retreat-living

Rural Retreat Location in Oregon?

For those that are at a stage of life where you may be considering to move out of the big city or metro area, here is some simple logic that may help in the decision process while trying to find that ‘right’ location. In this example, I’ve arbitrarily chosen the state of Oregon, and plan to analyze a handful more pretty soon.

Some possible criteria for your rural move.

You want to stay well clear of large metropolitan centers for a variety of reasons.

Get-out-of-Dodge
Maybe you’re just tired of that lifestyle altogether. Maybe you will feel ‘safer’ to a degree – in the event that the SHTF, be it major economic collapse or otherwise.

Good Land
You want to live in a peaceful rural setting, one that is favorable for keeping a garden and growing some of your own food. One that is in a favorable climate to do so – one with adequate water and rainfall.

Professional Medical Care
A big criteria though, and one that is more important than you may realize, is your medical situation. Those that fantasize about living hundreds of miles out in the middle of nowhere, are losing sight of the fact that if you needed urgent health care (and one day you most certainly will), you will likely be ‘screwed’.

Distance to Civilization
So, in my personal opinion, an ideal location may be one that is within a reasonable radius of a small city or large town, say something with a population of 50 to 75 thousand residents. An area this size will have a decent hospital or two, with better trained professionals at the ready.

In the example illustrated in the graphic above, I’ve drawn 60 mile radius circles around three towns – each of which have around 75,000 people, while they are well away from a major population center. I arbitrarily picked 60 miles knowing that you can relate to about an hour drive (or a bit more depending).

Ideal Population
I believe an ideal size town to live near, might be one with a population between 3,000 and 10,000 based on the notion that it will have enough facilities to accommodate essential purchases and basic health care requirements.

Ideal Location
So, following that logic, an ideal spot would perhaps be on or near the perimeter of the 60-mile radius zones of a 75K city, where there happens to be a small town between 3K and 10K population.

If you are serious about discovering ideal locations, a great resource is www.city-data.com which shows population breakdown with an interactive map. Between that, Google Earth, and Zillow, you’re on your way to discovering your ideal Retreat

Other Considerations
You will definitely want to consider other criteria though, such as taxes (income – property – sales), political and religious blend with your ideals, state laws, etc…

For example, Oregon has the highest income tax in the land, nearly tied with California. Oregon’s property taxes are somewhat in the middle of the pack. Oregon has no sales tax.

With equal weighting applied to each tax category (income -property – sales), Oregon ranks 37th in the country (1 is most favorable).

Oregon coincidentally ranks the same (37th) when applying a weighting factor that may better represent someone’s tax concerns while considering a rural move (4x property tax, 3x income tax, 2x sales tax).

http://modernsurvivalblog.com/retreat-living/state-tax-burden/
http://modernsurvivalblog.com/retreat-living/lowest-to-highest-taxes-by-state/

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To Bug-In or To Bug-Out

During a serious threat situation or disaster, and while enacting your emergency / preparedness plan of action, you may decide to either ‘bug-in‘ or ‘bug-out‘.

Bug-In:
To ‘dig in’ and remain where you are (or at your normal place of residence)

Bug-Out:
To ‘get the heck out’ and leave your location (or your normal place of residence)

Most people don’t think about, or plan, for what they would do if presented with a serious threat situation or disaster. For many people in that group, a hasty decision will be made, and some will get it wrong.

We live in a world filled with risks, more than ever before, and many of them quite serious. Some of the more serious risks are entirely unseen and unknown to most because of a subconscious trust that exists… a trust in the current system the way it is, and complete faith that this system will continue to function the way we expect it to.

Having had modern conveniences and technologies for so long now, we have been raising generations of young and middle-aged people who mostly would not be able to adequately take care of themselves should some of the key conveniences and technologies disappear for a time. The fundamentals of survival are becoming lost with our grandparents.

This very fact alone has tremendously increased the level of risk – because should events unfold in a bad enough way, the result could be millions and millions of desperate people within a very short period of time. Desperate people do desperate things, and life as we know it could quickly become very dangerous indeed.

Getting back to the question, to ‘bug-in’ or to ‘bug-out’… It is ‘automatic’ for most people to head for home during a disaster. After all, home is our refuge, our stronghold, the place we come together with our family.

In many, if not most typical disaster scenarios, heading for home (bug-in) is probably the best first choice. Home is where your supplies are, a place where you may find support from your immediate neighbors or community. A familiar base of operations.

There are disaster scenarios though, where I believe that to ‘bug-in’ at home could be the absolute worst thing to do. Here is an example. You live in ‘the city’ and the city has lost power. If you are sure that the power loss will be temporary due to the circumstances that led up to it, then OK, you’re probably fine at home there. But, if the electricity remains out of service in a city region for too long, say, 3 days, then the city will very likely erupt into chaos. You will then be in a very dangerous predicament, even if you yourself had enough supplies to make it through. In this example, a ‘bug-out’ would probably have been the wiser choice.

A ‘bug-out’ does not necessarily require that you have a ready-stocked Retreat located 150 miles outside of the city tucked away in the countryside. Sure, if the disaster situation is serious enough, that is, very wide reaching geographically along with a very long time-line to recovery, then a temporary ‘bug-out’ to a hotel some miles away may not be the best solution. Maybe a friends house or other family member that lives in a safer location, assuming they will have you.

Discussing the many different disaster scenarios, ‘what-if’s’ and ‘what-to-do’, is not the point here. Instead we simply encourage you to put some thought around the subject. Start thinking about what you would do if this… or what would do if that…, you get the idea.

Think about where you live, the population density, the natural risks, the man-made risks, your current preparedness supplies at your residence, your plans ‘if’ you had to ‘bug-out’ or evacuate.

Stay ahead of the pack. Be prepared.

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State Tax Burden

One way to look at State tax burden when comparing one state with another, is to use the same weighting factor (or value, or importance) for each category (sales tax, income tax, property tax). If you value each category the same, that is, sales tax is just as important to you as income tax which is just as important as property tax, the results are as follows.

Using the data from an earlier post, Lowest to Highest Taxes by State, each tax category was individually ranked from lowest to highest for each state (sales tax, income tax, and property tax).

The data was ‘normalized’, meaning that the values were processed in a way that makes it possible to be compared against other values (apples to apples).

Then, in this example, the tax category ‘normalized’ values were added together for each state, and then sorted from lowest to highest.

State Tax Burden (sales, income, property)

The same weight is applied to each category
lowest to highest (best to worst, most favorable to least favorable)

1 Wyoming
2 Florida
3 South Dakota
4 Delaware
5 West Virginia
6 Nevada
7 Kentucky
8 New Hampshire
9 Arkansas
10 Michigan
11 New Mexico
12 North Dakota
13 Colorado
14 Alaska
15 Tennessee
16 Indiana
17 Pennsylvania
18 Ohio
19 Hawaii
20 Texas
21 Montana
22 Oklahoma
23 Mississippi
24 Utah
25 Louisiana
26 Alabama
27 Idaho
28 Georgia
29 Virginia
30 Arizona
31 Maryland
32 Maine
33 Washington
34 North Carolina
35 South Carolina
36 Massachusetts
37 Oregon
38 Connecticut
39 Wisconsin
40 D.C.
41 Missouri
42 Iowa
43 Nebraska
44 Kansas
45 New Jersey
46 Minnesota
47 Rhode Island
48 Illinois
49 Vermont
50 New York
51 California

Another way to look at the tax burden data is to apply more importance to certain categories in order to better represent your own concerns. In the following example, the most weight (or importance) has been applied to property tax (it never goes away – even after retirement), followed by income tax, followed by sales tax.

The specific weighting factors chosen are,
property tax (4x)
income tax (3x)
sales tax (2x)

This particular weighting is designed to better represent an example where someone is researching a move, and will be earning income that fits more-or-less the average U.S. worker -roughly $60K (state income tax rates were mostly the same between $50K – $100K), and someone who will be purchasing a home with the likelihood of retiring there and is concerned about property taxes (which will never go away – even after retirement).

State Tax Burden (sales-income-property)

Category weighting is applied as described above.
lowest to highest (best to worst, most favorable to least favorable)

1 Wyoming
2 Florida
3 West Virginia
4 Tennessee
5 Delaware
6 New Mexico
7 Nevada
8 Arkansas
9 South Dakota
10 Kentucky
11 Indiana
12 Alabama
13 Mississippi
14 Louisiana
15 Oklahoma
16 Colorado
17 Arizona
18 Michigan
19 Ohio
20 Utah
21 Hawaii
22 Pennsylvania
23 Texas
24 Alaska
25 North Dakota
26 Georgia
27 Montana
28 South Carolina
29 New Hampshire
30 Idaho
31 Washington
32 North Carolina
33 Maine
34 Virginia
35 Maryland
36 Missouri
37 Oregon
38 Kansas
39 Massachusetts
40 Iowa
41 D.C.
42 Connecticut
43 Wisconsin
44 Illinois
45 Nebraska
46 Minnesota
47 New Jersey
48 Rhode Island
49 Vermont
50 New York
51 California

In addition, it may be helpful to know a little more about State money management and State fiscal responsibility. The following is a list of State budget deficit shortfalls projected for FY 2011 and 2012.

Data acquired from cbpp.org

States with the worst budget deficit 2011

(shortfall as percentage of budget)

Nevada (55%)
Illinois (40%)
New Jersey (38%)
Arizona (37%)
Maine (35%)
North Carolina (31%)
Vermont (31%)
Connecticut (29%)
New Hampshire (27%)
South Carolina (26%)

States with the worst budget deficit forecast 2012

(shortfall as percentage of budget)

Nevada (45%)
Illinois (45%)
New Jersey (37%)
Texas (32%)
California (29%)
Minnesota (25%)
Oregon (25%)
Louisiana (22%)
Connecticut (21%)
North Carolina (20%)

Now that we know who the worst State budget offenders are, let’s see which states do better with their fiscal management and have the smallest budget deficit, if any.

States with the least budget deficit 2011

Alaska (no deficit)
Alabama (no deficit)
Arkansas (no deficit)
North Dakota (no deficit)
Wyoming (no deficit)
Indiana (2%)
Montana (4%)
West Virginia (4%)
Iowa (6%)
Massachusetts (6%)

Lowest to Highest Taxes by State

Have you wondered which U.S. State may be better to live in regarding taxes and tax burden? While we cannot escape taxes, we can make decisions which will minimize our overall State tax burden, depending on each of our own financial situations and objectives. In this article, we’re talking about property tax, income tax, and sales tax.

Let’s say you are ready to plan a move out of your area or State. Among the many things that you may consider in your selection process may be picking a tax friendlier area (if there is such a place).

As the current economy remains stagnant, or worsens, the debt burden of cities, counties, states, and the federal government are rapidly approaching a death-spiral of compounding debt. More are agreeing that inflation will become a bigger problem while the economy remains stagnant (stagflation). There is little doubt that taxes, including State taxes will be on the increase as governments look for more revenues.

OK, regarding the various categories of State taxes (income, sales, property), your personal situation may weight the effects of one more than the other. For example, if you are retired or soon to retire, the income tax of a given State may be less important to you than say, the property tax of the county or town since your income may be relatively low (retirement) but your property taxes will always be there and may (will) continue to rise.

Here are a few State tax statistics which may be interesting to you, sourced and compiled from a number of sources including RetirementLiving.com, Wikipedia, Census.gov/govs/statetax, State Government Tax Collections 2009, and the TaxFoundation.org.

State Sales Tax

State Tax Policy: A Political Perspective

Except for large or frequent expensive purchases, State sales tax may be of lesser impact to your overall tax burden or concern, when compared to property taxes and income taxes. For example, you would have to purchase more than $40,000 of taxable products taxed at a 7% sales tax to be equivalent to an annual $3,000 property tax bill.

Rates are rounded to the nearest 0.1 decimal. This sales tax list includes the base rate plus the maximum local surtax that may exist in that State (this surtax inclusion is typically only on certain goods and may slightly skew some State results – but I wanted to include a worst-case scenario). Your sales tax rates may be lower if living outside of the surtaxed area or not purchasing a surtaxed product. This should still provide a good general idea of where each state ranks.

List of State Sales Tax including any local surtax

Delaware (0%)
New Hampshire (0%)
Oregon (0%)
Montana (3%) general sales tax = 0%, a few surtaxes apply at 3%
Hawaii (4.7%)
Maine (5%)
North Dakota (5%)
Virginia (5%)
Wisconsin (5.6%)
Arkansas (6%)
Connecticut (6%)
D.C. (6.0%)
Idaho (6%)
Kentucky (6%)
Maryland (6%)
Michigan (6%)
South Dakota (6%)
West Virginia (6%)
Massachusetts (6.3%)
Alaska (7%)
Iowa (7%)
Nebraska (7%)
New Jersey (7%)
Rhode Island (7%)
Vermont (7%)
Wyoming (7%)
Florida (7.5%)
Ohio (7.8%)
Minnesota (7.8%)
Colorado (8.0%)
Georgia (8%)
Pennsylvania (8%)
Nevada (8.1%)
North Carolina (8.3%)
Texas (8.3%)
Utah (8.4%)
Oklahoma (8.5%)
New Mexico (8.6%)
Kansas (8.7%)
New York (8.9%)
Indiana (9%)
Louisiana (9%)
Mississippi (9%)
South Carolina (9%)
Missouri (9.2%)
Washington (9.5%)
Tennessee (9.8%)
Alabama (10%)
Arizona (10.6%)
California (10.8%)
Illinois (11.5%)

State Personal Income Tax

J.K. Lasser’s Your Income Tax 2012: For Preparing Your 2011 Tax Return

A total of 41 States impose income taxes. Some States base their income tax on federal returns, typically taking a percentage of your federally adjusted gross income.

States with No Income Tax

Alaska
Florida
Nevada
South Dakota
Texas
Washington
Wyoming
New Hampshire (except tax on income from interest and dividends)
Tennessee (except tax on income from interest and dividends)

State Income Tax rates based on $60,000 income

Unless you earn very little, or earn substantially more than $60K, the following State income tax rates probably fit most of the typical folks out there, and will give you an idea of where the states ranked in 2010. Rates are rounded to the nearest 0.1 decimal, and do not include any special deductions or exemptions that may exist.

State (income tax %)
Alaska (0%)
Florida (0%)
Nevada (0%)
New Hampshire (0%) except tax on income from interest and dividends
South Dakota (0%)
Tennessee (0%) except tax on income from interest and dividends
Texas (0%)
Washington (0%)
Wyoming (0% )
Illinois (3%)
Pennsylvania (3%)
Indiana (3.4%)
North Dakota (3.8%)
Michigan (4.4%)
Arizona (4.5%)
Colorado (4.6%)
Ohio (4.7%)
New Mexico (4.9%)
Alabama (5%)
Connecticut (5%)
Maryland (5%)
Mississippi (5%)
Utah (5%)
Massachusetts (5.3%)
Oklahoma (5.5%)
Kentucky (5.8%)
Virginia (5.8%)
Georgia (6%)
Louisiana (6% )
Missouri (6%)
New Jersey (6.4%)
Kansas (6.5%)
West Virginia (6.5% )
Wisconsin (6.8%)
Nebraska (6.8%)
Maine (6.9%)
Montana (6.9%)
Delaware (7%)
Arkansas (7% )
North Carolina (7%)
South Carolina (7%)
Rhode Island (7.8%)
Idaho (7.8%)
Minnesota ( 7.9%)
New York (7.9%)
Hawaii (8.3%)
Vermont (8.3%)
D.C. ( 8.5%)
Iowa (9%)
California (9.6%)
Oregon (10.8%)

State Property Tax

Are You Getting Screwed On Your Property Taxes?:

Taxes on land and the buildings built on it are the largest source of revenue for local governments. Property taxes are not imposed by the States, but by the tens of thousands of cities, townships, counties, school districts and other assessing jurisdictions.

You can’t escape property taxes in any state. But you can find significantly low rates in certain parts of the country.

Having sorted through a list of home property taxes, listed by median price per county, and then  averaging the property taxes of all combined counties in each state, the following list of home property taxes by State should give you a general indication of costs. For finer detail, each individual county would need to be checked as property taxes can vary substantially based on region and the home’s assessed value itself.

Data from 2009

Home Property Tax average per State

State ($ avg. per home)
Louisiana ($404)
Alabama ($410)
West Virginia ($615)
Arkansas ($684)
South Carolina ($693)
Mississippi ($787)
New Mexico ($862)
Delaware ($950)
Oklahoma ($968)
Arizona ($986)
Tennessee ($1,041)
Hawaii ($1,047)
Kentucky ($1,059)
Wyoming ($1,084)
Indiana ($1,104)
North Carolina ($1,172)
Idaho ($1,213)
Utah ($1,305)
Georgia ($1,377)
Missouri ($1,443)
Colorado ($1,538)
Florida ($1,619)
Montana ($1,764)
Ohio ($1,834)
Nevada ($1,879)
Iowa ($1,934)
Kansas ($1,957)
Maine ($1,976)
Oregon ($2,045)
D.C. ( $2,057)
Michigan ($2,069)
South Dakota ($2,076)
Pennsylvania ($2,092)
Washington ($2,127)
Texas ($2,141)
Virginia ($2,230)
Minnesota ($2,340)
California ($2,631)
Maryland ($2,637)
North Dakota ($2,638)
Alaska ($2,796)
Nebraska ($2,829)
Wisconsin ($3,041)
Massachusetts ($3,255)
Illinois ($3,272)
Rhode Island ($3,731)
New York ($3,736)
Vermont ($4,168)
Connecticut ($4,437)
New Hampshire ($4,618)
New Jersey ($6,348)

There are many factors that go into one’s formula to decide the best place to retire, or the best place to move to, because we each have our own individual notions of what that is.

However, near the top of the list of factors or concerns should be property tax, income tax, and sales tax. Also, nearly just as important, do not forget to research the fiscal situation of the state, city, or town that you are contemplating moving to. There are many of these that are themselves on the verge of bankruptcy. They will be the first to raise your taxes.

More helpful state tax information to help decide which state you may wish to reside:

State Tax Burden

State Income Tax Comparison

Deduct It!: Lower Your Small Business Taxes

Home Business Tax Deductions: Keep What You Earn

Lower Your Taxes – Big Time! : Tax Reduction Secrets from an IRS Insider

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Bug Out of Toronto

Permalink

The title reads, “Bug Out of Toronto”.

No, not now! …

Recently, a reader from Toronto asked for ideas regarding a bug out scenario whereby things were so bad that there is no choice but to bug out of the city. The person currently lives in a condo in the center of Toronto. They do not own a plot of land outside of the city. They have relatives about 100 miles away, but they are concerned that the relatives live on a major freeway and are not out of harms way if hordes of refuge’s are roaming. They know that they could survive in their condo for a period of time because they have stocked up on food, water, and supplies. However the concern is that a complete meltdown, such as a complete catastrophic electric power grid failure (major electromagnetic solar storm or EMP for example), will result in hundreds of thousands of desperate people within a week. Knowing that it could take many months or even a year or more to replace critical Very High Voltage custom-built transformers on the grid, trying to survive in a major city will be majorly difficult at best.

Here is a very short story fiction about the hypothetical scenario…


Playing out this specific scenario in Toronto, lets assume that he has a portable shortwave radio that was not damaged during the electromagnetic event (a major solar event will probably not damage radios or electronic infrastructure as badly as an EMP weapon might). Shortly after the power went out, he turned on his radio, first checking the AM bands for information. He quickly discovered that there were literally no stations on the air at all, not even anything from Buffalo or Rochester over in the US. This instantly alerted him to the fact that this situation is very bad and probably going to get worse, very quickly. He switched his radio over to shortwave bands and started scanning around. There were voices, and after a while he discovered through a report from somewhere in Australia that much of the Northern Hemisphere had been badly affected by a major X-class solar flare, and many very large regions had lost their power. Satellites were fried, the GPS system was down, and lots of communications capabilities were entirely knocked out.

He now knew that it might be a very long time before power is restored and he knew how this would bring the city to chaos very quickly. He knew that water would stop flowing very soon, and it wouldn’t be long before people started banging on doors looking for food, water, or supplies. Knowing that this was going to be far more than a week or two without power, he decided that his best option was to bug out, and do it quickly before others started leaving in mass.

Most people will not know the facts about what had happened and will assume that power will be restored soon enough, and that if it got worse, somehow someone would help them. This will allow for the informed survivalist to probably have a one-day head start, maybe two, before real panic sets in.

He always kept the gas in the car topped up, and had one 20-liter gas can (5.3 gallons) that would add about 150 km of range to the existing 600 km range of the car, giving him 750 km (about 450 miles).  He knew that the odds were that “most” people that did decide to leave the city would not get further than about 250 km (about 150 miles) due to factors such as average mileage and average gas in one’s gas tank at any given time. Although many people in the city will remain there because they know no other way, his best chance was to get at least 250 km (150 miles) from Toronto and other major cities. That meant he could not travel west at all, and he could not venture northeast since Ottawa and Montreal will interfere. South was out of the question with a Great Lake in the way, and then the US border. That left only one option, and that was to head north.

Actually, he had previously planned this bug out scenario and had already carefully reviewed his Canada Roads Atlas and his detailed Ontario Road Atlas, and had traveled to the area to spend a bit of time exploring and making a few acquaintances. The location was just over 250 km (150 miles) north of Toronto and more than 350 km west from Ottawa. The population of the village was only about 1,000, located on a small lake with about half a dozen small places of lodging. His plan was to drive up to Sunbridge in central Ontario before others fully realized the magnitude of the unfolding disaster. Initially he would drive to each of the motels hoping that they would be receptive to his stay. He will have plenty of cash with him that he had in reserve, and will hope that they accept fair payment. He will also offer to help them deal with the grid-down disaster by pointing out the skills that he has that could help them. If he got in, then the longer term plan was to quickly gain respect by working hard for the owner so that he might have a chance to stay on, even after the money runs out, etc… If the owner was a crackpot, at least he would have bought a little time while filtering through the local area looking for an opportunity to fit in quickly.

The main goal is to establish the new location quickly, before things get real bad, while people are still somewhat normal and are accepting cash for services. Once the reality sets in, it will become very difficult to “get in” somewhere or with someone.

The car and trunk (and roof) was filled with as much food and supplies that he could take and he knew he could survive on rations for a long period, so long as no one stole it. The worst-case plan, if he could not secure lodging in Sundridge, was to live in the car somewhere in that area while attempting to gain acceptance with someone or some group before it was too late. He at least stood a better chance at this in a location far away from the mass population centers where desperation would be quickly turning to chaos and great suffering.


Having said all that, I really do not know anything about that particular area other than what I see on the Internet and Google Earth. I’ve been to Toronto though, and know that it would not be a place I would want to be during a full scale long term disaster (or any large city!). It is up to each and every one of you to determine for yourself a plan of action and then to actually practice it to some degree. In other words, go to these places and imagine the scenario and have several pre-planned destinations and places that you might stay that appear reasonably safe. Do not assume that you could simply drive off into a national park forest somewhere and make it on your own. This takes very unique skills, and unless you have them, you will be quickly discovered as a city-dweller by those who have chosen to bug out there, those who have the skills and supplies to do so. Your best chance is a very small town or village where you can fit in with the community and do your part to help the body of people survive. We need each others skills to make it all work. Don’t forget that.



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