30 Cheapest Places Where You'll Really Want to Retire

When you're trying to balance a fixed income with an enjoyable retirement, cost of living is a crucial factor to consider.

Image of retired people exercising
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When you're trying to balance a fixed income with an enjoyable retirement, cost of living is a crucial factor to consider. After all, if your daily expenses eat up too much of your budget, you won't be left with much extra for anything fun, to leave an inheritance for your loved ones or even just as a cushion to give you peace of mind. No wonder 67% of people say they'd move to a less expensive location to have a more financially comfortable retirement, according to a survey by Merrill Lynch and Age Wave, a research firm focused on the aging population.

To that end, we identified which of our 50 Best Places to Retire in the U.S. offer below-average living costs for retirees. On top of affordability, all of these places rank well with us, taking into account safety, median incomes and poverty rates for retirement-age residents, as well as residents' sense of well-being and the availability of recreational and health care facilities. And these affordable places to retire are scattered across the nation, offering diverse options from mountains and beaches to small towns and college towns. Take a look at the list.

Disclaimer

The list is ordered by cost of living for retirees, from highest to lowest. See "How We Picked the Best Places to Retire" at the end of the list for details on our data sources and methodology.

Stacy Rapacon
Online Editor, Kiplinger.com

Rapacon joined Kiplinger in October 2007 as a reporter with Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine and became an online editor for Kiplinger.com in June 2010. She previously served as editor of the "Starting Out" column, focusing on personal finance advice for people in their twenties and thirties.

Before joining Kiplinger, Rapacon worked as a senior research associate at b2b publishing house Judy Diamond Associates. She holds a B.A. degree in English from the George Washington University.