lakes and rivers here that we enjoy. We are working on making new friends.
This happens even if you stay close to home. A friend of mine that I met in California moved from one part of California to another, still in the same state, and she is in her fifties, and it has been hard for her.
This is the cost that does not show up anywhere in the math of moving to save money for retirement. You can feel lost, especially if you start out in a hotel or a temporary apartment. Which is why knowing ahead of time where you want to be, and what you want your life to look like, matters as much as the numbers do.
What I would tell you about moving to save money for retirement
If you are thinking about moving to save money for retirement, here is the short version of everything above:
- Look past housing. Six other costs went down for us, and none of them were in our plan.
- Find the ones that follow you. Insurance, phones, internet, and labor did not change. Lower those now and you keep the savings either way.
- Run the income side. What your work pays in that town, not the national average. This is the one we almost got wrong.
- Count the part that has no number. Friends, community, and the time it takes to build both.
We are not financial advisors, and your situation is not ours. But we have been through this, and we would rather tell you the honest version than the tidy one.
Start with one honest conversation, the way we did. The numbers will still be there tomorrow.
If you are ready for a clear next step, we have a free guide that walks you through it. It is called Can You Afford The Life You Want? and it will not cost you anything.
~Donna, Co-Founder
Rebuild With Clarity
