60k
 

Ok, my first post. I don't want to waist anyone's time.
My wife and I have visited TV twice...looks a bit high end for us even though we loved it.
Can two people make it on 60k? We're willing to work also if work is available in the area.
Sorry if "talking turkey" is not the way to ask questions here.

With some left over!

With out a doubt.
 

Yes you can without a doubt. In fact you'll be enjoying the lifestyle several night a week.

Welcome to Talk of the Villages (TOTV) ivanhoe. When you did your visits, did you look at the preowned homes in The Villages (TV) or explore on the older areas like Orange Blossom Hills? The area is older and absolutely beautiful. The homes are not expensive and there is not the additional bond payment that the new homes require. The area offers golf courses, pools, clubs, dog parks, archery ranges, tennis courts, churches, etc. Everything the newer more expensive areas offer.

To me, it is hard to answer a question about how much it takes to live. The answer is different to each person you would ask. Like what bills you have and such. The cost of buying a home in TV includes so many extras it is unbelievable to me.

Good luck. I'm sure you'll get many, many answers here at TOTV.

Again welcome.

If you cant make it here on $60k, get rid of your wife. Seriously, with no mortgage you should be ok with 2 ss checks. Any added, like a small pension is gravey.

Yoda

Can I assume that you are making it on $60K in NYC? If so, I can't imagine having any trouble here. First, figure out what you pay for NY and NYC income tax and add that back into your budget since there is no state or municipal income tax here. Then, I imagine your car insurance will also drop appreciably (ours did coming from NJ). I don't know what NYC property taxes are, but I expect that they are more than here in TV (ours are a third of what we paid in NJ). I know that gas taxes are high in NY, so you will be paying less for gas here as well. Want to go to the movies? It's $6.75 here, how about NYC? Same thing with going out for dinner, especially in the off-season. One thing that we did not see any savings on was groceries. In fact, soft drinks, beer, wine and liquor is a bit more expensive here than in NJ.

I don't think you will have a problem on 60k a year with no mortgage, if you just watch your spending. The money will go much farther here then in NYC.

Not sure why having a modest mortgage would be a deal breaker. At the present rate of interest, even a mortgage on $110k would be less than $7k a year and most of that would be tax deductable.

ivanhoe, take a look at the Nuts and Bolts of The Villages section. When you first come into the forum, it's at the bottom. In it are three Moving to the Villages messages. You will learn a lot about expenses.

Good luck.

We figured it out when we where going through the buying process a little over a year ago, that with a paid off house & bond, if we put back some each month also for the annual things like taxes, assessment, Insurance, etc, plus all the normal monthly bills, our monthly living expense total without food is $730. With that being said, the grand total of a TV Life style per year for us will be $8,760. So with your $60K you can live like a king and even afford a morg.!
TV is VERY affordable.

Army Guy

Talking "turkey" is what we do at TOTV. Don't ever be afraid to ask the hard questions, we've heard all the easy ones.

As most people have said previously, it all depends on whether you're carrying a mortgage and in what amount. There is a new home currently for sale at about $1.7 mil.
If this is your life style and you want to carry a $1 mil. mortgage your $60K is not going to make it. However, there are many pre-loved and new homes/villas far more reasonably priced. There are so many advantages to TV that you don't pay for but are worth a lot. You should be able to find a lovely home and live comfortably on that income. When you move in you'll receive a very warm welcome (no pun intended as it is a little toasty today).

On 60K a year you can live like a KING .......

HERE KING !! HERE KING !! ...:doggie:


Seriously , you will do very well here on that income.....
besides there's always grits..........

fumar

Thanks everyone!
 

OK, first waist = waste...it wouldn’t be me without a misspelling.

Thanks to all of you good TV people; you’re all more helpful than a financial advisor!
I dislike a post that begins, “...so what do you pay for...” and I’m very glad you are all so amenable and that I can get some sound advice here.

I’d really like to answer each post individually but will not in an effort to keep it simple...but I‘m thinking of you.

We didn’t take the tour when we visited in 2008 which I believe was a mistake, so we plan on doing so in the summer of 2011.

It was my wife who actually “discovered” TV and brought it to my attention and she hasn’t stopped talking about it since.

It seems that we would be interested in a courtyard villa, pre-loved (I like that) is fine with us. My wife would like to access things via golf cart as she is a non-driver so that will be a factor, however, we have learned that you can virtually get everywhere with only a short interval in traffic.
As I’ve said we haven’t gotten the complete layout of TV so we're in the blind just now.

Our common charges for our condo here in NYC include many of the things listed separately in the pdf under “the cost of living in TV” on the Website i.e. sewage, trash, water etc so I think that threw me a bit. I do see average taxes of $240 but this is on a $250,000 home. Our taxes on a small one bedroom are a little over $2000 a year, car insurance $1000 so it will only be health insurance that could crimp the budget.

I’ll be “lurking” at Nuts and Bolts; seems like someone has really done a great deal of very helpful work.

Thanks again for your time...I’d leave today if I could.

Can you live a comfortable life on 50k with the mortgage paid off?

My best advice would be to visit the nuts and bolts section and determine for yourself what your required monthly costs will be. And then add up your optional costs from there: Will you be paying for championship golf - do you need to dine out every meal - do you have health related costs? Etc.

Plan your monthly budget with room for unknowns and compare against your expected income.