Once again, another post sitting in my drafts folder.  I don’t remember what decision we were trying to make since the date was from 2016, but I don’t think it was finished.  

I would have to answer this question with a resounding “YES.” At least right now it feels that way to me.

We’ve been planning and then adjusting. Planning and then changing our minds. Planning and then tweaking. Planning and then waiting. Then we begin planning only to adjust again. The cycle continues and today I realized that sometimes decisions are just too big to make. Maybe we just need to jump at an opportunity and not really think about it, because to think about it would only cause us to freeze in place.

The crazy thing about this post is that it is so timely as we continue to try to make a final decision on our retirement location.

Here we are planning then we adjust our plan. That leads to changing our minds on the plan and coming up with a new plan. Then we tweak the new plan only to change our minds again. Now, with a new plan in place, we adjust again, we tweak, we wait and the second guess the new plan. It’s is a vicious cycle!

Honestly, the biggest problem is that we (and when I say we what I really mean is I) have this overwhelming desire to choose the perfect location for our family.

Guess what?

Perfect doesn’t exist!!!

Yet somehow, I have convinced myself that we can find the ‘almost perfect’ place to retire.

Again, almost perfect doesn’t exist. So I’m trying to change my mindset from finding the perfect or almost perfect place to a mindset of accepting what works best for our family.

We know it’s not Texas.

A year ago, housing prices in this area average $430,000 for a single family home. Now the average home cost is $550,000. As a homeowner, I feel like we made a great investment in buying our home in this location. However, the downside is that Texas is in the top 5 on two lists.

1. Highest property taxes.
2. Highest property insurance premiums.

So while I’m excited to see our home value increase so substantially, I’m not looking forward to our next property tax and insurance bills.

Regardless of falling in the top 5 on those two lists, Texas isn’t a horrible retirement location. There is no state income tax and that’s a huge plus. There are also ways of lowering property taxes. For example, the homestead exemption has been a great way to save a little money on our property tax bill.

The real problem is, I we don’t necessarily like living in Texas and with the cost of living getting higher all the time, it’s the right time to find the city and state that best fits our needs and make that move before hubby is retired.

This is certainly one of the biggest, if not the biggest, decisions we’ve ever had to make. So while we’re planning and adjusting and tweaking and changing our minds and planning again, we’ll sit tight in Texas. We’ll watch our home value continue to increase (hopefully). We’ll watch our tax bill increase (sadly). We’ll watch our insurance premiums increase because our home value increased (sadly). Then we’ll make our decision and hope for the best because . . . .