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| Indian lot available in Palm Springs. Sure, I'm going to lease an Indian owned lot in Palm Springs. NOT! |
Remember all that talk I've been having about retiring to Palm Springs? Well there is one big "thing" that I forgot about, the high real estate/school tax. For the type of home that Pat and I would like to move to, the real estate taxes would be just too high. It seems that I conveniently forgot that the main reason I moved to Delaware in 2006 was because I couldn't afford to live at our home in Pennsylvania anymore because of the high real estate taxes.
I came to this brutal realization yesterday when a friend of mine told me he just bought a house in Cathedral City, near Palm Springs. He's paying close to a million dollars for his house but he won't have to pay a five digit real estate tax bill because he's a California resident who qualifies for a lower tax bill. Of course Pat and I wouldn't qualify for lower taxes since we are not California residents who would qualify for that lower tax bill.
Even though I now live in the low tax state of Delaware (no sales tax, low real estate taxes and I don't pay Delaware's income tax because my pensions are below the taxable rate), I still have substantial annual insurance taxes. Even though I have the so called "free Medicare", I still pay over $5,000 a year for Medicare and Medicare supplemental insurance, and that keeps going up. If Bill should die before me, then my sole income is Social Security and my small bank pensions. I probably could go back to work at the hotel part-time but how much longer can I work now that I'm over eighty?
So there it goes folks, my dream of moving to Palm Springs for my retirement years. I'll just have to get by on an annual visit during Modernism Week in February of each year.
But you know folks, I have to put this into perspective. Look at those Ukrainain refugees who have lost everything they have because of the evil of Russia and Putin invading their country and leveling it for what reason? Just because Putin, who has more money than any one individual in the world is bored and wants to return Russia back to it's former "glory" of the Soviet Union empire. I'm sick to my stomach over that whole mess, the rest of the world is helpless to do anything to stop Putin. What's next for Putin? The Baltic states? Poland? The other former east European countries that the Soviet Union previously occupied after World War II?
All my life I've lived under the threat of nuclear destruction and it seems as if at the end of my life I'm still living under that threat. But, and this is a big "but", I have been so fortunate to have the wonder life that I've had. I live in a beautiful home in southern Delaware that is paid for. If I can't move to a more beautiful home in Palm Springs, big deal. I am so much more fortunate than those millions of Ukrainians who did nothing to deserve the hell that has descended on them now from the Hell of their Russian neighbor Putin. One thing is for sure, Putin is finished because of what he has done. Unfortunately, he's taking a lot of innocent people down with him.