David.

Yes, John?

What is the third most frequent question that we get?

Probably, where can I retire that is both affordable and where I'll be accepted as an LGBTQ person?

Yes, good answer.

Why do you ask?

Because today you're listening to Queer Money, episode number 504, and we're talking with the host of the Where Do Gays Retire?

Podcast, Mark Goldstein, about where he's finding that, well, gays retire.

Clearly we need to work on our intros, folks.

Now let's get on with the show.

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Welcome to the Queer Money podcast, Mark Goldstein.

I am super excited to have you on the show because of how we connected and become friends online.

David and John, thank you so much.

It's a pleasure to be here.

I know it is.

Why did I think you would say something like that?

Yeah.

So, folks, for those of you who are listening, I connected with Mark through Facebook because Mark has a Facebook group that is about where LGBTQ people retire.

And you also have a podcast that's on this topic that I have completely fallen in love with because not only is it something we are interested in, but it kind of informs and helps with some of the content that we create for the LGBT community because we have our Gay Retirement 101 theme that we have every month on the on the Queer Money podcast.

So, Mark, maybe you could just talk about why you have this podcast.

Why did you start this podcast and this Facebook group about where gays retire?

Excellent question.

So I lived in New York pretty much all my life.

In 2014, I decided to quit the rat race and see where else can I afford to live.

Where else could we afford to live?

Survive, maybe without working?

So New Yorkers generally pick Florida and New York City, people generally migrate down to the Fort Lauderdale area.

No.

What did I do?

I researched the hell out of stuff.

And I was mainly concerned with the price point.

And in the price point, the Tampa Bay area fit our needs.

So we moved to a town called Apollo beach outside of the Tampa Bay area, and we bought a brand new house.

It was a beautiful place, but it just Wasn't for.

For us.

We were in a predominantly heterosexual community, young couples with kids, and we were just in the wrong place.

It's kind of funny.

As we were driving from New York City and we're entering the Tampa Bay area, as soon as we see a sign on the highway, tampa Bay or Tampa, there's a huge Confederate flag flying over the highway, my husband and I look at each other and say, what the hell have we done?

Even before you get there, you're already questioning your decisions before we got there.

And I'm like.

We look at each other, like, in shock.

And.

Yeah, so that was that.

And my husband was ready.

I think he was ready for moving again after the first month.

I kind of joke with him after the first day, but we stuck it out for four years.

And during that time, I said, now, where do gays retire?

And I said, that's a good question.

So I started the Facebook group, and over time, it took a little while to take off, but today I have.

I think I have 13,800 members.

So it has grown.

It's very popular.

And the podcast, I started about a year and a half ago because I thought it was such a great topic that I just wanted to reach a bigger audience.

And it's been fun.

I love it.

I will say it is really interesting in your Facebook group to watch the comments, right?

I've posted in there a number of times, and it seems like almost anytime somebody posts in there, whether it's a question about where they should retire, which I think is kind of funny question asking other people, where should I retire?

That's kind of a question you should be asking, asking yourself.

But I think they're asking for advice, right?

They're asking for suggestions.

It's so funny because every time it's like, there's like 250 comments, and everybody is sharing their experience about where they're at and.

And why they chose to be where they're at and why you shouldn't choose this city and why you should choose this city.

And, you know, sometimes you get a little acrimonious conversations going back and forth, but it's a.

I love your Facebook group, and the way you guys have managed it is great.

We were actually talking about this before we started the show.

I also absolutely love your podcast because when you do your podcast, you interview individuals who have chosen to retire in a specific location, and it's almost like asking them to open up a portion of their life and describe or tell everything about why they chose to move to where they're at or why they love the city that they're in.

You ask great questions about things like cost of living and what is the geopolitical political climate, like, what is safety issues, especially, you know, for people in our community.

You ask about what is violent crime or the crime rate like, and it's really interesting to listen to people talk about the city that they live in and share all of the positive and negatives.

And it's so much better than just somebody giving like a, you know, a two or three sentence description of their place like they do in the Facebook group.

And it's so funny, folks, because I'll listen to an episode of Mark's podcast, and every time I listen to an episode of Mark's podcast, I turn to John and I say, hey, maybe we should go check this city out.

So, like, we have talked about going to Uruguay.

We have talked about going to Ithaca, New York.

We've talked about going to all of these different places.

And I think that that's what is so exciting and great about your podcast is it's something that our community doesn't have and really does need, right?

You see so many articles about where people should retire, and they're all so heteronormative, right?

You should move to Alabama, you should move to Louisiana, you should move to Florida.

Or if they're for LGBT people, it's always about where the most bars are, because all we care about in retirement is drinking.

So where do gays retire?

What are you finding when you talk, when you have these interviews or in your Facebook group, what are you finding?

Well, I'm finding a lot of people, if they're not moving to states, they're moving out of the country.

A lot move to Mexico because of the affordability.

A lot move to Europe.

It's kind of funny.

I kind of built this network of people in Spain because I've done quite a few podcasts in Spain and I've gathered these people and I've introduced themselves to one another.

And now there's this little where to gaze entire podcast community that people know each other.

And then when people.

It's kind of funny now because people reach out to me and say, what do you know about?

Or who do you know in Valencia?

And it's like, oh, I know somebody in Valencia.

I could hook you up.

So it's kind of brought me that too.

People again.

The popular places are Palm Springs, believe it or not, still.

I mean, it's on the down low.

But you know, Fort Lauderdale, Wilton Manors, they're still very popular for the LGBTQ community, and places in Mexico are very, very popular as well.

Yeah, it does seem like there's still this kind of stereotype of the places where folks typically retire.

Right.

And, you know, I guess it's.

To a certain degree it makes sense because our community has probably word of mouth been talking about these places for a long time.

The Palm Springs, the Wilton Manors, the Puerto Vallartas, the.

We will.

We'll say sich as Spain.

For people in Europe especially, that's where a lot of gays have seemed to gravitated towards because of its opening.

Barcelona.

Yeah, exactly.

Do you find it's primarily Spain when people consider Europe or Portugal, I think.

They'Re more Spain now than Portugal.

I think at one time, at the beginning, Portugal was very popular, but now it's getting priced out.

They've stopped the golden visa in most places, so you can't buy real estate for a half a million dollars and get your golden visa any longer, especially in the most popular places like Lisbon and Porto.

So.

And it's become very crowded, and it's kind of what happened is so many foreigners were migrating to.

To Portugal, they priced out the locals there too.

So there's a whole big kind of uprising with the government and, you know, trying to put a.

A clamp down on Airbnbs and stuff like that now.

Yeah.

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You know, it's just.

I'll take a step back, folks.

If you're not familiar, a golden visa is a.

When you purchase a property under a golden visa in various countries, basically what it does is it makes you.

It gives you residency in that country without having to apply for a visa every.

You know what?

Not having.

You don't have to have a working visa.

You don't have to have any other type of visa that allows you to stay there.

They're basically saying, okay, you bought this property for half a million euro or whatever the price is allows you to stay there.

It's interesting.

We're just talking briefly about Portugal.

When we were there last year, we were just blown away when we were in Lisbon by how often we were offered drugs on the street.

And we didn't know this, but earlier, I think it was either in 2022 or early 2023.

That Portugal kind of relaxed their laws, or maybe it was maybe just Lisbon relaxed their laws on drugs to try to kind of make it somewhat like an Amsterdam, a tourist destination for people.

And I think they're kind of now having the same problem that Amsterdam has, is they're like, okay, you came here, you got what you wanted, and you're all a bunch of messes.

Get the heck out of here.

When people think about going to Mexico, are there any discussions about safety down there?

Because it seems like almost anything I read on CNN or fo, it was just like, there's.

The crime down there because of the drug wars, is pretty prolific.

So what I've heard, and I've heard from many people that actually live there, is if you have nothing to do with the cartel, if you have nothing to do with drugs, then you should be fine.

Guns are outlawed, so people say it's safer than being in the United States.

Yeah.

And I'm surprised by that, too.

And you hear some different stories, but everybody that I've spoken to that lives there says that they've never had a problem.

And I'm talking various cities.

Pv, Puerto Vallarta, Hijijic is very popular.

We'll talk about.

That's one of my favorite ones that I've done.

Yeah.

So no one has ever had a problem.

So you're saying I should take the US Media with a grain of salt, Probably.

Okay.

Yeah.

That's not a surprise.

Fake news.

What have been some of the surprises that you have found out by doing your podcast or through the Facebook group?

Everybody has their own thing.

Everybody is different.

And wherever you decide to retire depends upon what's important to you.

So surprises.

I've interviewed people from Uruguay.

So two lovely ladies that happen to come from the Scottsdale, Arizona, area where I live, they immigrated or migrated to Uruguay, and they love it.

And it sounds so fascinating because it's a place there that I think I would love to love to either live or visit, except for they're very heavy on beef.

I'm not really a beefy person, but.

I like my beef.

I'm sure you do.

I will say that was probably one of my favorite episodes as well.

And the reason was because it just, you know, I just thought of Uruguay.

It's South America.

It's so steeped in Catholicism and, you know, macho and the kind of the typical things you think of with some Latin cities.

And to just hear how gay marriages have been legal since I think it was 2003 or maybe it was 2013.

I can't remember which it was, but before the United States.

Before us.

Yeah, before the United States.

The example that they shared of a gigantic mural that's on a building with two men dancing the flamenco together, which is a very sensual dance, and that nobody kind of bats an eye or talking about going out to places to watch or.

Or be a part of the music scene and seeing two women and two men dancing together, and people are like, it's not a big deal.

Right.

It's kind of the, you know, the way they painted it, the picture of it is it's kind of like the equality that we all hope for and are seeking.

Right.

We want that kind of equality where it's no big deal what your gender is or your gender expression or your sexual orientation.

We're just all human beings interacting together in a beautiful city.

And the location that they have that they talked about buying a $300,000 house on the side of a mountain that overlooks the ocean.

And I'm just like, oh, my God, that's so nice.

If you ever go there, I'll hook you up.

Yeah, definitely.

We talked about this before, too.

Uruguay is one of the places that we are considering maybe going to for John's 50th birthday.

We try to every 10 years have a big vacation, and we generally go out of the country.

So I've kind of been put pushing for Uruguay to see if that's a place where we might think about retiring too.

Yep.

I'll hook you up with Elaine and Cynthia.

Yeah, that would be great.

What other surprises have you found so far?

So before the podcast or before the group.

I've never heard of hijic Mexico.

It's like a lot of people still haven't, you know, the everyday person.

Ajiic how do you even say it?

So it's a J I J I C a he.

Okay, now it's one of my favorite podcasts.

Two gentlemen, Steve Cross and Harold Watts, did the podcast.

Steve is.

Steve is.

I think he created the whole city, the whole gay community.

He's a realtor.

Did you lead cruise director for a hiki?

Yes, he's a realtor.

But he has a heart of gold.

I think he.

He has like 10 dogs in his house.

Like, he adopted them.

All of, you know, street dogs and stuff.

He's just one of those people that is funny.

He's out there, you know, he doesn't give a crap what he says.

It's like he's just a real person, and everybody realizes that, and it's unbelievable.

They Have.

So their gay bar.

They had, like, one gay bar.

I forget the name of it.

But anyway, the gay bar had to expand because the gay community got so large.

And they have these monthly dinners or meetings, and they have 90 people show up every month.

And for a small little, you know, Ajijic, Lake, Chapala, a little town, that, to me, that's incredible.

So I definitely recommend you listen.

You listen to that one, you'll get a kick out of it.

Yeah, we'll definitely link to that in the show.

Notes.

When it comes to where people are retiring, are you seeing that there are any trends as to people being prepared or lack of being prepared?

And I think that's one of the things that we.

When we did our study with the Motley fool, that was one of the things that we saw, is that LGBT folks are contributing less to their retirement, or some people are not.

There's a fairly large chunk who are not contributing at all to any sort of retirement accounts, even more so than the general population.

And we oftentimes choose these cities to live in that are even more expensive.

The New York, San Franciscos, LA's of the world, we choose these kinds of cities.

And then.

So I'm curious what you're seeing, any kind of trends when you either have these conversations or you're looking at the comments in the Facebook group.

Are people being prepared?

Some not being prepared?

You know, it's.

That's hit and miss.

Some people have saved all their lives and put money away and they're able to move to other places.

Yet there are people, and I.

I heard this yesterday or saw this on YouTube, that my generation are people that are becoming homeless, the baby boomers, because whatever money they had, they spent.

And now they're, you know, on the street.

So it's difficult to say people prepare.

I know it.

It's a hard thing to prepare.

And even.

Even if you have the money to.

To go somewhere, you have to research it, like, to death.

And as much as you do that, there's still something that you might miss.

Right?

So it's funny.

Example.

I went to Palm Springs for the.

I can't even count how many times, but had a great time, met great people, and said, God, maybe we should move there.

You know, I'm all about community.

I love the fact that there's a huge LGBTQ community there.

So I'm researching it, and I'm saying, okay, let's look.

Maybe, you know, we could afford it.

But the things that you may not realize, like healthcare.

So my husband and I We have some pre existing conditions.

And so I started asking questions on various Reddits or Facebook groups of Palm Springs.

What's the healthcare like in Palm Springs?

And what I'm discovering is it's really not that great.

I mean, they have like three hospitals, but for the amount of people, there's not enough doctors.

So I don't want to be a person that has to travel.

I'm a New Yorker.

I don't like to travel.

I don't like to drive far anyway.

I'll take a subway any day, but don't make me drive when I need a doctor's visit.

Two hours right to la.

I, I can't.

I can't live with that.

So maybe it's not going to be the best, the best place.

So again, you have to.

Every single aspect.

There's so many different things in retirement and where you want to go to think about.

You're thinking about climate.

Is that important to you?

You're thinking about cost of living.

Of course that's important because you can't go if you can't afford it.

Healthcare, transportation, you have to take all of these things into consideration and prioritize which one of those are most important to you.

So in my case, healthcare is up there.

It's pretty important.

So I want to be in a city that I have access to healthcare whenever I need it.

I don't want to wait two months or more to see a doctor.

I want my two weeks.

I'm spoiled.

We're going to die.

I think it's more of a comprehensive discussion than I think most of us give it credit for.

We're doing this LGBTQ friendly, Affordable Cities series, and it seems predominantly the comments that we get back are people solely focused on where am I going to be able to be myself or where am I going to be safe.

But there are so many other factors to weigh into where you're going to thrive or feel comfortable beyond just whether or not you're going to feel safe because you're lgbtq, the cost of living, healthcare, all that kind of stuff are definitely factors to weigh in.

And I don't think we get enough credit.

Yeah, I think we kind of get myopic in where we think we can be safe.

We just read an article earlier this week about the fact that there are more and more trans people who are choosing places that you wouldn't necessarily think.

Red cities and red states.

Yeah, yeah.

The article was profiling somebody who moved from Massachusetts, which is considered to be one of the gayest places in America and moved to Lexington, Kentucky, and felt like there was more support and more of a trans community in Lexington than what they had when they were in Massachusetts.

And I just was.

I was really, really blown away by that.

But what is important is for people to think outside the boxes.

Right?

We all.

I mean, I think a lot of people, they dream about and think about moving to or retiring in some of these great gay mecca retirement meccas, like Palm Springs or Wilton Manor.

But then you look at how much it costs to live there, or you look at some of the other things, like you're talking about healthcare or access to healthcare or access to the services that you need when you're in retirement, and they just may not even be an option for you, or those places may not even be an option just because of either lack of preparedness or lack of understanding of what it really takes to live in places like that.

Yeah.

I mean, let's face it, the gays raise the prices everywhere, so.

And there's nothing, you know, you think about it, there's really not that many blue states that we could retire to that are warm.

I mean, how many?

Cold and expensive.

Right, Exactly.

So I don't like expenses.

Where else do you go?

Yeah, yeah.

I think that's part of the reason why I see more folks talking about places like Las Cruces, which was a great episode.

I loved that one on Las Cruces.

Again.

I said to him, let's go to the house.

Oh, I was looking at houses in Las Cruces.

There are some affordable, beautiful homes there with pools.

I have to leave my house in Albuquerque.

I know people knock Albuquerque because they think that all of Albuquerque is like Breaking Bad and full of drug scene.

But I've heard that it's become one of the places for LGBT same sex couples to be moving to.

Not just people in retirement, but same sex couples because of affordability and community.

And El Puello Taco.

But not all of us can afford to live in San Diego or Palm Springs or San Luis Obispo.

All these places in California.

Yeah, all these places in California that are beautiful cities to live in, but they're just so expensive.

Expensive.

And living here in Phoenix, I mean, it was a red state.

We're kind of turning it blue.

I think all of the California people are moving here, but it's really a great city too.

So the only, you know, caveat is, okay, everybody has something, something.

We have summers.

Summers are hot.

It's 120 degrees.

But you know what?

If you get used to it, and you can stand it.

The rest of the year is beautiful.

And you have two prides, right?

We do, yeah.

You have like one in April and one in October, right?

Yeah, we have like the Rainbows festival and then we have pride.

Yeah, it's, it's fun.

It's a great city.

We have really good restaurants.

We have a vibrant gay community.

So you know what?

Well, we'll talk about that later as far as my plans are concerned.

But we'll see.

There are a lot of things that people again have to research.

I was researching Spain.

There was a time where we said, oh, should we have an escape, you know, route or someplace to escape to?

Why, pray tell, would you need to escape?

I can't imagine, I can't imagine that.

Project 2025 folks.

Look it up.

If you haven't looked it up, look up Project 2025.

And that's, that's another episode I'd love to do.

What's your escape route?

But anyway, so I was researching Spain and there's so many things that you have to do when moving to another country than from state to state.

It's hard enough finding a place within the states.

Moving to another country is, it's almost mind boggling.

So there are things that you really wouldn't know.

Number one, you have to learn the language to really be a part of the community and kind of understand what's going on that's so important.

What I did too is because figuring out things and affordability, you have to know how much your tax burden is there too.

Because don't forget, you have to pay US taxes first and then you pay Spanish taxes.

And you kind of like, since we have a treaty, you pay the difference between what you owe here and what you owe there.

So there were things that I just didn't know.

So I hired an attorney from Spain just to ask questions.

I had a zoom meeting with him for an hour and I asked questions.

What happens?

Do you have a wealth tax?

So yes, they have a wealth tax in certain areas of Spain and not every area is treated the same.

It depends upon the autonomous community that you're living in.

And then I asked about inheritance tax.

What happens if I should pass away?

What happens?

Does my husband have to pay any taxes?

Again, depending upon where you're living, he might owe something.

And it's based on your global assets, not what you just have in Spain.

So there's so much to ask and so much to think about.

And the thing is those rules can change at any time.

That's one of the things that people who are in Portugal have recently found out, now suddenly Portugal is also taxing Social Security, US Social Security, whereas just last year they weren't.

So it was a little bit more affordable.

Now you're almost getting triple tax on Social Security.

So suddenly the whole math equation has.

Changed, and it becomes political in those countries, too.

So if the right wing is in power, then your taxes are probably going to be lower, and they're going to abolish the wealth tax, and they're going to abolish the inheritance tax.

But if the blue is in control, the liberals, then you never know.

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

That is one of the things that, in doing our LGBTQ Friendly Cities series, we did find that it's interesting, the cost of living and the tax levels, how almost evenly down the line it is between blue and red states.

And we know there's all sorts of reasons and there's both positives and negatives that go with both of those.

Right.

And that's why it becomes a very personal decision.

When you have interviewed folks who have been able to successfully move outside the country, are you seeing anything that they're doing in advance, any advanced behaviors that have helped them get to that point?

Well, I think they're just doing.

They're trying to do their due diligence in researching the hell out of it, going on Facebook groups such as my own and different Facebook groups and different sources to learn, you know, what to do and, you know, the steps on how to proceed, how to get a visa and stuff like that and prepare financially.

Because I've done the math, too, in Spain.

And so I happen to be blessed with fantastic healthcare insurance from my husband.

He used to work in New York State as a teacher outside of New York City, and his healthcare is great.

So I'm on his.

And as affordable as Spain's healthcare is, with all the everything figured in and the cost of living and the taxes, it really didn't make sense.

There wasn't much of a difference.

And for us to make a move, and I don't know if everybody kind of researches it to that extent, because I sometimes find when I ask people about taxes in different countries, they're kind of, like, oblivious.

Yeah.

Really?

Yeah.

I think that that is kind of one of the interesting things is we oftentimes look at certain countries, like Mexico or like Spain, and we say, oh, the cost of living is so much cheaper there, but the cost of living typically does not factor in those things.

Right.

When you look at cost of living numbers, it's Typically focusing on things like the basket of goods that you would need on a daily or monthly basis, your fuels, your utilities, your food, all of those kinds of things.

It doesn't focus on what is the state tax, what is the regional tax, what is the tax at the country level.

And those can completely knock somebody out of the ability to live somewhere like that.

It's kind of one of the things that we found with our series is that there are some places that people are moving to simply because the cost of living or it is more affordable for them to be able to live in this particular location and then have money left over to travel whenever they want to travel to the great places that they would love to live in.

And they have the variety of.

Rather than living in a city that is expensive and not even being able to go out to dinner very often or be able to go out with your friends because a $25 martini is not accessible anymore.

Right.

So it really is important to do your due diligence, as you have said here.

Absolutely.

With that, what three to five tips would you recommend somebody who's starting their retirement planning journey, whether they want to stay local or they want to think about moving across the country or even across the globe.

Think about your priorities.

You know, you have all of those priorities.

You have the cost of living, you have the LGBTQ community, healthcare.

What's more important to you?

So you have to kind of put that all into perspective because you'll never figure it out otherwise.

You know, are you going to be exactly what you said?

Are you going to, you know, go and move to a place that's really not affordable for you and then suffer for the rest of your social life?

It makes no sense to do that.

If you require healthcare and you have some issues, make sure you prioritize that and put that on one of your top choices and things.

Research the hell out of healthcare.

If the gay community is your thing and you don't care about money, then that's fine.

But I think you just have to weigh things out and look from the big picture in life.

Because usually when you're choosing a retirement place, it may be the last retirement deployment place that you're living in.

It may be your final destination.

It's sad to say, but, I mean, you could always turn back or do something else, but you don't want to make a mistake like I did in Florida.

Yeah.

Is there a resource like a checklist of all the variables to consider?

I'm sure somebody has it in a retirement book.

I haven't read it.

But I'm curious if you have any sources to think about all the factors that I should weigh.

I don't know if anything is in writing that I've seen.

Well, there you go.

There's your book.

My friend, actually, Dave Hughes wrote a book on retirement.

I don't know the exact name, but he's a member of my community and he lives here in the Phoenix area, and he for many years researched retirement.

He wrote a few books on that, and so I highly recommend his books, too.

Okay, Dave Hughes.

Dave Hughes.

Yeah, we'll look that up.

So one of the things I've noticed in your group is that the vast majority of the comments seem to come from gay men.

And, well, let me say this.

They come from men.

At least from what it appears on their profiles and all of that.

It appears that it's coming from men, whether they're gay, bisexual, trans.

You know, I'm not sure.

But do you think that.

I know this is kind of a.

This is kind of almost a politically incorrect question to ask, but do you think that there's a lack of interest or a lack of preparedness with other parts our community, like the L's, the B's, the T's or the Q's?

They might be just more shy.

They do exist in my groups, but they're not as vocal.

The group name is Where Do Gays Retire?

And it would be just a little awkward if I say where do LGBTQIA People Retire?

So Where Do Gays Retire is kind of catchy and searchable.

The other one's not, unfortunately, not searchable.

Right.

So Google.

Gay men tend to flock there when they Google gay retirement, But I don't think there's a lack of preparedness from the other communities.

I just think they're less vocal.

Yeah, that's.

And I think that that's an important thing for the rest of us to remember is that.

That whether you're in this group or, you know, one of the reasons why we give voice to lots of people on the podcast is that it's important to hear from those other members of our community, because especially I think about the healthcare issues that trans folks have.

And them, you know, during.

In retirement, they are going to have healthcare needs that the rest of us don't have, many of the rest of us don't have.

And so I think it's important for those folks to be in community with each other, whether it's in community as in living next to each other or in community online so that they can Share those kinds of resources with each other.

Now, places for trans folks to consider are Rochester and Sacramento.

Yeah.

Although Sacramento is probably not terribly affordable.

Yeah, yeah, Sacramento.

I did one.

I did a show there too.

I kind of liked it too.

I was researching that one as well, but it's so important.

And we were talking again.

I don't want to beat a horse, but healthcare, the gay community, the LGBTQ community has a disadvantage when it comes to healthcare and aging in the community because a lot of us don't have family offspring that could help us like the heterosexual community can.

And we don't want to go into a nursing home and go back into the closet.

It's like, no way.

I fought all these years to have the rights that I have.

Now I'm going to go back in the closet.

I'd rather stay in my house.

I don't think it's beating a dead horse.

I don't think we can talk about it enough because most of us in retirement at some point or another, our healthcare cost is going to be the most expensive budget item that we have.

So I think we can't talk about it enough.

I think we just, just.

It's word of that.

Not hit on that.

Everybody discounting.

We just always kind of, well, I don't need to worry about it yet because I'm not 50 or I'm not 70.

And then all of a sudden you're 50 or 70, you're like, yeah, exactly.

And that's what happened to me with long term care.

Yeah, yeah, that's what happened.

All of a sudden it's like, you know, when I worked and they were coming and doing presentations on long term care, it's like, I'm 30, I'm 40.

You know, who needs long term care?

I didn't even want to think about it.

I was like, I'm not putting that money away.

And now I'm like, holy crap.

If you don't have like long term care or some sort of plan, you could go bankrupt.

Yeah, yeah.

And that's why people move to other countries.

Yeah, right.

And you become 50, 60, 70 years old really fast.

Yeah, beautiful.

In 30, you're like, it's never going to happen.

But yeah, it happened to me real quick.

Your comment there about.

About people having to go back in the closet when they reach a certain point in their lives, especially when they are going into care facilities, reminds me of the opening of the movie Jeffrey for the baby gays.

For any of you who are under the age of 30, at least watch the beginning of that movie because it's so sad to watch this lesbian couple who.

He didn't realize it until his aunt was being put into a nursing home and separated from her partner.

He didn't realize it until then that they were actually partners, and it was so sad to watch that.

But that is playing out in real life for many people today, in part because they don't have supportive families, they don't have supportive community around them, or they have been, unfortunately, isolated in a way that they can't reach out to anybody.

And so I think that's.

To me, one of the most important things about why you want to be prepared for retirement is I want to live out the rest of my life the way I choose.

And there's a lot of different ways to choose how you live out the rest of your life, but choose one that makes the most sense for you, that is most protective of who you are, rather than having those last few years be one where you feel ashamed or you feel like you're being isolated.

Yeah, exactly.

Cloudburst had a similar storyline.

Right.

The movie.

They were being separated in older age.

I think it was.

I think Cloudburst was more along the lines of one of them really sick.

Was getting.

Yeah, was getting sick.

I think was getting some mental health problems.

That's a good movie about an older.

Lesbian couple, Alzheimer's or issues like that.

And that's where it was causing some problems with the.

Between the family members.

But, yeah, and that's why I'm so big on community and building community.

That's my.

That's my thing.

That's my shtick.

I love doing it.

And if you could make.

Build community and have just a few friends.

I'm not saying I have tons of friends, but a few really good friends that you would do some.

You would do anything for them.

They would do anything for you.

As you grow older, you need these people.

You need to have some sort of community there, some sort of friendship and bond.

That's why I did the co Housing one.

I don't know if you've listened to that one, but again, that's building community within a community.

So they have LGBT people.

Q.

People living there, and they pretty much watch over each other and see if everything is okay and do things.

Everybody has a little task within the community to do and.

And I'm all for that.

Yeah, definitely.

There's a lot of things I could say there, but I think that the one thing that I remember from the TV show that we watched on Netflix called Blue Zones and I think you were reading the book Blue Zones was that that's one of the things that all these individuals who have lived into their late 90s, early 1/ hundreds have said is that having a community is one of the reasons that they had longevity in their lives was because they didn't feel isolated, they didn't feel like they were alone and had loneliness.

They had that community, whether it was with their partner or definitely with the individual, the people who lived around them.

That is a really, really important thing.

And I think especially as we age, we need that for protection too, right?

Because we don't know what the political climate is going to be.

And if we stick together, we've always had power sticking together as a community.

That's one of the things that frustrates me right now about seeing parts of the community splinter off.

But I think that it's, you know, we have power as a community and we need to stick together.

So where is your community going to be, right?

Where are you planning on retiring or what's your retirement journey like?

Mark, what are your plans?

Great question.

Know the answer yet?

Maybe, maybe, maybe not so much.

So my plan, original plan was like, oh, maybe this year, like in this month I would just retire.

But retirement to me is a little scary.

So I've kind of like put it off.

So let's say I collect full Social Security starting, I think in two weeks I should get my first check.

So I really don't have to work.

But I enjoy what I do.

So I'm going to continue working for the immediate future, let's say could be to the end of the year, who knows?

I really don't know.

Depends what happens.

I do want to get the bucket list thing going.

There's so many places that I need to see and unfortunately working is not gonna.

It doesn't mesh with my plans.

So there will be a time shortly where I probably just have to make the decision and say see ya.

Hate to be here and, and you know, retire and start enjoying life.

Life is too short and one thing you don't have is time.

Time you can't change.

So I know my parents, they passed away at an early age, in their early 70s, and I hope that I pass surpass that.

So, you know, life is short and I don't want to miss out on my enjoyable years because right now these are enjoyable years you can enjoy and pretty soon you never know what's going to happen when, you know, into my 70s or 80s, I'm not going to be able to probably travel to all the places that I want to do, so I really want to do it now.

Where will I go?

I'm still trying to figure that out.

So last month, two months ago, I thought it was Palm Springs.

Now I'm thinking, you know what?

I don't know if retiring in place is even all that bad because I enjoy where I live.

Maybe if you start a Facebook group to have a discussion about where gays retire, you can get some guidance.

So we all have to retire together so we could be family and have community and build community.

I do want to bring up this.

You have something coming up in May in Palm Springs, right?

Yes.

Yes.

So what are you doing around Community in Palm Springs?

So I'm having a little get together at Quads Bar on.

I call it Uranus, but it's arenas.

It's on May 12th at 4pm and yeah, it's just a little where to gaze Retirement and gays over 60.

I have that group too.

So I decided to have a little get together, a little event.

We had one previously.

I thought maybe five people would show up and we had a good turnout.

We had like 30 people, so it was nice.

And yeah, so I'm looking forward to that.

I'm looking forward to meeting people that I have been on Facebook with for so long and never met.

Have a friend in New York who's going to be there.

So it'll be fun.

You guys are going to come, right?

Yeah.

Schedule works out as planned yet?

Yeah, it just so happened.

It was really interesting.

I saw that you post that right after.

We were invited by the University of California, Santa Barbara to come out and do a talk at the university.

So we are going to come out a couple of days early and spend a couple of days with you guys.

My only concern is going to Palm Springs before we do work.

It could be a little bit dangerous.

Oh, it's before.

We have to be on best behavior before the work.

It is.

Yeah.

Okay.

We have to be on our best behavior.

Yeah.

That's the only way we could work it out is to come a couple of days early.

So we have a couple of days in between seeing you and the group out there.

So, folks, if you are in the LA Palm Springs area and you want to meet Mark and other folks from his group or you want to do a queer money meetup, we're all going to be at quads on May 12th.

I love it.

I love it.

Sorry.

So.

No, that's cool.

I'm curious though.

You probably thought about retirement as much as anybody.

What has you.

You said you were afraid about, you were scared about taking retirement.

What are your inhibitions?

The thing is, I need to keep busy.

That's me.

My husband recently had an accident last July and broke his knee.

So I was home for a few months taking care of him and I found, oh, if this is what retirement's like, I need to do something.

So it was like I was without work.

And there's just as much as you can do now.

Of course, I have my podcast that I could work on and build that up as well and spend more time on that and maybe do it every week again.

Like, I started out doing it instead of twice a month, but I was like, wow, I have all this time on my hands.

And I know that's not going to be the case because when you retire you're like, oh my God, how did I do all of this stuff before I, you know, when I was working.

But that's kind of like what scares me.

It's like, I want to be able to keep busy and I don't.

I'm that type of person.

You know, I have ants in my pants.

I have to keep active.

I don't want to say anything about your husband, but it sounds like a job as a Florence Nightingale is not in the works for you when you retire.

And yeah, so luckily he's on the mend.

He's.

And it's still, you know, it's still an issue, but.

And that kind of put a little kibosh on our Spain plans.

At the time we were supposed to go to Spain, so we're going to do that as the next big trip because that's another story.

Also, I don't know if I told you about the plane crash story.

No, I didn't.

Yeah.

But go ahead.

Now that listeners, everybody wants to know.

So I visited malaga, Spain in 1982, and it was a 10 day tour like Gilligan.

And on the way home, unfortunately, the plane crashed on takeoff, killing 54 people.

And I was a survivor.

And I was going back to Spain and I happened to be there on the anniversary of the plane crash.

So I was having this whole celebration of life with all of my podcast buddies in Spain and their friends and everybody's friends.

So we're going to have a little nice get together, dinner and drink and be merry type thing.

I had the paparazzi and all that coming, but we'll do it some other time.

Nice.

So that may be a great segue, a new question that we're asking folks through the election.

Anyway, is what has you feeling positive today.

And it doesn't necessarily have to be political, but if it is, that's fine, too.

I think we have so much to look forward to.

I think this is a great country, too, and I hope that we retain our democracy.

I just can't believe that there are that many people out there that would vote otherwise.

I know it's happened in the past, but I'm confident that people will do the right thing because open your eyes.

Just open your eyes and see what's going on and make the right decision.

And people just have to get out there and vote.

And with that said, I think everybody, I think we will be positive and we will, and we'll get our rights back and things will wind up going in the right direction after a while.

I don't want to think otherwise.

Good.

Your lips to Mother Nature's ears.

Yes, exactly.

So how can our audiences connect with you online and elsewhere?

Online, you can go to my website@www.wheretogazeretire.com.

you can go to my Facebook group, Where to Gaze Retire.

Or you can email me@markartogaysretire.com if you instant message me on Facebook.

I'm always open.

People have asked me, you know, for hookups.

Not hookup.

Not that type of hookups.

You're the new Grinder.

His middle name is now Grinder or Scruff.

Scruffy Mark Grinder Goldstein.

I love it.

Flow to it.

So, you know, if I'm able to, I will find the resources and get you to the right people to speak to in order to make your retirement journey a little.

A little less crazy.

Well, I know that there are lots of people who appreciate the work that you do for the community, the hours that you put in on your podcast.

We definitely do, too.

So thank you very much, Mark.

And I appreciate what you guys do, too, for the community as well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

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Thank you, Mark, for a great interview and your unique insight.

Thank you, our listeners and viewers for joining us for another episode.

Remember, this week's newsletter includes your Queer Money takeaway and all the resources that we mentioned in this episode.

Then join us this Thursday when we share the most affordable, LGBTQ friendly small cities.

And next Tuesday when we talk with Piggy and Kitty from Bitches Get Riches about how you can manage burnout.

Thank you and have a great week.